Godless - General Discussion

[Meredith Quill]

Your Godless Topic!

[BetterButter]

[BetterButter]

[Keekski]

I am super excited for this show! Such a sucker for a western. RIP Deadwood.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Michelle Dockery discusses Godless and the Downton Abbey exhibit :

[teddysmom]

I watched first 30 minutes of Epi 1 this morning.   Settle in, this is going to be a great binge watch. 

And it's beautifully shot. There were some shots in the opening that were Breaking Bad quality cinematography.  

[madam magpie]

Excited for this one. The cast is fantastic! And yes, I agree that the cinematography is gorgeous.

[formerlyfreedom]

Just finished this episode, and WOW. Such a beautifully shot show, and the cast is bringing it. The credits, at least the music, reminded me of Deadwood, and the visuals had the feel of Westworld to me.

I appreciated getting the backstory to the opening scene from the Marshal. I think by the end of the episode, I was getting a feel for much of what was going on, even though I didn't necessarily understand the why.

[Bec]

The singing lady has a very nice voice, but that singing really takes the opening to an extra level of creepiness. As if it wasn't creepy enough to find a whole town all murdered (well, except for that one singing lady).

The sheriff is the most boring part so far. I really don't care about his eye problems. Yaaawn. His sister is pretty cool, though.

I guess all that speechifying was supposed to make Frank seem menacing. It just made me wish he was quit going on and on and on. He's almost as boring as the sheriff.

I far prefer the characters that don't talk much. Roy, Alice, Iyovi. They say so much with the faces they make.

Roy totally interrupted the sheriff probably trying to propose to Alice or something. It was for the best, I'm not getting the sense that Alice is at all into the sheriff anyway.

Then Truckee butting-in to tell the sheriff his ma shot Roy in the throat, and Alice closing the door in Truckee's face. Hilarious.

I also loved the wary look Roy gave Iyovi when she came to check on him in the morning after she set him on fire the night before to cauterize his gunshot wound.

Edited November 24, 2017 by Bec

[Bec]

So the sheriff just needs glasses. And those glasses were half the cost of breakfast. Glasses sure have gone up in price over the years.

I just had Gob Bluth's voice yelling in my head for all of that last scene "Bees? BEES!?"

[OoogleEyes]

Good LORT this is a gorgeous show!

[Cthulhudrew]

I really loved this show up until these last two episodes. The cinematography remains glorious, but the ending feels rushed, at best. A lot of plotlines seem to just end unceremoniously, leading one to wonder why they were introduced in the first place. The Buffalo Soldiers at Blackdom? Eliminated in short order, in spite of how fearsome they were constantly reputed to be. They didn't end up coming to help save the day, nor did the forbidden romance of Whitey and Louise go anywhere, as Whitey was also killed in an offhand manner. 

Bill's wanderings don't seem to have accomplished much of anything save to perhaps expose the town to the troubles it was beset in his absence. He doesn't seem much the wiser for his journey, and he just came back full circle to where he started. I guess you could say that he learned a bit of bravery when he stood up to Griffin's gang instead of trying to perform "suicide by cop bandit," but that was an awful lot of solo screentime that seemed to do little IMO.

Martha Bischoff and her PI paramour? The scenes of the two of them searching to reunite amidst the carnage might have actually held some pathos had either character actually been given any amount of time to be characters, rather than a broad swath of hastily written- and last minute- scenery.

Mary Agnes and Callie are happily reunited- albeit offscreen. A token wordless gesture of Maggie showing up to help pound nails into churchboards was all that we got there.

All Frank's talk about "seeing his own death" turns into just so much horsecrap as he confesses that the death he gets isn't the one he foresaw. 

Complaints about the ending aside, I did enjoy the show for the most part.

[snowwhyte]

I enjoyed the show too but agree there were things that could have been done better. I was most upset by Whitey's death. He had the arrogance of youth but seemed genuinely kind and I enjoyed his relationships with Mary Agnes and Louise.

