Jack O’Connell is Roy Goode, a wounded cowboy who shows up on Alice Fletcher’s doorstep one night and is wounded again by her again when he fails to declare himself.
Alice (Michelle Dockery) takes the wounded man into her barn and begins nursing him back to health under the watchful eye of her son Truckee and despite the reservations of her mother-in-law Iyovi.
Iyovi sense what Alice doesn’t know yet: That Roy Goode’s very presence could mean trouble for the family.
The young man has made a break from an outlaw gang. More specifically, from a vicious man named Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels), who consider Roy a son.
Griffin rides at the head of a 30-man gang that’s been terrorizing Colorado Territory, striking one mining town after another.
In the town of Creede, Roy interrupted a holdup, made off with the gang’s loot and, in the shootout that followed, put a slug into Frank Griffin that cost him his left arm.
Now the gang’s main pasttime is tracking down Roy Goode. And Frank Griffin is promising devastation to any man, woman, child or town that harbors him.
That means trouble for the mining town of La Belle in New Mexico Territory. And the town has already seen plenty of that.
Two years earlier, a mining accident killed nearly every man in town, leaving La Belle inhabited mostly by women.
With Sheriff Bill McNue trying to restore his good name by traveling across the countryside trying to track down Frank Griffin, that means the only law in La Belle should the gang come calling is a young deputy and fast gun wannabe named Whitey Winn.
Mary Agnes (Merritt Weaver), Bill’s tough-as-nails sister, tries to organize a defense for the town should it be needed.
Meanwhile, Roy Goode is preparing to break his growing attachment to Alice and her family and leave these here parts.
He knows the danger his presence poses … perhaps more than anyone else.
Jack O’Connell as Roy Goode, torn between his affection for the Fletcher family and the danger he poses in Godless (2017)
Michelle Dockery as Alice Fletcher, reflecting after reading the long unread letter from Roy Goode’s brother in Godless (2017)
Samuel Marty as Truckee, Alice’s son, a teenager sorely in need of a father figure to mentor him in Godless (2017)
Tantoo Cardinal as Iyovi, Alice’s mother-in-law, wary of a stranger’s presence on their ranch in Godless (2017)
Review:
A very well done Netflix limited series. It’s well worth the seven-hour time investment. You just aren’t going to find many Westerns done this well or on this scale in the 2000s.
The main plot focuses on Frank Griffin’s search for Roy Goode and on Roy’s growing affection for Alice and her teenage son Truckee. But there are plenty of subplots too.
Sheriff Bill McNue is regarded as a coward by the residents of La Belle. He’s trying to redeem himself by helping capture the Frank Griffin gang, all the while fearing he’s dying because of his fading eyesight.
His sister Mary Agnes has fallen in love with Callie Dunn, a former whore and richest woman in La Belle. Whitey Winn would like to romance a young girl named Louise. Her father, a former Buffalo soldier, does not approve.
Meanwhile, the good women of La Belle need to decide what to do about the town’s mine, inactive since the accident. The Quicksilver Mining Company would like to purchase it.
Mary Agnes in particular is suspicious of owner J.J. Valentine, suspecting the price he’s offering is more akin to stealing it. She’s even suspicious of Ed Logan, the company’s egotistical head of security.
Wanna quibble?
The seven episodes feature a whole lotta flashbacks. Some are key for understanding the characters’ motivations; some seem gratuitous.
For all the talk about a Western focused on a town full of women, very few of the townswomen are well-rounded characters. That’s especially true in the case of Charlotte Temple, owner of the town’s hotel.
And the shootout in La Belle — well, it’s as big as you’re likely to find in a Western — and occasionally way over the top.
But the film is full of delights that will prevent you from dwelling on those details. Among those, the character of Iyovi, Alice’s Native American mother-in-law.
Played by Tantoo Cardinal, she’s a cranky, but quite capable again woman. And her opinions about Roy Goode often has to be tempered during translation.
