'Godless': Netflix's Western tv series

[Zorral]

I hope Michelle Dockery gets treated better by the Godless writers than Longmire’s Katee Sackhoff's Vic Moretti did, and better than the barely named female FBI agent (Jane! her name is generic girl Jane!) played by Elizabeth Olson in Wind River.

I only began to watch this Wednesday (not at all since, due to holiday). So far, don't know what to think of it, other than it is beautiful and includes every trope of a classic Western, from the stagecoach, the train, the mine, the ranches, the bad guys (eviLe outlaws, and eastern cheating business guys), the horses (one way we know one of the good guys is a real good guy, is that he's also a horse whisperer, able to tame mustangs by talk and gesture, and never ever abides the mistreatment of a horse), native Americans, the plucky widow, the whore no longer a whore -- you name it, it's there, even the tropes of High Noon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. As far as the sheer gorgeousness of every scene's lighting and photography, one might think that the cinematographers and director analyzed for years every beat in Days of Heaven. Look at that elongated series of ever widening scope, in which the eviLe outlaws cross on horseback a rushing small river or gully washer.  Those ascending, toppling, falling, expanding fans and curtains of water, each droplet visible, held just that right bit of time hanging motionless in the air. I am among the few who does admire and like very much Days of Heaven, and have never understood why US critics declared it a miserable failure.

[Astromech]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

I hope Michelle Dockery gets treated better by the Godless writers than Longmire’s Katee Sackhoff's Vic Moretti did, and better than the barely named female FBI agent (Jane! her name is generic girl Jane!) played by Elizabeth Olson in Wind River.

I only began to watch this Wednesday (not at all since, due to holiday). So far, don't know what to think of it, other than it is beautiful and includes every trope of a classic Western, from the stagecoach, the train, the mine, the ranches, the bad guys (eviLe outlaws, and eastern cheating business guys), the horses (one way we know one of the good guys is a real good guy, is that he's also a horse whisperer, able to tame mustangs by talk and gesture, and never ever abides the mistreatment of a horse), native Americans, the plucky widow, the whore no longer a whore -- you name it, it's there, even the tropes of High Noon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. As far as the sheer gorgeousness of every scene's lighting and photography, one might think that the cinematographers and director analyzed for years every beat in Days of Heaven. Look at that elongated series of ever widening scope, in which the eviLe outlaws cross on horseback a rushing small river or gully washer.  Those ascending, toppling, falling, expanding fans and curtains of water, each droplet visible, held just that right bit of time hanging motionless in the air. I am among the few who does admire and like very much Days of Heaven, and have never understood why US critics declared it a miserable failure.

Haha, did you watch season 6 yet?

[Zorral]

24 minutes ago, Astromech said:

Haha, did you watch season 6 yet?

I did watch it.  

 

[Astromech]

57 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I did watch it.  

 

Haha, my thoughts exactly concerning Vic and her arc. It became a train wreck. The other character that was butchered was Jacob Nighthorse. A good protagonist for Walt and then slowly became a joke and a doormat. Season 6 was a disappointment. The show honestly was a bit rudderless after Walt's arc finding his wife's killer. Shame.

 

[Zorral]

33 minutes ago, Astromech said:

Haha, my thoughts exactly concerning Vic and her arc. It became a train wreck. The other character that was butchered was Jacob Nighthorse. A good protagonist for Walt and then slowly became a joke and a doormat. Season 6 was a disappointment. The show honestly was a bit rudderless after Walt's arc finding his wife's killer. Shame.

 

Nighthorse did get some better in season 6.  I mean, it was interesting that Walt's obsession to stop, get rid of the casino that was equally his wife's obsession, became a personal blind spot in Walt.  They did give it some service, at least.  But that too, in terms of narrative suddenly just went away: can't get rid of casino, things will just get worse if we do, and anyway who cares now that I have my squeeze and I've learned to love the cell phone?  That -- that, well that was just the lamest ever.  Even worse than Vic's irrelevant pregnancy.

And is this just the worst topic derailment ever??????  Many apologies, coz it's all my fault.  Please forgive me because it is a holiday weekend and I'm experiencing the first social life that isn't actually work related in a lot of weeks.

[Zorral]

Tropes that aren't tropes from classic Westerns, but historically on point -- people of color! 

 

 

[Astromech]

I loved it. The characters and story were very good and the cinematography was excellent. That final sequence was beautiful. Very minor criticisms on my part, but I also give Westerns a bit of leeway. Contained some typical western clichés, but those are features for me and not  flaws. Highly recommended.

