Historically, gender representation has always been an issue in the Western genre. Even True Grit (both the 1969 original and the 2010 remake), one of the few Westerns told from a female perspective, isn't immune to sexist undertones. As The Guardian's Anne Billson put it last year, "Mattie Ross has to hire drunken lawman Rooster Cogburn to do her shooting for her."
But that's certainly not the case in the upcoming Netflix limited series Godless. The seven-part series takes place in a New Mexico mining town that's populated by women who are "a lot fucking stronger" than you think, as it's put in the new trailer. That's where Roy Goode (Jack O'Connell)—an outlaw who's on the run from his gang that he betrayed—finds shelter from the bandit leader Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels). Goode meets Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery) and Tess Frazer (Merritt Wever), who help prepare the town for a gruesome shootout with Griffin's gang.
Set to Nico Vega's version of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)," the new trailer is a gritty set-up for the Western 2017 so desperately needs. The Steven Soderbergh-produced drama hits Netflix on 22 November.