The journalist Griggs was scum. I can't believe he had the nerve to go back to LA Belle after sending Frank's murderous outlaws their way. He was morally responsible for everyone that died there.

[Kenz]

The cinematography of this series is beautiful. Whoever was in charge of the horse breaking scenes is brilliant. I continue to be impressed by the authentic western feel of everything, along with the terrific acting. I'm especially impressed by all of the British actors who seem to have the western twang down pat. ( Alice, Roy, and Whitey and maybe some others!) I don't want this series to end.

[maystone]

I just finished watching it about 20 minutes ago, and I really liked it. The last 15 minutes or so were anti-climactic, but the cinematography was worth watching at the least. Great casting (Merritt Wever, baby!), solid acting all around, some quirkiness, a few plot twists, an epic gun battle, and a literate script. The problems that I had were mostly on my part: I didn't pick up on a lot of secondary character names, and from a distance I could not tell Roy from Bill (but then my eye sight is about the same as Bill's).

I love a good Western, and, Westworld aside, it's been a long dry patch for fans of the genre. Godless filled that empty space in my fannish heart quite nicely.

[millennium]

That narrow gauge train scene, coming through the cut, shot from above.  Just wow. 

This pilot episode was enough to remind me how desolate the modern movie scene is without westerns. 

[Kenz]

I'm very upset that almost everyone was killed in Blackdom. That was too much for me. The gunfight between the women and the gang went on for way too long. Whitey should have joined them in the hotel instead of going out spinning his guns and being cut down so easily. I was annoyed that Bill and Roy moseyed into town and made themselves perfect targets on the street as they stood out in the open, but they remained unscathed. I guess there has to be some extra drama thrown in, especially in a Western.

I'm happy that Roy made it to California and hopefully Alice will have money and get together with Bill. I loved the photography, the acting, the emphasis on horses, the real Western feel of the whole series. I didn't want it to end.

[madam magpie]

Loved the show...it’s gorgepus, like everyone says. But I agree that it seemed to be wrapped up really suddenly.

I thought the shoot-out was cool, but couldn’t figure out why Alice and Maggie didn’t shoot Frank while he just sat there on his horse right out in the open. Well, I get it for plot reasons, but not for story reasons.

We never found out what Roy’s brother’s job was, did we? He made a comment in the letter that said he had a job Roy wouldn’t believe, but then we never found out what it was. Or did I miss that?

I kept expecting something shady to come up with the preacher, but I guess he was just a preacher?

The actors were all so fantastic, every one of them. Plus, I was a huge fan of Downtown Abbey and Lady Mary was my favorite character, so I really enjoyed Michelle Dockery in this. I thought she was great as Alice, maybe the best character I’ve seen her play.

[formerlyfreedom]

Wow. This show continues to impress me with it's visuals, and also....SAM WATERSTON IS BACK! YAY!

There is a delightful sly humor in this show. The Norwegian man asking the sheriff, "You hunt them? Just YOU?" had me giggle, and then I thought, their story is horrific! But there are just these little bits snuck in that help make the show not quite so dark.

[formerlyfreedom]

43 minutes ago, saoirse said:

....SAM WATERSTON IS BACK! YAY!

Well, shit. I got too excited there, too soon, didn't I? DAMMIT SHOW!

[snowwhyte]

Yeah, we need more westerns and fewer super hero movies. Original, well written and well acted westerns are too rare now.

[clack]

I'm not one to insist on historical accuracy in westerns, but the sheer implausibility, in 1884, of a 30 member gang rampaging unimpeded for years, robbing mines, wiping out entire towns -- lynching children! -- kept throwing me out of the drama.

Such a large gang would never have been formed in the first place, would never have had a coherent command structure even if they were, and would had, after the Creede massacre, the entire weight of the US government arrayed against them.

Edited November 26, 2017 by clack

[Valny]

I'm not a fan of the Western genre, but I will watch if the storyline sounds good or there are actors in it I like.  

