The western expansion of the United States in the 1800s was not a place where women often found themselves in power. The grisly, unforgiving terrain of the American Dream’s aggressive march west was plagued by sacrifice and savagery, the former often shouldered by the native inhabitants of the land being seized and the latter often wielded by those doing the seizing.
A few times now, Netflix has imagined a chapter of the American West where women seized power for themselves in the absence of the men who brought them to the edge of the colonized world. First, 2017’s fantastic “Godless” saw an 1884 town run almost entirely by the widows of the male population, who were killed in a mining accident, fending off the encroachment of a wayward cowboy and the band of outlaws in pursuit of him. This year’s “American Primeval” also let a widowed Betty Gilpin loose in 1857 Utah to survive amidst the clashes between the native tribes and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (For fans of this story, Emily Blunt’s “The English” on Prime Video is also essential viewing.)
The latest addition to the streamer’s women of the West genre is Kurt Sutter’s “The Abandons,” an intriguing albeit wobbly attempt to let two women from different worlds, socioeconomic classes, maternal status and temperaments spar over the one thing they have in common –– a family they aren’t willing to lose. Lena Headey stars as Fiona “Mam” Nolan, the Irish matriarch of the unconventional family of strays who occupy a prime piece of real estate known as The Abandons. After her husband died, she assumed the role of guard dog for the property and his children Elias (Nick Robinson) and Dahlia (Diana Silvers), and eventually brought in other wayward souls including Albert (Lamar Johnson), a freed Black teenager; and Lilla (Natalia del Riego), an indigenous girl.
Fiona’s maternal halfway house doesn’t get much respect from Constance Van Ness (Gillian Anderson), a privileged woman and widow herself whose family props up the town of Angel Ridge with their mining company while also looking down from her balcony porch on everyone as if they are her subjects. But expansion of the Van Ness’ controlling interests is hindered by Fiona’s unwillingness to sell The Abandons, which sits right in the path of the mine’s proposed growth. Fiona’s piety, alongside her devout belief in standing her ground, is one of the things Constance has no time for. “God gave us this home,” Fiona professes to Constance when she delivers one of her many offers. “If I knew I was going to get a sermon, I would have worn my Sunday best,” Constance bites back.
Constance, however, is living on the principle of protecting her family as well. Her sons Garrett (Lucas Till) and Willem (Toby Hemingway), and daughter Trisha (Aisling Franciosi) live under the umbrella of her power and in various states of willful blindness, carefree luxury and ruthless entitlement. It’s a way of life they aren’t looking to relinquish even an ounce of, so her attempts to claim the land for the good of the town fall on deaf ears to Fiona.
The core conflict between Fiona and Constance isn’t all that deep — one needs something the other won’t give up and blood is shed. Rather through righteous anger or unbridled desperation, the series is at its best when it lets its leads go at it. Since “Game of Thrones,” and really her whole career, Headey has always been good at navigating the raw emotion behind the action (Cersei’s quietly executed terrorist attack on the Sept is a great example). She plays the long game with a festering wound rather than the momentary embrace of whatever is bubbling up inside her. But it is Anderson who gets to play against type here, as the villainous embodiment of progress eating away at the homestead. She never leans too heavily into her menace, but rather wields it with a controlled disdain for those she feels aren’t worthy of impeding her path or calling her quality as a mother into question (although more than once, she questions if Fiona can call herself a mother at all). By season’s end, the two women’s perceived control over their worlds has been whittled down to nothing, giving Headey and Anderson the greenlight to go full-tilt into their end game.
But ultimately, the biggest thing working against “The Abandons” is a frustrating need to complicate its own vision. Constance takes a barn-burner approach to ensure the future of her family, and Fiona’s commitment to her family and farm is nothing less than a holy war. The totality of this moment for both families is enough to sustain this series, yet the show succumbs to numerous distractions within the western genre. Constance’s greed gets her into trouble with Russians arms dealers and ropes in a surly, impossibly handsome but otherwise unnecessary cowboy played by Michael Huisman. The only worthy detour outside of the warring families is Fiona’s desire to build a council of her neighbors to ward off Constance’s advances on their land. Giving her a calvary at her back only further intensifies her belief she can stamp out the Van Ness threat once and for all.
But ultimately, the series is only bookended with the potential of that war, and is otherwise saddled in the middle with filler that undermines the “mother-off” that could dominate this whole story — and give the people what they want! Letting Headey and Anderson indulge in the pitfalls that have bedeviled men in the western genre for a century is intriguing, and that excitement is sorely missed when the series overcomplicates things. By the end of seven episodes, it has diminished the blunt force of their blows when they finally get to literally and figuratively throw hands.
“The Abandons” is now streaming on Netflix.