When did Godless take place? The year, and the mining disaster that emptied La Belle of men
Godless compresses its whole Western into one town, one gang, and one very specific moment in frontier history. When Scott Frank's Netflix miniseries takes place, what the La Belle mining disaster did to the town, and how much of it is drawn from real New Mexico.
Netflix released Godless on November 22, 2017 — seven episodes, written and directed by Scott Frank, with Steven Soderbergh producing. Unlike a lot of Westerns that settle for a vague "1870s-ish," this one is dated precisely, and the date matters: the entire premise depends on a single catastrophe that hit the town shortly before the story picks up.
The year is 1884
The series opens with US Marshal John Cook (Sam Waterston) surveying a massacred train in Creede, Colorado, in 1884 — the work of Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his gang of roughly 30 riders. The main action then moves south to La Belle, in northern New Mexico, where wounded outlaw Roy Goode (Jack O'Connell) holes up at Alice Fletcher's (Michelle Dockery) ranch outside town.
One year, one place: 1884, northern New Mexico — still a territory at that point, and 28 years away from statehood.
That territorial status isn't set dressing. Law in Godless is a marshal based in distant Santa Fe, a sheriff nobody respects, and whatever the townspeople can manage themselves.
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The disaster that emptied the town
Sometime before the story begins, the silver mine that sustained La Belle collapsed, killing 83 men — nearly the entire male population in a single day. What's left is a town of widows and a very short list of exceptions:
- Mary Agnes McNue (Merritt Wever) — widow of the late mayor, who reclaims her maiden name, wears her husband's clothes, and runs the town in practice.
- Bill McNue (Scoot McNairy) — her brother, the sheriff, dismissed as a coward by his own citizens and quietly losing his eyesight.
- Whitey Winn (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) — the teenage deputy who can outshoot his boss.
- Alice Fletcher — technically not a townswoman at all; a twice-widowed outcast ranching outside the limits with her Paiute mother- in-law and her son.
The disaster is also the plot engine. A town sitting on silver, defended by two lawmen and a schoolteacher, is exactly the kind of place a 30-man gang rides toward.
Is La Belle real?
Yes and no. There is a real La Belle — today a ghost town in Taos County, New Mexico — though the show invents its version freely. Production stayed local anyway: Godless was shot in New Mexico, including at San Cristobal Ranch near Lamy, outside Santa Fe, with a purpose-built town set.
The project itself predates Netflix by a long stretch.
Frank wrote Godless as a three-hour feature that sat unproduced for more than a decade — until Soderbergh talked him into expanding it to seven hours for television.
Which explains why it plays like one very long film rather than a season of TV.
How long is it, while we're at it
Seven episodes of uneven length, from about 40 minutes to a feature-sized 80, running roughly seven and a half hours total. It was conceived and sold as a limited series, so 1884 is where it starts and where it stays — no season 2 was ever planned.
For the record: at the 2018 Emmys, Godless won awards for both of its heavies — Jeff Daniels and Merritt Wever each took home a statue for playing, respectively, the man threatening La Belle and the woman running it.
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