This ep had a lot of things going on for an opener , at least to me, and I was watching this late at night,so some dozing on and off was happening....  Can someone please let me know why exactly that whole town was massacred? Revenge on...?  I remember Sam Waterston was expositing but I missed some of what he was saying.  Thanks.

[MissLucas]

The town wanted to lynch the Devlin twins - they had been left behind when Griffin and his men charged after Roy. Griffin came back in time to save them and then killed the whole town.

[MissLucas]

I did not understand Alice's backstory. Who were the guys raping her? Outlaws pretending to be Pajutes? Or were they Pajute outcasts - in that case Bull leaving Alice and the other victims with the tribe was a massive dick-move. Actually no matter who those buffalo heads were why did Frank not bring all the victims back to La Belle? He and his wife left all those women and girls with the Pajutes. Were they all sooner or later married to members of the tribe? And are we to assume that it was always love? Yeah right.

[NumberCruncher]

5 hours ago, MissLucas said:

I did not understand Alice's backstory. Who were the guys raping her? Outlaws pretending to be Pajutes? Or were they Pajute outcasts - in that case Bull leaving Alice and the other victims with the tribe was a massive dick-move. Actually no matter who those buffalo heads were why did Frank not bring all the victims back to La Belle? He and his wife left all those women and girls with the Pajutes. Were they all sooner or later married to members of the tribe? And are we to assume that it was always love? Yeah right.

I don't believe Alice's abusers were the Paiutes but either warring tribes or white men disguised as tribe members. 

As to why Bill and his wife didn't take the women back to La Belle I imagine it wasn't as simple as that.  Given how judgmental the women of that town were as well as how hard it was to raise their own families, I doubt many of then would have been willing to take in total strangers--especially ones that had been held captive by the natives.  We're shown from the beginning that Bill had a relationship with the local Paiutes and probably knew that they would give them the best chance for survival/protection.

Edited November 27, 2017 by NumberCruncher

[Bec]

Damn, Roy looked so bummed when he learned that his brother sent him a letter about a year after he gave up on waiting for him. To think, he could have avoided going down that whole dark path with Frank Griffin if he just waited a year or so more.

It's so sad thinking about all the years Roy missed out on spending with his brother and his family. His nephew was three when the letter was written, that kid would already be an adult by the time Roy got the letter. I wonder if his brother ever heard about the infamous Roy Goode in the newspapers and the life of violence and crime he's living.

Roy is really not likely to be able to just go live with his brother now, or settle down anywhere without constantly looking over his shoulder, for that matter, considering he's a wanted fugitive and there are people after him. Roy wants to turn his life around, but it's probably already too late for that. I think the weight of all of this is hitting Alice and Truckee, too, as they read the letter - they looked like they wanted to cry.

The line-reading on Truckee's "Goddamn you, Roy Goode! Goddamn you all the way to hell!" was so, so bad. I was about to laugh at that, but Roy's reaction broke my heart into a million pieces. Aw... he wanted to stay so badly, but he can't! And then he and Alice had the sweetest "we're both terribly scarred, physically and emotionally, let's take comfort in each other" sex.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Bec

[Paloma]

We are supposed to believe that leader of the murdering, raping Mormons who had no compunction about smashing a baby's head would save an older screaming child (Frank) and raise him as his own? Why wouldn't they have just killed that child also? That took me out of the otherwise compellingly creepy story. 

[NumberCruncher]

47 minutes ago, Paloma said:

We are supposed to believe that leader of the murdering, raping Mormons who had no compunction about smashing a baby's head would save an older screaming child (Frank) and raise him as his own? Why wouldn't they have just killed that child also? That took me out of the otherwise compellingly creepy story. 