[Zorral]

Have watched Godless through the third episode.  A few observations so far:

Horses – how dangerous these big animals can be.  More than once we see the great jaws filled with terrible great teeth viciously snapping to tear the flesh of another horse.  However, not once do I believe these are mustangs.  For one thing, their hooves are perfectly trimmed and shaped in a form only human agency can do.  Which brings us to –

Teaching the kids.  The Widow's son, Truckee (her name is Alice, but I think of her as The Widow, due to Western tropes, I guess), is afraid of horses and doesn’t know how to ride, despite his Paiute heritage and being on the verge of manhood.  So Roy teaches him.  There’s a bit about Roy wearing the Truckee’s dead father’s clothes, to which Truckee's Paiute grandmother mightily objects. But it’s in the clothes of Truckee's father that Roy successfully starts teaching the boy what he eeds to know to be a man in this environment.  How did the reviewers miss this massive transference?  Frackin' shades of Shane!

Women – would a woman really go riding around town stark naked?  In the blazing summer sun of high altitude New Mexico territory? Shades of frackin' Longmire!

I was pleased to learn that Whitey is not a version of sociopathic, idiot Billy the Kid (who found his end in New Mexico, btw).  Which brings us to --

Among the tropes of classic Westerns, what was missing among the settlers, ranchers, outlaws, newspaper editors, bartenders, general store owners, etc.?  African Americans.  We never saw them in print or on screen, yet they were there.  Like everyone else, from defeated confederates to railroad investors to German immigrants, they too came west, looking for affordable land and a new life.  They are here, in Godless, thank you Jesus, a settlement of ex-Buffalo Soldiers and their families, right where historically we'd find them in 1884.

RIP, Sam Waterston.  As per usual, his every scene lights up, opens up, relaxes, and provides comfort, which the populations of Godless certainly need.

[Martini Sigil]

Yeah... I really liked this too... Jeff Daniels has an amazing range... I kept thinking to myself, "This is the guy from dumb and dumber." ....... i loved Truckee... but I loved his grandmother more....lol.... Dr Denise killed it in this role... and I was so glad to see her make it to the end after having taken an arrow through the eye... I was expecting to hate Jojen Reed... but he did a great job... and I loved that this western shed a ton of cliche's... the shootout at the end was brutal... 

"You saw wrong."

[Zorral]

So far (about to begin watching the 4th episode) I'm really enjoying seeing all those tropes from Westerns, and how, in the right places, the creators of the series twist them around from what they've always been.  They don't do it in every case, but one can feel and see the intelligence behind choosing not to subvert the trope.  So it all works -- at least so far!

I agree that Sangster is doing a terrific job as Whitey. 

It's such a joy to watch -- though again, I confess to either skipping ahead or leaving the room when the real brutality goes down.  There's just so much real brutality going on all around us, of every kind from the sheer physical to everything else, I just can't.  My head is filled to the top with it already, and this is the stuff I have no choices about.  This is fictional and I do have a choice, so I choose not to.

[SerHaHa]

4 Episodes in, I'm really enjoying this.  After being disappointed by Longmire, and somewhat by the Punisher as well (extremely unrealistic, even with belief highly suspended, it still was just...ridiculous in many ways, and I had been hoping for SO much more), this new "Godless" has renewed my faith in the Netflix Gods.  I hope it continues to improve, every episode has sucked me deeper in.  I'm a sucker for Westerns, having been an extra in "Legends of the Fall", as well as having been around many Western productions in and around Calgary, as I was friendly with another shooting/firearms business locally that handles all the movie/TV armament/training needs for local productions. 

Not since Hell on Wheels have I been this into a Western though.  9.0/10 so far IMO, don't miss it.

[Astromech]

Oh, just wait it gets better  One quibble in the final episode that has been annoying me.

Spoiler

WTH? Bill didn't seem to have too much trouble with his eyesight in that final shootout.

 

[Zorral]

Thoughts re 4th & 5th episodes:

Alice The Widow's horse ranch -- hookay, shades of Liberty Valance perhaps?  John Wayne's character, Tom Doniphon, who did take out Liberty, had this mysterious horse ranch business, which is hinted to be located to be in New Mexico. . .  and let us not forget how much Ford was trying to subvert the classic Western tropes in Liberty Valance (though, in the end, it's still the one righteous he-man with a gun who saves the day).

The cavalry isn't going to save the day (classic Western trope suberversion).

Pinkertons, per usual, are not good guys.  But this trope is well and truly frackin' subverted!

How much clothes matter in this series, the putting on of others' clothes and the taking off our old ones. This theme continues throughout these two episodes.

And horses!  More horses! They weave their way through the series as they weave their way through Western classics, and indeed the entire history of humanity.

 

 

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Astromech said:

Oh, just wait it gets better  One quibble in the final episode that has been annoying me.

  Reveal hidden contents

WTH? Bill didn't seem to have too much trouble with his eyesight in that final shootout.

 

Spoiler

Corrective lenses correct?  I haven't seen it yet, so what do I know?  

I am LOVING this series.

[Corvinus85]

Damn good series. I had a couple of problems with it, main one being about Sheriff Bill, but it was an excellent series. Jeff Daniels and Merritt Wever were excellent, but the whole cast was very good. 

