Woodrow F. Call

If you ask anyone to name a Western novel, this is the one they name.

The story follows two retired Texas Rangers, the pragmatic, stoic Woodrow Call, and the loquacious, easygoing Gus McCrae.

The perfect odd couple.

They are running a small, dusty livery in a border town that is passing them by.

It does.

And in Lonesome Dove, for those of you listening who haven't tackled the novel, you are basically following two Texas Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call.

Two absolute legends of the genre.

Yeah.

And that's hard to do.

For millions of viewers, Tommy Lee Jones does not merely play Woodrow Call.

He is the permanent definitive embodiment of that character.

Oh, exactly.

Let's map this out for you listening.

How did the real-life historical figures of Goodnight and Loving map onto our main fictional characters, Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae?

The parallels are striking once you look at the source material.

Woodrow Feral Call owes a massive psychological debt to Charles Goodnight.

You know, even at the time, everyone's like, what the hell is going on? Why didn't Robert Duvall just win the Emmy there? So Robert Duvall plays Augustus McRae, the talkative and charming half of this duo of retired rangers.

Tommy Lee Jones is his longtime partner and friend, Woodrow Call, who's cold and reserved and tough and refuses to acknowledge that their young cattle hand Newt, played by Ricky Schroeder, is the son he fathered with a sex worker named Maggie, who is long dead.

The miniseries also stars Angelica Houston as Clara, the love of Gus's life, Danny Glover as their trusted scout, Joshua Dietz, Robert Urich as another old ranger friend, the untrustworthy Jake Spoon, a young-ish Diane Lane, because she'd been working since she was a kid, as another sex worker, Lorena, who goes on the cattle drive with the men, plus Steve Buscemi, Chris Cooper, Barry Corbin, William Sanderson, among many others, and...

Young character actress Margot Martindale as a sex worker called the Buffalo Heifer, whose first appearance is opening the door to a whorehouse in lingerie.

But Ricky Schroeder, the actor...

I think he's good in this.

I think the show leans a lot more into the question of Newt's parentage and will Call claim him or won't he? And again, this is one of the ways in which the book is sort of intentionally anticlimactic.

There's a bunch of things like Call just sort of abruptly...

Um, so Robert Duvall plays Augustus McCrae, the talkative and charming half of this duo of retired rangers.

Tommy Lee Jones is his longtime partner and friend, Woodrow Call, who's cold and reserved and tough and refuses to acknowledge that their young cattle hand, Newt, played by Ricky Schroder, is the son he fathered with a sex worker named Maggie, who is long dead.

The miniseries also stars Anjelica Houston as Clara, the love of Gus's life, Danny Glover as their trusted scout Joshua Deets, Robert Urich as another old ranger friend, the untrustworthy Jake Spoon, a young-ish Diane Lane, 'cause she'd been working since she was a kid, as another sex worker, Lorena, who goes on the cattle drive with the men, plus Steve Buscemi, Chris Cooper, Barry Corbin, William Sanderson, among many others, and young [laughs] character actress Margo Martindale as a sex worker called the Buffalo Heffer, whose first appearance is opening the door to a whorehouse in lingerie.

And holy [laughs] shit.

Yes

... and says, "Hey, I was in Montana.

It looks really pretty there." And immediately [laughs] Woodrow calls, like, "Let's, let's-"

Let's-