It's not just you. There was a lot of artistic liberty taken in this episode regarding the Mountain Meadows Massacre.  As with everything, a historic tragedy been given the Hollywood treatment.  While obviously a horrific event, it's widely documented that generally children under seven were spared and all surviving children were ultimately returned to the victims' families, basically rendering Frank's whole backstory impossible. There was also no rape involved, just downright murder (not that that's any better, of course) due to the Mormons' fear of outsiders during the Utah War.  Having been exposed to all the different sides/accounts of the real event in Utah history classes growing up, it definitely took me out of the story as well, but I guess the series creators needed something extreme to give their villain a plausible backstory for why he is the way he is.

Edited November 27, 2017 by NumberCruncher
Awful grammar

[Bec]

I'm not a big western fan, I was mostly here for Lady Mary, but I enjoyed the hell out of this. I laughed, I cried, it was a good ride.

23 hours ago, Kenz said:

I'm very upset that almost everyone was killed in Blackdom. That was too much for me. The gunfight between the women and the gang went on for way too long. Whitey should have joined them in the hotel instead of going out spinning his guns and being cut down so easily. I was annoyed that Bill and Roy moseyed into town and made themselves perfect targets on the street as they stood out in the open, but they remained unscathed.

Yeah, it was so weird that the ex-soldiers were taken out so fast. I thought for sure they'll form an alliance with the ladies. But I also thought Frank would kill Roy and Truckee would end up killing Frank, so I was way off about almost everything.

Whitey and his spinning guns - I was just thinking "what are you doing? You're going to get your dumbass killed" and... he's dead. But damn, I was expecting him to get at least a couple shots off first, so it was still a surprise to me that he didn't even make it that far.

[Bec]

Best part of the episode:

Truckee: "Watch." *Tries to spin the wooden gun. Drops it on the ground.*

Roy: (unimpressed) "Well done."

Okay, the mostly dialogue-free part with Roy, Alice, Truckee, and Iyovi all working the ranch together like a family was nice too. But it's tinged with sadness a bit by those "I'm going to have to leave soon" faces Roy kept making.

[tennisgurl]

On 11/26/2017 at 4:48 AM, snowwhyte said:

Yeah, we need more westerns and fewer super hero movies. Original, well written and well acted westerns are too rare now.

Clearly what we need is a good Jonah Hex movie! Its a super hero story...set in the old west! And a good one, not that crappy one from a few years ago. 

This is going to be a great binge, I can feel it. The show is gorgeous, and the acting is one point all around. I am already super interested in the story and setting, and have always been a sucker for a western. Totally ready for this. 

[Proclone]

16 hours ago, NumberCruncher said:

It's not just you. There was a lot of artistic liberty taken in this episode regarding the Mountain Meadows Massacre.  As with everything, a historic tragedy been given the Hollywood treatment.  While obviously a horrific event, it's widely documented that generally children under seven were spared and all surviving children were ultimately returned to the victims' families, basically rendering Frank's whole backstory impossible. There was also no rape involved, just downright murder (not that that's any better, of course) due to the Mormons' fear of outsiders during the Utah War.  Having been exposed to all the different sides/accounts of the real event in Utah history classes growing up, it definitely took me out of the story as well, but I guess the series creators needed something extreme to give their villain a plausible backstory for why he is the way he is.

I'm don't claim to be any sort of expert on the Moutain Meadows Massacre or Mormon history during that time period (or any other time period), but I didn't think the story it was so over the top that it wasn't within the realm of possibility even if it probably wasn't completely historically accurate.  Children under seven were generally sparred but first taken in by the Morman families.  Seventeen of those children were returned to their relatives, but I don't think it's wildly implausible that there were at least a couple of children who were not, especially given their age, the fact that they were in the custody of people probably sympathetic to those involved in the massacre and that their return happened two years after the massacre.  And Haight was a real person who was one of the masterminds of the massacre and he spent most of the rest of his life in hiding (he was excommunicated by Brigham Young), so it stands to reason he would have just taken any hypothetical children in his custody with him.  There were definitely children that were murdered during the massacre from what I've read (the bodies of infants were found), and as for rapes, I'm not sure how anyone would know what did or did not happen since all the survivors were under seven.  From what I read there seem to be rumors that at least two women were raped before they were murdered, two teenagers who initially escaped but were later found and brought back to John Lee who lead the attack.  I'd honestly be kind of surprised if there weren't rapes, religious or not we are talking about a group of violent men.

