Since I've been stuck home quarantining, I've been catching up on shows I've missed. I'm currently watching "Billy the Kid," and, wow, do I not love its revisionist take on him. It's a well-made show, but rewrites history to turn a murderous outlaw into a noble hero.

Most obviously, Billy the Kid was 21 when he died. The actor playing him, Tom Blyth, is 27 and is far too tall and mature to be playing what, in early episodes, is supposed to be a 15-year-old Billy. It makes Billy seem wiser and more mature than the real teen was.

The show also changes the order of events in Billy's life to elide his young teenage petty crimes in order to preserve the image of him as the suffering noble hero. In the show, he is an adult of 18 when orphaned, but in reality, he was a boy of 15.

In the show's universe, everyone except for Billy, his mother, and his brother are corrupt and evil. Billy is thus justified in his crimes because he is a rebel fighting against an unfair society unjustly disadvantaging him. They even add in a secret society conspiracy theory.

I'm not really comfortable with turning Billy the Kid into a warm and cuddly hero who only kills for justice. The show's Billy is a full-grown, mature, heroic he-man. The real Billy was more like a supermarket shooter than an anti-corruption freedom fighter.