Explosions and adventure, cynical melodrama, clunky social commentary.all of the above? … Expand Yellowstone, on the other hand, can't really decide what it wants to do. Mad Men subverted that and instead delivered a thoughtful, challenging look at the inner lives of its characters and their overall place in 1960s America.
YELLOWSTONE SEASON 1 TV
Those expectations came from my understanding of what TV was supposed to be by watching other shows. You might go through an entire season of Mad Men without seeing anything remotely exciting but looking at the promotional material doesn't indicate that. The difference being that the life of ad executives and creatives never approaches the steep cliff of murder and mayhem the way a show like Yellowstone indicated that it would. I remember feeling this way when I first watched Mad Men. Essentially, the show doesn't deliver on its promises. The story arc is almost non-existent and many times I had to check which episode I was watching because I couldn't believe that I was so far into the season without a serious sense of an approaching climax.
YELLOWSTONE SEASON 1 SERIES
Season 1 as a whole was very disappointing and underwhelming and in the end seemed more like a very long, very boring series of character studies or a daytime soap opera than a contender in the modern "Peak TV" landscape. But it's only a short moment in the grand scheme and doesn't amount to much in the end. A true sense of actual family values manages to bubble to the surface in a moment like this and it is a welcome respite from the near constant hatred each of the main characters harbors against one another. The show is only really good when you see the grizzled and stoic enforcer character, the aptly name "Rip," showing his true colors and standing up for one of the weaker cowboys. Unfortunately, he comes across as more of a whiny conservative than a gruff, western mafia boss. Rounded out with Luke Grimes' depiction of the honest but lost third child Kayce, these three each represent the various aspects of John Dutton's character. Their sibling rivalry goes a long way to reveal the depths of their characters but doesn't show us anything more than petty sniping and isn't redeeming or even remotely fun to watch. Beth is presented as a tough wounded woman with an axe to grind and Jamie as a wormy city boy (even though he grew up on the same ranch as everybody else in the show). Meanwhile, Beth and Jamie (played by Kelly Reilly and Wes Bentley) are the single most unlikable characters in this or any show in recent memory. Costner and Gil Birmingham's characters are especially guilty of this as they seem to think it is their sole duty in life to go around spouting off folksy wisdom to people in gravely voices. I loved Sicario and you can see that same gritty realism shine through in several moments but there are so many eyeroll inducing monologues buried throughout that it makes it difficult to take that grittiness seriously. It's honestly hard to know what kind of show they're trying to make here.
I watched the first season of Yellowstone in two chunks because the first three episodes were so underwhelming that I wasn't inclined to finish it. "What if we do Dallas but make every character sound like cheap imitation of Rust Cohle from True Detective?!" is not a good pitch but that's what this is. Maybe its a Western thing the cowboy always struggles. It feels more of an authentic telling of a family struggling to fit in even if they have been controlling Montana for five generations. However, I think it pulls back just enough to make it less of a soap opera.
Yellowstone could end up seemingly melodramatic. And when his youngest son, Kacey, shoots his brother-in-law (spoiler), we see his father, even though the son seeks distance from John Dutton. When the patriarch of the Dutton family, played by Kevin Costner, does something particularly evil, it seems like he's doing it because he's trying to preserve a way of life. The writing is crisp, the acting spot on, and the characters have a story to tell. Only this time, the battle takes place in present day and the indians win the day more often than not with the help of a casino. Yellowstone is a TV western featuring the timeless battle between cowboys and indians. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
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