[Paloma]

OK, I give up---what is the wisdom of the horse and how does it pertain to the plot? Kidding, sort of, though I'd like to hear what viewers got from this. I did like all the horse scenes, especially in contrast to some of the seemingly pointless human scenes (e.g., Why did the sheriff need to mentally re-create what happened when Roy ran from and then shot at Frank's men? Why did there need to be a conversation between Alice and the prostitute-turned-schoolteacher about how profitable whoring can be?) The momentum really seemed to slow down at times, though I guess it was intentional to give little snapshots of life in that place and time. 

[NumberCruncher]

16 hours ago, Proclone said:

I'm don't claim to be any sort of expert on the Moutain Meadows Massacre or Mormon history during that time period (or any other time period), but I didn't think the story it was so over the top that it wasn't within the realm of possibility even if it probably wasn't completely historically accurate.  Children under seven were generally sparred but first taken in by the Morman families.  Seventeen of those children were returned to their relatives, but I don't think it's wildly implausible that there were at least a couple of children who were not, especially given their age, the fact that they were in the custody of people probably sympathetic to those involved in the massacre and that their return happened two years after the massacre.  And Haight was a real person who was one of the masterminds of the massacre and he spent most of the rest of his life in hiding (he was excommunicated by Brigham Young), so it stands to reason he would have just taken any hypothetical children in his custody with him.  There were definitely children that were murdered during the massacre from what I've read (the bodies of infants were found), and as for rapes, I'm not sure how anyone would know what did or did not happen since all the survivors were under seven.  From what I read there seem to be rumors that at least two women were raped before they were murdered, two teenagers who initially escaped but were later found and brought back to John Lee who lead the attack.  I'd honestly be kind of surprised if there weren't rapes, religious or not we are talking about a group of violent men.

Yes, there were young children caught in the crosshairs and killed but the 17 children you refer to were the only survivors and were consciously spared due to their young ages.  It's also true that they were initially taken in by local families but all 17 were eventually returned to their blood relatives by government officials.  I've never seen anything to dispute that but if you find anything that credibly states otherwise then I'll happily change my opinion.  Given the high profile nature of the crime at the time (i.e. reported in all the major national newspapers), I think it would have been extremely difficult for any of the perpetrators to hide random children without getting ratted out somehow--especially with U.S. Army troops encamped there under President Buchanan's orders to watch every move the Mormons made.  Looking at the situation in context to what was happening politically at the time, it didn't make any sense. If it works for you, great.

There are other problems too which challenged my ability to believe what the writers were trying to sell.  I'll preface my next comments by saying I absolutely do not excuse Haight's behavior at all and condemn it without exception, but there's not much evidence IRL that he was the bloodthirsty monster Godless portrayed who naturally would have made Frank Griffin into the man he became.  Haight, like the others involved in the murders, was caught up in a whirlwind of political and religious rhetoric set against the backdrop of 20+ years of persecution from outsiders which culminated in a horrific tragedy for which even he expressed regret in the immediate aftermath.  Without getting into a long history lesson, I'll just say the events happening at that time (including unsubstantiated rumors of members of the wagon train being involved in the earlier murder of a prominent Mormon leader in Arkansas) created the perfect firebomb for what ultimately occurred at Mountain Meadows, so simply reducing it to a monster of a man molding an innocent child into carrying on his eeeeevil deeds was a bit eyeroll-inducing.  I get it though--the writers needed to create the most shocking scenario to justify Frank's motivations.  I just wish they would have been a tad bit more realistic, or at a minimum, bothered to get even basic facts right (e.g. the local Paiutes were indeed involved and Haight didn't have 14 wives).  I'm sure the artistic license probably won't bother most people, but it took me out of the story.  I still enjoyed this episode quite a bit regardless of the antagonist's tragic "backstory".  As with anything Hollywood portrays, large grains of salt are needed.  Moving on...

