Godless - Miniseries Review

  TheBloodyCritique’s ‘Godless’ Miniseries Review 

Godless is a Netflix original miniseries created by Scott Frank and it’s a period drama set during 1884 in the Old West. A notorious gang leader Frank Griffin, played by Jeff Daniels, relentlessly pursues ex-member and protégé Roy Goode, played Jack O’Connell, for betraying him. After a shootout that leaves them both wounded Roy turns up at ranch where a hardened widow Alice Fletcher, played by Michelle Dockery, reluctantly takes him in and nurses him back to health. Indebted to her, Roy helps her do the ranch up and bonds with her family while laying low, meanwhile Frank leaves a trail of blood on his search for Roy and their backstory slowly unfolds. The story also focuses on the nearby ex-mining town of La Belle populated mainly by women since a mining disaster took the lives of nearly all the men there. 

A friend of mine put me on to this show and it’s a really good, there’s a couple of issues I had with it but let me start with everything I loved about it first. Visually it looked great, they captured the feeling of the Old West and it’s shot very well, everything looked good, not quite as crisp as something like Deadwood but it looked good. It’s also written well, not perfectly and I’ll go into that but for the most part this is a very well told story with interesting characters and believable dialogue, poetic in moments and it felt authentic to the time. It’s an entertaining show with some really great moments. It’s a particularly refreshing break for me specifically from the Marvel TV shows I’ve been watching recently, this is more me, unless we’re talking William Fisk of course, but this is a more me type of show.  

All of the performances were great, the standouts for me were Jeff Daniels as Frank Griffin, he did a great job with the role, Frank’s an interesting character he’ll have an entire town massacred and then cradle a crying child in sympathy, he was one of my favourite characters and I loved his story until the end, they did something that kind of ruined it for me but I’ll go into that in my spoiler review. Merritt Weaver as Mary Agnes was probably my favourite character, based on the premise I went into this expecting militant women and she was the only one who fit that description, she was a wonderful character and Weaver’s performance was perfect! I also loved Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Whitey Winn, taking a break from the shit storm of The Maze Runner films he delivers an excellent performance here, he’s got that Billy the Kid thing going on, he did great! 

The problem I had with Godless was the balance between the character stories, the premise is started and concluded in the first and last episodes and in-between it felt like we were just waiting for the inevitable to happen. There’s a lot of great stuff don’t get me wrong but it felt pieces to me to weren’t quite flawlessly connected, there’s also a lot of time spent with Roy on the ranch with Alice and her family and I wasn’t really interested in any of that, Roy himself is a pretty boring character, his story’s interesting but his personality isn’t exactly captivating. I also thought Godless didn’t tread much in the way of new ground this is story and these are characters we’ve seen before. Alice Fletcher was also quite a boring character as well, there’s no expression on her face at any point if I recall correctly.

I really liked Scoot McNairy’s performance as Bill McNue, La Belle’s sheriff, a sharp shooter losing his vision who, after word hits of Roy being in town and the danger that would bring if Frank found out decides to go on a hunt for the man, but, kind of doesn’t really do anything, finds himself maybe? I thought they should have done a bit more with his character. There’s also Samantha Soule as Charlotte Temple, she’s one of the women in the town and I swear to God the way they cut to her and have her centre shot of a group etc. you’d think she was a main character, but she’s definitely not. I think I also wanted to see more militancy from the women, but that’s not really the case, you don’t a get a sense that town is much different from any other town then, obviously it is, but it doesn’t quite feel like it.   

I also wasn’t a massive fan of the score, it was alright it just felt too obvious, almost too much in moments like too corny, not quite but definitely down that road. And lastly there are multiple moments where characters deliver massive chunks of dialogue either for backstory or general exposition and they weren’t slipped into smoothly, it’s kind of like why did you suddenly spend five fucking minutes giving me backstory about the relationship you had with you deceased husband, it’s not the time and I’m not the person, it wasn’t bad I’m making it sound worse than it was, it wasn’t bad at all but it stood out to me while I was watching it. All in all it’s a great show, the ending is mostly satisfying as well, the last episode is definitely the best but there are a couple of moments that disappointed me, again I’ll go into detail in my spoiler review.   

Despite my few little issues I had with Godless I would 100% recommend it, it’s a really well made show with great characters, a decent main story and some great side stories within it, it’s definitely worth a watch both hard core fans and casual fans can enjoy it, obviously it’s a Western so if you’re not into Westerns…It’s a Western. It’s a more traditional Western than Deadwood and follows the more common themes in the genre but it expands on them well and it’s a pretty satisfying, I was entertained, gripped in moments! If you haven’t seen it give it a watch, it’s only 7 episodes and they’re a little over an hour long each so it’s not too daunting, it also looks like this is just a Miniseries and won’t have a second season, it looks like that at least, so for now there’s no further obligation once you’re finished it either, I’m gonna give Godless 7.6/10.

What's your favourite Western?