Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant’s Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones.
You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, “Movie Monsters of the Deep.”
Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant.
From gunslinging cowboys to vigilante justice in small frontier towns, the Western genre tends to romanticize its period in history, leaving even some of the greatest Western TV shows of all time far from accurate. However, sometimes the truth is just as surprising as fiction, and one underrated Western TV gem gets more historical details right than it might seem. Not only is this show a great example of a Western subverting expected tropes of the genre, but it is one of Netflix’s best miniseries in any genre, with a stacked cast giving award-winning performances.
Netflix’s Godless is set within the New Mexico mining town of La Belle, where a community of women have rebuilt their lives following a tragic accident that claimed the lives of most of the town’s men. When a young outlaw on the run finds himself in town looking for protection, the town band together to fight the outlaw and his gang who are pursuing him. Many great Western TV characters are based on real people and their stories, but while Godless is a fictional series, it is based on several real-life events, and accurately represents aspects of the frontier.
Godless Is A Netflix Western Series That Respects Historical Accuracy
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The show’s title refers to the fact that the town has no preacher, with the church still being unfinished and the preacher reportedly journeying from many states away. This reflects the real-life isolation faced by many small frontier towns, with people taking months to reach their destination, and discovering that many things may have changed by the time they arrive. Still, this isolation is not the only brutal aspect of frontier life, and Godless, despite not including the gritty horror of shows like American Primeval, still highlights the reality of living in towns like La Belle.
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Disability and aging were both far more debilitating than in modern times, and Godless uses both small details and major plot points to highlight this. Sheriff Bill McNue relies on spectacles, a new invention then, to combat his accelerating blindness, while Frank Griffin’s arm was amputated after an injury got infected. Disabled characters are still underrepresented in the Western genre, but Native American and Black characters have often been misrepresented at best and caricatured at worst. Godless combats this through John Randall, who was based on a real person, and the Buffalo Soldier characters, based on the historical army regiments.
Even La Belle is inspired by a real town, though it was abandoned after the gold rush rather than affected by a major accident. That said, the show’s disaster was fictional, but as mining was so dangerous, similar events have happened in history, leaving behind “widow towns.” These inspired creator Scott Frank, who told Variety that “sometimes all of the men would die in a single day in an accident, and the women would be left there.” With women’s stories rarely taking center stage in the genre, Godless became a Western that changed the game through its character writing.
Godless Remains One Of Netflix’s Best Miniseries
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Netflix has some perfect miniseries that have built its reputation as a platform for excellent self-contained stories, and Godless is one of its greatest triumphs. Most of the best Westerns on TV tend to be sweeping sagas like Yellowstone, or procedurals like Justified, and this short length sets Godless apart. The show has just seven episodes in which to tell the story and develop the characters, and the actors’ standout performances allow the series to do exactly that, with Merritt Wever (The Walking Dead) and Jeff Daniels (The Martian) both winning Primetime Emmy Awards for their roles in the show.
Scott Frank was influenced by Western heavyweights like Clint Eastwood, with Godless‘ Roy Goode being a deliberate homage to his iconic character The Man With No Name and the show’s cinematography tributing many of his best-known movies, which often feature sweeping vistas with tight close-ups in tense scenes. The drama of Deadwood has no equal, but Godless shares DNA with the series through its gritty realism, historical accuracy, and the way its female characters challenge gender norms.
Godless has an 83% positive Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, while audiences rated the show 85%.
Daniels’ portrayal of the terrifying Frank Griffin has made the character into one of the best Western TV villains of all time, while virtually every aspect of Godless has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, with the title score winning its category. Godless‘ Rotten Tomatoes scores, while respectable, do not reflect the show’s creativity and quality. The fact that the series has a proper ending with high emotional stakes and a showdown to rival some classic Western shootouts makes it a masterpiece, where every episode is perfect from start to finish.
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