Edited November 28, 2017 by NumberCruncher
Grammar (again)

[tennisgurl]

Frank is seriously bugfuck. I will say, as historically inaccurate as this flashback apparently was (before I came here, I had no clue it was based on a real event), it is an interesting backstory, and I think it fits in pretty well with what themes I think the show is going for. Its only episode two, but I think its where its going. 

It was nice getting more of the women and seeing how they're town operates. I cracked up at the guy at the town asking the teacher if she had always been a teacher, and she was just like "well I WAS a whore, but I kinda fell into teaching recently" while the guys eyes bugged out. 

I like the young gun deputy kid. And its not just because I liked him on Game of Thrones. And I am interested in seeing more of Michelle Dockerys character and her family and the guy she may or may not hook up with. She has been weirdly pigeon holed as a constant widow, hasn't she? 

[Bec]

Of course the sheriff needed to recreate what happened - it made for a really cool shootout scene!

Seriously, that was a pretty awesome action sequence.

And yes! I love the horses on this show. I read something about how hard it was to use horses in filming because they didn't always do things on command and actors fell off horses, but this came out looking so great you can't even tell they ran into all those problems.

I liked the irony of all these people like Whitey, Truckee, Mary Agnes, and Alice always being so eager to use guns, and meanwhile legendary gunslinging outlaw Roy Goode is the only one who's like "hey, let's not resort to violence if we can help it, you guys."

Hell, he let Iyovi pull him off a horse and kick him, but he ducked well when she tried to punch him. Heh.

And I'm just now noticing that the black wild horse looks a lot like the horse Roy had to put down when he was running from Frank and the gang. No wonder he was all like "a goddamn ghost" when he saw that horse in episode one, and "good to see you again boy" when he managed to tame this wild horse this episode. It's so sweet how much Roy loves horses!

[tennisgurl]

I love horses, so of course I love any episode that has a lot of horse stuff in it. This was also a really good episode for Roy, possibly because he loves horses, so therefore I like him a lot more. I also really liked his speech about why he isn't quick to carry a gun why he doesn't have to. Interesting to have a speech like that in a Western, which is basically the classic "everyone carries a gun" genre. 

I knew when the asshole new sheriff guy was kicking his horse, that he was going to die. He hasn't died yet, but there is a bullet in the brain or a hoof to the dick in his near future. 

I think the show might be setting up the idea that everyone in the west was isolated from each other, with all of these disparate communities and families and tribes and traveling, without anyone really connecting with each other. 

Edited November 28, 2017 by tennisgurl

[snowwhyte]

41 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

 

I knew when the asshole new sheriff guy was kicking his horse, that he was going to die. He hasn't died yet, but there if a bullet in the brain or a hoof to the dick in his near future.

I know Frank is a bad guy and the main antagonist but I hate the security guy the most. It was hard watching him mistreat his horse. I can only imagine how Roy felt knowing he has the ability to go in and take his horse away but that he really shouldn't. 

[yoyo2]

Well I want to know why Mormons always seem to be fair game for hollywood?  And why the interest?  Hell's Wheels and now this . . . why doesn't Hollywood pick on another religion?

[bigmag]

I thought I was pretty ridiculous that the sheriff couldn't see that big honking set of metal keys for the jail cell that were lying in the middle of his desk, but with a quick glance at the mail or newspaper on his desk he came up with "Ward" for the prisoner's last name.

[NumberCruncher]

11 hours ago, yoyo2 said:

Well I want to know why Mormons always seem to be fair game for hollywood?  And why the interest?  Hell's Wheels and now this . . . why doesn't Hollywood pick on another religion?

I didn't get the impression that this show was picking on the Mormons.  I think it was more of a case of taking a tragedy involving some Mormon criminals and using it (rather stupidly...ahem) to mold the Big Bad they wanted.