Spoiler

It seemed to me that Bill had a bit of plot armor when he encounters Griffin's band at the river. I didn't understand why Griffin didn't kill him there. 

Also, Jack O'Connell looks so eerily similar to Anton Yelchin (RIP), that in his first scene I thought I was looking at a ghost.

On 11/25/2017 at 4:29 PM, Astromech said:

Oh, just wait it gets better  One quibble in the final episode that has been annoying me.

  Reveal hidden contents

WTH? Bill didn't seem to have too much trouble with his eyesight in that final shootout.

 

Spoiler

The main thing about Bill in that scene was that he got his shadow back, so he was riding on a wave of high confidence and luck. And the distances were pretty small between him and his targets, and with a rifle, he could drop bodies without having to score a perfect hit.

 

[Astromech]

48 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

 

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It seemed to me that Bill had a bit of plot armor when he encounters Griffin's band at the river. I didn't understand why Griffin didn't kill him there. 

 

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The main thing about Bill in that scene was that he got his shadow back, so he was riding on a wave of high confidence and luck. And the distances were pretty small between him and his targets, and with a rifle, he could drop bodies without having to score a perfect hit.

 

Spoiler

I'll accept him being lucky, but the series made it a point of showing how poor his eyesight was. In an early scene he couldn't even make out the jail keys on the desk right in front of him. The writers should have had him wearing his spectacles.

 

[Nictarion]

Finished this up. It’s solid. Not the best show Netflix has done, but enjoyable enough. Especially if you’re into westerns. The # of episodes was perfect. 

[Zorral]

Had to take a break from the final episode because, for me at least, it's all too tense -- these women in one place, attacked by all these men, men who are fresh from the massacre of Blackmond. The other women and the children hiding in the mine, what will happen to them? It's terrifying real, particularly with the recent memories of the atrocities in the Bosnian war and others.

But it's very good.

One small thing -- I am absurdly delighted with every episode having at last one scene in which those classic Western old-school round canteens are attached to riders' saddles.  Until Godless I'd forgotten how long it had been since I saw such a canteen when they were always part of the supplies attached to the saddles of every western I watched as a kid.

Boy, was episode 6 ever filled with frackin' shades of Shane!

[Zorral]

Finished.

My biggest criticism is

Spoiler

Why in HELL was Whitey by himself in the sheriff's office, instead of with the women in the hotel where he could do a lot of real good shooting down the evil guys?  Shyte, he doesn't even get off a single shot, and isn't even take down by a faster gunny, but a knife.  What the Eff?  He's smart enough to rescue his lady love and her little brother but not smart enough for this?  Also, I have to think -- a guy in love with an African American girl and his name is -- Whitey?  And how come his is the only funeral we see when so many women were killed?

My other biggest criticism is why haven't these people ever heard of snubbing posts?  Ranching, even now, a snubbing post for the handling of cattle in horses in an enclosed space is essential.  The saddle horn of a western saddle is mini snubbing post, powered not by immersion in the ground, but the weight of the horse.

I did rather like, though it is heavy handed, but keeps that clothes theme going

Spoiler

that Roy again changes clothes, takes off the clothes of the father and husband he had been wearing (though Truckee's chasing him as the father he doesn't have) and puts back on the clothes of the bad outlaw in preparation for taking out his father that really he doesn't have, Frank.

I don't quite get the

Spoiler

ghost Indian, horse and dog -- and is there a connection between them and Truckee's grandmother?

As far as Truckee and Frank

Spoiler

Holy cow, talk about grooming . . . .

In any case, the series begins in a cloud of dust, it -- mostly -- concludes in a cloud of dust, fire smoke and gun fire smoke.  From the dust thou hast come and to the dust thou wilt return.  Do not RIP, Frank.

And that newspaper editor -- o yes, the media was as filled with liars then as now.  And damn, thaqt somehow that skank survived.

 

[Astromech]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

 

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Why in HELL was Whitey by himself in the sheriff's office, instead of with the women in the hotel where he could do a lot of real good shooting down the evil guys?  Shyte, he doesn't even get off a single shot, and isn't even take down by a faster gunny, but a knife.  What the Eff?  He's smart enough to rescue his lady love and her little brother but not smart enough for this?  Also, I have to think -- a guy in love with an African American girl and his name is -- Whitey?  And how come his is the only funeral we see when so many women were killed?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

that Roy again changes clothes, takes off the clothes of the father and husband he had been wearing (though Truckee's chasing him as the father he doesn't have) and puts back on the clothes of the bad outlaw in preparation for taking out his father that really he doesn't have, Frank.

I don't quite get the

  Reveal hidden contents

ghost Indian, horse and dog -- and is there a connection between them and Truckee's grandmother?

As far as Truckee and Frank

  Reveal hidden contents

Holy cow, talk about grooming . . . .

 

 

I interpreted . . .

Spoiler

the Shoshone ghost and his dog as Bill's spirit guide. At least until Roy saw him too.

I'm assuming Truckee is a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truckee_(chief