Carter

Carter is a kid living rough, caught stealing on the Dutton ranch by Rip Wheeler. Wary, defensive, and used to fending for himself, he doesn't expect kindness and doesn't quite trust it when it's offered. Underneath the tough front is a boy who's been let down before and braces for it to happen again.

Finn Little plays Carter without a trace of cloying child-actor sentimentality — there's real flint in him, earned by circumstance rather than performance. The show uses him to crack open Rip's hardness, and Little holds his own against a much older cast, making the boy's slow thaw feel like something he fights against rather than falls into.