Due to its immense popularity on HBO, Game of Thrones ushered in countless imitators during its award-winning run. Although shows like The Witcher, Vikings, Black Sails, The Last Kingdom, and others sustained multi-season success in GoT‘s wake, Kurt Sutter’s relentlessly brutal and ultra-gory The Bastard Executioner went a bit too hard with its intense graphic carnage. Ironically, the FX show was put on the chopping block and axed after just one season.
With Sutter returning to television with the upcoming Netflix Western series The Abandons, there’s still a bit of wonder as to why The Bastard Executioner was cut short. 10 years after the show’s release and abrupt cancellation, it still isn’t available on FX’s streaming platform Hulu. As such, it’s time to get to the bottom of The Bastard Executioner’s swift demise after only 10 episodes.
What Is ‘The Bastard Executioner’ About?
Created by Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy) for FX, The Bastard Executioner made its network premiere on September 15, 2015. Set in 14th-century Wales, the story centers on Wilkin Brattle (Lee Jones), a soldier serving in King Edward I’s army. Betrayed by the English baron Erik Ventris (Brían F. O’Byrne), Brattle is left for dead on the battlefield, where he is implored by a ghostly vision to begin life anew and follow a different path.
For Brattle, a new path entails settling down and leading the humble life of a Welsh farmer. With his impending fatherhood, Brattle is urged by his fellow villagers to stick up against Ventris, who continues to pillage the populace by levying taxes that nobody can afford. Brattle conducts a raid on Ventris’ forces, which tragically backfires when Ventris brutally slaughters all the women and children in the village. Driven by murderous revenge, Brattle and his ragtag army go after Ventris and every single accomplice involved in the massacre.
In conducting the hyper-violent revenge campaign, Brattle assumes the alternate identity of Gawain Maddox, The Executioner. The show uses this identity shift to highlight medieval barbarism at its most ruthless and difficult to watch, with Maddox resorting to some of the era’s most painful torture and execution methods.
Although Maddox claims to fight for the voiceless commoners who lack agency and serve justice to the greedy tax collectors, the violence in the show is so extreme, excessive, and bloody that it makes Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones and One Eye from Valhalla Rising look tame. Limbs are ripped apart, heads are lopped off, soldiers are gorily dismembered, commoners are savagely drawn and quartered, etc. Despite the apparent appetite for such unrelenting carnage ushered in by GoT and others, The Bastard Executioner apparently was unable to find the same audience.
Why Was ‘The Bastard Executioner’ Canceled?
The Series Lasted 10 Episodes
Technically, The Bastard Executioner was not canceled in the traditional sense. Instead, knowing that a cancellation was impending, Kurt Sutter ended the show of his own volition one day after the Season 1 finale aired on November 17, 2015. While that may have been a face-saving move by Sutter, the reality is that the show was likely going to be axed by FX anyway.
The primary reason FX was going to cancel The Bastard Executioner was its declining TV ratings between the pilot and the finale. The show got off to a great start, with the premiere episode generating 2.1 million viewers (via TV by the Numbers). Episode 2 saw a near 50% drop-off, garnering 1.09 million viewers. The series hit a viewership low in Episode 7 (.83 million viewers) and Episode 9 (.82 million viewers), ultimately ending with a whimper, with .87 million viewers watching the final episode. That means the ratings declined by 1.23 million viewers from the start to the finish.
With such a sharp decline in viewership, FX could no longer justify keeping The Bastard Executioner on air. Of course, FX would have had a more difficult decision if the show were a critical darling. Alas, the FX original show earned middling reviews across the board, currently holding a 45% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a 55 Metascore. As the former’s consensus rightly notes:
“Kurt Sutter’s The Bastard Executioner doesn’t want for dark thrills, but it unfortunately has more enthusiasm for brutality and gore than necessary narrative focus.”
Even non-critics had a hard time swallowing the gory bloodshed without a compelling story, with the series holding a consistently average 6.1 Metacritic User Score, 6.2 IMDb rating, and 62% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.
What’s Next for Kurt Sutter?
For Kurt Sutter, there is something deliciously ironic about the Sons of Anarchy creator sowing his own sense of chaos and disorder with one TV project after another. Not only did he pull the plug on The Bastard Executioner before FX could beat him to the punch, but Sutter also recently departed his new Netflix series, The Abandons, before production was completed. After Netflix viewed the rough cut of his 100-minute pilot, the streamer ordered reshoots, prompting Sutter to leave the project.
Whether due to creative differences or on-set conflicts, a clear pattern has emerged across Sutter’s recent projects. Sutter was also fired from his role as executive producer for Mayans M.C. after cast and crew complained about his withdrawal from the set and lack of creative involvement. That makes three series that mired Sutter in controversy, with his sights now set on making his debut feature film.
After The Abandons premieres on Netflix on December 4, 2025, Sutter will continue pre-production on This Beast, an ostensible werewolf creature feature set in 18th-century England. Written and directed by Sutter, This Beast follows a downtrodden fur trapper tasked with stopping a feral animal from slaughtering innocent villagers. No casting information or release dates are known at this time.
With This Beast marking Sutter’s first real horror foray and feature film, it will be interesting to see how far he pushes the gory violence. Until then, the only way to see The Bastard Executioner is by purchasing the series on Prime Video, Apple TV, or Fandango at Home.
- Release Date
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2015 – 2015-00-00
- Network
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FX