‘Bass Reeves’: David Oyelowo on Lawman’s Impossibly ‘Tenacious’ Spirit (VIDEO)
Exclusive
Bass Reeves became an American legend against all odds. He was born into slavery but escaped during adulthood, successfully avoiding recapture until the Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery. In the years that followed, he reunited with the love of his life, Jennie Reeves, and they would go on to have 11 children as Bass made a career in law enforcement. Everything about Bass’s life created a sense of justice that’s inalienable from his identity, Lawmen: Bass Reeves star David Oyelowo tells TV Insider.
Series creator Chad Feehan previously told us that the Paramount+ series is about the triumph of the human spirit exemplified through Bass (Oyelowo) and Jennie (Lauren E. Banks). Oyelowo calls that a “perfect” description, “because what [Bass] did and went on to do shouldn’t have been possible at that time.”
“Three thousand arrests, 32 years in law enforcement, a father to over 10 kids, someone who was enslaved and went on to be in a true leadership position where he was arresting the very people who had subjugated him not long before,” the Selma star goes on. “You need to be tenacious. You need to be fastidious. You need to be someone who truly has a modicum of self-belief that not everyone has in order to be able to do that.”
That commitment to justice is on display in the TV Insider exclusive clip below from Lawmen: Bass Reeves Episode 4, debuting this Sunday, November 19.
In the episode, simply titled “Part IV,” Bass and his new posse man have a fateful encounter at the Women’s Boarding House, and Jennie reunites with someone from her past. Bass is searching for a man called Silas Cobb (Anthony Traina) in the above clip, whom he has on good authority will be found in this brothel.
The madame is not so eager to expose Silas’s whereabouts, but Bass’s reputation precedes him. When he promises to start busting down the doors of every room in the brothel if she doesn’t reveal Silas’s room, she knows he’s not kidding. He tells her to slyly give word to his man outside so Silas doesn’t know to flee. As long as everybody comes along quietly, there will be no need for Bass to make a scene.
“Don’t make a fuss. We’ll be saddled up before anybody knows better,” Bass says as he pays the woman for her assistance. As she replies with a bitter growl, “Everybody already knows” Bass Reeves has come to call.
Find out what happens next in Lawmen: Bass Reeves Episode 4 this Sunday, November 19 on Paramount+.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves, Sundays, Paramount+
