If you like Game of Thrones, you might like…Godless

"“This here is the paradise of the locust, the lizard, the snake. It’s the land of the blade and the rifle. It’s godless country.” —Frank Griffin, Godless"

Godless is a hair-trigger, shoot-em-up western, an honest-to-goodness wild American west story with a heart. Produced by Steven Soderbergh for Netflix, all seven episodes are currently available to stream in their entirety. Filled with gorgeous landscapes and complicated characters, Godless plunges into the often lawless frontier of 1884 New Mexico, where many conflicts are settled in ways both bloody and unpredictable.

With Scott Frank writing and directing, Soderbergh has assembled a stellar cast for this project, including Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), Jeff Daniels (The Martian, Allegiant), Sam Waterston (Law and Order), Jack O’Connell (Unbroken), Merritt Wever (The Walking Dead) and Game of Thrones veteran Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Jojen Reed) in a fine turn as young deputyWhitey Winn.

Godless opens with one of the most haunting set pieces I’ve ever seen on TV: the aftermath of brutal outlaw Frank Griffin‘s (Daniels) attack on the town of Creede, Colorado. Griffin is searching for a one of his gang members, Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), an orphaned boy he raised like a son. Goode betrayed Griffin and stole all his loot, and Griffin has made it known that any town discovered sheltering Goode will be destroyed. Unfortunately, Creede fell into that category.

On the run, Goode stumbles onto the ranch of Alice Fletcher (Dockery), a traumatized widow herding horses with the help of her half-Native American son Truckee (Samuel Marty) and her eldery Paiute mother-in-law Iyovi (Tantoo Cardinal). Fletcher wounds Goode, but ends up nursing him back to health in her barn. The single mom has a tenuous relationship with the nearby town of La Belle, New Mexico, a town populated almost entirely by women after all the men were killed in a mining accident.

That’s as much as we’re gonna reveal about the story, but let’s just say that tensions rise as Griffin closes in on Roy Goode and the apparently defenseless La Belle. There are also multiple intertwining narratives, including one about a sheriff pursuing his last quest before he goes blind, tricky oilmen negotiating for the rights to reopen the mine, and tensions with a nearby community of black ex-cavalry soldiers and their families. Various love affairs smolder, from a difficult courtship between Brodie-Sangster’s surprisingly sweet deputy and one of the black soldier’s daughters (Louise Hobbs, played by Jessica Sula) to a weird romance between the foreign Martha (Christiane Seidel) and the detective hired by her estranged husband to find her.

Godless doesn’t duck genre expectations, offering plenty of endless landscapes, saucy whorehouses, saloons, star-crossed lovers, lone cowboys and shootouts. It has a traditional western feel in its yearnings and violence, and cowboy movie enthusiasts will hear echoes of High Plains Drifter and The Wild Bunch. But this series offers up something new to the wild west: a small society operated (mostly) by women where issues of race, gender and sexuality play an integral role in the narrative. One of the show’s central cogs is a lesbian relationship between effective mayor Mary Agnes (Wever) and prostitute-turned-schoolteacher Callie Dunne (Tess Frazer).

Godless is particularly special in how it executes its set piece sequences. Soderbergh, Scott and company hold on to small, beautiful, almost motionless moments so long they become profound and rewarding tableaus. For example, one episode involves a long sequence where Goode teaches Truckee how to ride a horse, an animal he fears. The sequence is lengthy and repetitive, but I remained enraptured. The big action sequences, especially the final shootout, are equally well done.

As good as all of the acting is, Jeff Daniels is the jewel in the show’s crown. His insane, unpredictable preacher/gang leader Frank Griffin is terrifying because you never know what he might do or react to any situation. Despite his evil ways, Griffin is a man who rescues orphans, bringing abandoned boys into his gang where he raises them as a father figure. This deep-rooted aspect of his character makes one of his final scenes gripping, as you wonder if the desperate Griffin will remain a savior of lost boys to the very last.

I really enjoyed Godless, but don’t take just my word for it. The series has received good reviews from critics at The Washington Post, The Telegraph and Vanity Fair, and enjoys a current reviewer and audience score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yes, Game of Thrones fans, six-gun Godless isn’t medieval fare, but if you’re looking for a ripping good yarn that both challenges and embraces some big western genre tropes with gusto, put this one in your “must watch” docket. Check out the Godless trailer below.

If that trailer don’t knock yer socks off, pardner … Happy watching!

Next: Maisie Williams is taking combat training for season 8, surprising no one

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