Jeff Daniels as Frank Griffin, the man who takes boys in need of a father figure under his wing, then turns them into killers in Godless (2017)
Scoot McNairy as Bill McNue, visiting his late wife’s grave in Godless (2017)
Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Deputy Whitey Winn, quick on the draw and eager to demonstrate that fact in Godless (2017)
Kim Coates as Ed Logan, head of security for the Quicksilver Mining Co., making enemies again in Godless (2017)
Directed by:
Scott Frank
Cast:
Jack O’Connell … Roy Goode
Michelle Dockery … Alice Fletcher
Scoot McNairy … Bill McNue
Merritt Wever … Mary Agnes McNue
Thomas Brodie-Sangster … Whitey Winn
Tantoo Cardinal … Iyovi
Jeff Daniels … Frank Griffin
Adam David Thompson … Gatz Brown
Samantha Soule … Charlotte Temple
Kayli Carter … Sadie Rose
Audrey Moore … Sarah Doyle
Keith Jardine … Dyer Howe
Rio Alexander … Bud Ledbetter
Justin Welborn … Floyd Wilson
Samuel Marty … Truckee
Luke Robertson … Blll Chick
Tess Frazer … Callie Dunne
Joe Pingue … Alonzo Bunker
Russell Dennis Lewis … Daryl Devlin
Matthew Dennis Leis … Donnie Devlin
Travis Hammer … John Doe
Marie Wagenman … Trudy McNue
Julian Grey … William McNue
Jeremy Bobb … A.T. Grigg
Kim Coates … Ed Logan
Duane Howard … Shoshone brave
Russel G. Jones … Hiram
Jessica Sula … Louise Hobbs
Rob Morgan … John Randall
Marceline Hugot … Lucy Cole
Sam Waterson … Marshal John Cook
Christopher Fitzgerald … J.J. Valentine
John Wylie … Colonel Farnsworth
Runtime: 7 hours, 32 min.
Merritt Weaver as Mary Agnes McNue, watching over her brother’s children and the town while he’s away in Godless (2017)
Tess Frazer as Callie Dunn, former whore, current school teacher and Mary Anges’ lover in Godless (2017)
Samantha Soule, owner of the La Belle Hotel, gretting the Quicksilver Mining Co. representatives in Godless (2017)
Kayli Carter as Sadie Ross, a woman who gave birth to her child and same day her husband died in the mining accident in Godless (2017)
Memorable lines:
Frank Griffin, when danger comes calling: “I seen my death. This ain’t it.”
Mary Agnes, after her brother returns from a trip to a Native American village for treatment of his failing eyesight: “Well, at least tell me. Was that ol’ Paiute warlock any use or not?”
Bill McNue: “Put cold, stinkin’ mud in my eyes. And stuck me in some hot springs they had bubblin’ near their camp.”
Trudy: “That do anything?”
Bill McNue: “Made me feel like a darn fool is what it did. ‘Bout all I came away with was a raging erection and an angry demeanor.”
Iyovi, of Roy Goode: “He stinks of death, that one. And if he stays here long enough,he’ll make us stink of it too.”
Whitney Winn, as he locks up Roy Goode: “Don’t look like the stage robbin’ type. Looks more like the pissin’ in public type to me.”
Frank Griffin to a newspaper editor Grigg: “I want you to write that Roy Goode betrayed me. And that I will kill any man, woman or child who harbors him. The good people of Creede let him walk their streets. Now they don’t have no streets. Or people, for that matter.”
Jeremy Bobb as A.T. Grigg, the newspaper editor whose reporting puts La Belle in danger in Godless (2017)
Russell G. Jones as Hiram Hobbs, a former Buffalo soldier trying to live the quite life of a farmer in Black Town in Godless (2017)
Jessica Sula as Louise Hobbs, the young girl from Black Town who catches Whitey Winn’s eye in Godless (2017)
Sam Waterson as Marshal John Cook, on Frank Griffin’s trail, after his gang’s vicious attack on Creede, Colorado, in Godless (2017)
Alice Fletcher: “I look you in the eye, and you don’t seem so stone-cold to me. You just seem lost. Maybe a little sad.”
Roy Goode: “Ma’am, I’m bad luck.”
Alice Fletcher: “Well, we have that in common then.”
Frank Griffin: “Same God made you and me also made a rattlesnake. That just don’t make no sense.”
Roy Goode as he mentor Truckee: “You should never have to eat another man’s dirt. But sometimes it’s easier to go home with a grudge and your pride sullied some, then it is to go out and get yourself killed.”
Frank Griffin: “I’m just wondering.”
Bill McNue: “What about?”
Frank Griffin: “What it was took the life out of your face.”
Bill McNue: “Let me ask you something, Mr. Wise Old Shoshone Nuisance. You go on a buffalo hunt. How’s it feel you come home with a rabbit?”
Shoshone: “Not so good. But I’d come home.”
Frank Griffin: “Death ain’t such a big deal. It’s dyin’ that no god damn fun. Ain’t nothin’ scarier than a man with a gun. Ain’t nothin’ more helpless than a man without one.”
Mary Anges McNue, as a showdown with the Frank Griffin gang looms: “Ain’t nothin’ but pure ass luck gonna save us now.”
Marceline Hugot as Sister Lucy Cole, the woman who raises Roy Goode in her orphanage in Godless (2017)
Michelle Dockery as Alice Fletcher, the woman who frees Roy Goode from jail to help her on break horses in Godless (2017)
Jeff Daniels as Frank Griffin, calm in the midst of death and chaos because he already knows how he’s going to die in Godless (2017)
Jack O’Connell as Roy Goode, trying to hold off Frank Griffin and his gang of 30 riders in Godless (2017)
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