46 minutes ago, bigmag said:

I thought I was pretty ridiculous that the sheriff couldn't see that big honking set of metal keys for the jail cell that were lying in the middle of his desk, but with a quick glance at the mail or newspaper on his desk he came up with "Ward" for the prisoner's last name.

HA!  I thought that as well.  I'll admit to also being confused that they never expanded on whether Bill was in fact going blind or just had really, really awful eyesight.  Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but by the 1880s didn't people have relatively fair access to spectacles?  He couldn't have been the only one in town with bad eyesight so as to conclude his world would go black.

[tennisgurl]

I thought the guys who attacked Alice looked like white guys dressed in war paint. I cant imagine Bill would leave all those people with the same people who hurt them in the first place. I assume we`ll get more information about what happened later. 

I cant imagine Roy every saw his brother again. Considering how Frank was raised by the Murder Mormons, I cant imagine things ended well for the nice nun lady and the kids at her orphanage/school. I liked his adventure with Alices mom in law and her son, and running into Whitey and stopping him from doing something dumb. I mean, come on Whitey. Even if your girlfriends dad is being a dick about your romance (not for no reason) doesn't mean she`ll be cool with you blowing her dads head off. 

The actors all do a really good job with the old West dialogue, its really impressive. 

[tennisgurl]

Yeah, that was hilarious. Poor Truckee was trying so hard to look cool in front of Roy. 

Law guy sure is a massive asshole, isn't he? I hope Truckee does get the opportunity to punch him in the face once or twice. Looks like the happy times at the ranch are coming to an end, with the law closing in on Roy and Alice wanting to leave town. Not that I blame them for wanting to skedaddle, but its still sad. 

The bar stool song was weirdly catchy. Or was that in the last episode? 

[MissLucas]

It took me an embarrassing long time to realize that this is the second time I see Thomas Brodie-Sangster trying to woo a WOC by learning to play an instrument. But with Christmas and therefore 'Love Actually' around the corner it finally clicked.

[MathBroccoli]

On 11/26/2017 at 4:57 PM, NumberCruncher said:

I don't believe Alice's abusers were the Paiutes but either warring tribes or white men disguised as tribe members. 

As to why Bill and his wife didn't take the women back to La Belle I imagine it wasn't as simple as that.  Given how judgmental the women of that town were as well as how hard it was to raise their own families, I doubt many of then would have been willing to take in total strangers--especially ones that had been held captive by the natives.  We're shown from the beginning that Bill had a relationship with the local Paiutes and probably knew that they would give them the best chance for survival/protection.

Several Westerns I've seen often have storylines where a woman or girl kidnapped my Native Americans isn't worth rescuing because she'll either be raped (and is thus ruined) or she'll "go savage". The women of La Belle would definitely have shunned the captives. 

[2727]

I haven't seen the actress in anything before, but I'm living for Maggie. I want her and Alice to be friends and have many scenes together.

Edited December 2, 2017 by 2727

[leighdear]

Good to see that Kim Coates is just as comfortable on a horse as he is on a motorcycle.  Tig has real range!  And Michelle D. is just hitting it out of the park these days, from Downton to Good Behavior to this.  I'm loving her versatility and her acting has come a long way from the stiff, uncomfortable Lady Mary. 

And as soon as we saw Callie draped in a blanket, saying Mary Agnes was out hunting, it was so clear that in the words of Aretha Franklin. "Sisters are doin' it for themselves"!  *LOL* 

[leighdear]

I loved the conversation about how much Alice could make being the Madam of her own whorehouse!  *LOL*  

[leighdear]

I thought it was great.  A terrific cast, solid performances and a decent story.  Sure, there are always some unbelievable things, but overall I loved it.  Great weekend binge. 

So what if there's a season 2, can we pull out the well-used trope of a baby on the way for Alice?  She & Roy did share a passionate barn boink.  She could head to California with Truckee, maybe taking a few of the folks with her on the journey.  

Plus, the journey could give us some more backstory on Alice, and Truckee's dad, and more about where Roy & Jim came from.