Shawn,

I somewhat disagree with your view of McCarthty. Moss is not done in by his own moral failure - the very confusion surrounding his killing shows that violence can strike seemingly without reason. That violence is an inescapable natural force is a major theme in all of McCarthy's works.

Sheriff Bell, unlike Bunk, is not vital "in the long run." He is, in fact, irrelevant. His impotence underscores how man-made moral law is itself impotent to stop something like an Anton Chigurh, (or, to go back to another McCarthy book, a Judge Holden), each a demonstration of how human violence is permanent and in the end unstoppable.

That being said, I agree that what it boils down to is "a glimmer of hope," that, in the view of both Simon and McCarthy, being the best the world can hope for.