Manhood, Womanhood, and Lonesome Dove

I am a fan of westerns, but the 1989 TV adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize winner Lonesome Dove had escaped me, until a good friend played me a few scenes on vacation—which scenes made me weep openly in front of his teenage daughters, who were very entertained by this and make fun of me for it whenever they can. I finally took the six-hour journey with my buddy Will on a day in which we both knocked-off from work, and in which our wives declined the opportunity to experience this with us. Their loss.

“There are a few too many references to sex and it’s six hours long,” both of our wives said. They aren’t wrong on either count.

Interesting things about television in 1989: There were aspects of the Lonesome Dove experience that were both similar to, and of course different than, the way we watch television in 2025. The fact that this aired on a network as a four-part miniseries gave it some interesting guardrails, content-wise, meaning primarily that they couldn’t fully delve into the seediness of frontier life, but I was fairly amazed at how well they portrayed it anyway. Namely that if you were a woman or a child or were weak/vulnerable in some way, your only shot was to find someone who could protect you with either their strength or their guns or their money (preferably all three) and then hope that person was kind and benevolent (rare, I think, given our sin natures). It was honestly pretty grim. Stating the obvious here, but there was something pretty delightful about how things were consumed in 1989, monoculturally, meaning that everybody who was watching this in ’89 was watching it at the same time. Its fundamental similarity to now was the way movie stars signed on for this sort of thing, as they now sign on for the streaming Prestige Series.

Speaking of movie stars. Tommy Lee Jones—who in my opinion has never looked better than he looked in ’89 what with the white hair and white beard—starred as Captain Woodrow Call, a self-loathing former Texas Ranger who longed for a next challenge/adventure and could never love anyone or anything more than he loved being “free” and not being told what to do. This resulted in him basically being unhappy most of his life in addition to being lonely save for his frenemy, Captain Augustus “Gus” McCrae, also a former ranger. I say “frenemy” because they mostly argued but had a sort of unspoken male love/respect thing happening that wasn’t extended to Call’s illegitimate son Newt who longed for it desperately (also a pretty major plot-point). This is definitely a manhood archetype that is pretty evergreen in nature.

Other 1980s mega stars included Anjelica Huston as the love of McCrae’s life, Ricky Schroder aforementioned as Newt, early-career Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover as the one legitimately Good Dude in the posse, Diane Lane, and Robert Urich, who was a big deal in the ’80s. You could make the argument that this was the most amazing cast ever assembled for a creative thing.

Robert Duvall’s McCrae was the most interesting character, the most layered, and the most virtuous (save for the one-note Glover character) while being far from what we would call actually virtuous inasmuch as he had no particular qualms about stealing horses, cattle, and women who were involved with other people. And of course, all of the killing. Still, he had a fierce loyalty to Call, which loyalty cost him the chance at any sort of long-term, satisfying romantic relationship, and cost him any shot at a life that we would call “nice.” But he showed tenderness to Newt, he laid down his life for his friends, was charming and personable (while also being a bit of a rascal) and he didn’t take opportunities to take advantage of Diane Lane’s character in her most vulnerable moments. And in fact he even showed her great kindness and treated her like an equally vested image bearer of the Creator, which was perhaps the most compelling thing about the whole program. Still, he had the unquenchable wanderlust thing going too, which made settling down a non-starter.

Duvall called it the greatest role he ever played, which is something given all the iconic roles he’s played.

“Life on the frontier was hard,” I said to my friend Will about 55 times during the screening, by which I meant in the course of a given day you might bury a friend, shoot someone, have to pull an arrow out of the leg of your friend, be attacked by water moccasins while fording a river, or ultimately have to transport your best friend’s dead body back to Texas from Montana, just to satisfy your friend’s dying wish to be buried in a pecan orchard where he once enjoyed some nice times with Anjelica Huston’s character.

Increasingly, given my age, when I watch anything, I ask myself, “What would being a true follower of Christ look like in this context?” In the case of Lonesome Dove it’s a pretty tough question to parse. It would probably begin by being “the husband of one wife,” which would mean (and still means) forfeiting all kinds of freedoms on a spectrum that includes “sexual irresponsibility” and also “doing whatever I want whenever I feel like it.” It would include “loving your wife as Christ loves the church,” which would mean anything along a spectrum of providing tenderly for her needs, and could realistically include laying down your life for her. This is also, today, stunningly applicable and is something that both Call and McCrae failed at despite being awesome at lots of other things.

It would mean, like today, not only giving my name to my sons, but also raising them in the way they should go. Call famously said in the third act of Lonesome Dove, when challenged about giving his son his name, “I gave him my horse, which is probably worth more than my name.” This was, of course, his character’s great failing, which was redeemed only somewhat by his loyalty to fulfill McCrae’s dying wish.

Ultimately, we all, always, like to wring hands about how hard it is to be a Christian in whatever era we’re in. “It’s so hard” culture is kind of prevalent right now, especially in ministry social media contexts. But my main takeaway from Lonesome Dove was how hard it would have been then, and how relatively blessed I am now despite all the craziness in the world. I have a wife and children who love me. I am forgiven by my Lord. I have a lovely church life. I have readily available Bibles, books, and friends who offer to entertain me for six hours.

It's not so hard.