AMC’s new “Turn” makes 1776 feel alive, though covered in mud and nursing a head wound. This isn’t one of those stodgy costume dramas where everything feels proper and puffy. Better yet, it isn’t one of those dumbed-down re-imaginings where every musket ball is tracked with CGI.
This is an era of close quarters and close combat, and the weapon that gets the most use is the bayonet. “Turn” gives you a commanding sense of what it might have been like to be a farmer in Long Island before the United States was a country, coping with debt, maggots, and which side to support in the coming war.