Yellowstone: Seasons 1 & 2 Review

Plot: This Action Crime Neo Western Drama created by Taylor Sheridan (Sicario) and John Linson (Lords of Dogtown) focuses on familyman and billionaire, John Dutton (Kevin Costner, A Perfect World), is confronted with the challenge of defending his large private ranch land from those who would seek to take it from him while having a recent diagnosis of colon cancer. Among his family and crew are his youngest former Navy SEAL son, Kayce (Luke Grimes, The Magnificent Seven), his unpleasant financier daughter, Beth (Kelly Reilly, Flight), his ranch right-hand, Rip (Cole Hauser, Pitch Black), and his oldest wannabe politician son, Jamie (Wes Bentley, Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation).

John must face-off with billionaire land developer Jenkins (Danny Huston, Edge of Darkness) and reservation chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham, Hell or High Water), who use their financial and political influence respectively to attempt to take over John’s inherited land for their own profitable interests.

Aside from a few episodes which are a slow burn to get through, the show gets one instantly hooked because much co-creator Sheridan’s previous work, it has rather memorably subtexted dialogue, effective photography and simple yet still complex set-ups that make the viewer feel like they’re seeing actual old-school cowboys in a modern day world all striving to survive and make an accomplished life for themselves. It helps that the characters are all the characters are never shown to be black or white and always lean heavily in the grey ethical area. The antagonists are also shown to each have a fascinating scheme which makes the complex conflicts all that more fun, especially when everything is truly about to hit the fan. Aside from a few subplots feeling too drawn out, the show never loses its appeal, making it a winner.

This season, John must now face-off with another new face in his on-going land ownership: ruthless businessman Malcolm Beck (Neal McDonough, Band of Brothers). Will John be able to make peace with his other allies so he can form a posse against Malcolm’s violent attacks or will he need to to bend more rules just to put an end to this madness?

Having had all the melodrama fleshed out last season and enough problems to keep every single character occupied here, this season is finally able to focus more on three main primary issues for John and Co. to have to solve together as opposed to put them in separate corners.

This season is overall a superior one is finally and is arguably on par with other groundbreaking Crime and Western shows like The Sopranos and Justified. Because the issues faced here effect everyone as a whole, it feels far more organized than the first season. It also helps that some of those conflicts which seemed partially redundant end up coming to bite a few characters in the butt and get resolved.

This Western series is a great binge-worthy show for genre fans and it helps that it never sinks to being cheesy camp like Dallas or Queen of the South. This shows that Paramount Network (formerly Spike TV) is finally willing to measure up to the competing basic/premium cable channels with wonderfully scripted material and by finally going the TV-MA route.