With its Montana setting and focus on a powerful ranching family, Yellowstone slips into the genre of the modern-day Western like it's a pair of well-worn jeans. But get a few episodes into the show starring Kevin Costner, and it becomes clear that Yellowstone is a family soap opera at its cold, weathered heart.
Costner stars as John Dutton, owner of the Yellowstone ranch, which is bigger than some states and has been in his family for generations. Getting on in years, he's obsessed with ensuring the ranch remains under the stewardship of his children: Jamie, the family lawyer and a wannabe politician; Beth, a corporate shark who is openly hostile to family (except for her father) and foe alike; and Kayce, a former Navy SEAL who became estranged from the family after John disapproved of his marriage to a Native American woman.
The elder Dutton's grip on his empire is constantly under assault from outside forces including developers and the leader of the chief of the nearby Native American reservation, who wants to reclaim the land for his people. John is not above using any means necessary -- from political clout to his position as head of the Montana Livestock Commission to outright murder -- to defend it.
Now in its third season (with a fourth currently filming), it took Yellowstone almost a full season to find its footing, but it's been at a full gallop ever since. Series co-creator Taylor Sheridan, who has written some of the most thoughtful action pictures of recent years, including the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water and the excellent and underseen Wind River, knows his way around gritty characters and remote locales.
Sheridan made a shrewd decision to expand the show's focus on the colorful characters that fill the ranch's bunkhouse, who operate more like a cowboy mafia and must be branded to show their loyalty. Particularly excellent are Cole Hauser's Rip Wheeler, the ranch's foreman and enforcer who's like a surrogate son to John, and Forrie J. Smith, a real-life cowboy who lends the show an air of authenticity with each word he utters.
If, as mentioned earlier, Yellowstone truly is a soap opera, then Beth Dutton is its Alexis Carrington. Actress Kelly Reilly's hellcat actually makes the Dynasty villain seem like a mere kitten in comparison, and Sheridan made a wise decision to humanize her in recent seasons. Even so, Beth is still is the most hateful character on television.
Holding the show, if not his character's family, together is Costner, who's never been better. He's still handsome at 65, but his features have hardened, his body has thickened, and his voice has gone gravelly, lending him an air of menace that he did not possess in his younger years.
Season 3 of Yellowstone ended with several major characters' lives hanging in the balance, so season 4 can't get here soon enough.
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