Yellowstone (Paramount Network) Season 2 (through six episodes)-Taylor Sheridan was responsible as writer or director for three massive critical hits from 2015 to 2017 with "Sicario", "Hell or High Water", and "Wind River." Painting a rich scene piece of the American/Mexican border, the modern American West, and Native American reservations, respectively, Sheridan tackles issues such as concentration of power, rape culture, fiscal abuse, cyclical mass-scale violence, and modern American lawlessness. His prestige TV series was hand-selected by Paramount last year as the flagship of their new rebranded TV channel called The Paramount Network (formerly Spike TV).
The resultant series generally reads like most of TV's peak offerings: A sprawling ensemble, serialized arcs and characters pushed towards the anti-hero end of the spectrum. In his three hit films, Sheridan explored very specific storylines that didn't pretend to carry the entire socio-political spectrum of their settings on their back. While the story of "Yellowstone" ties most of its sprawl through one patriarch (Kevin Costner) and his adult children, the spread of storylines doesn't do the show any favors in distinguishing itself from so many of the show's rival shows. The primary intersection with social commentary (at least along the lines of what Sheridan has typically eschewed) is sloppily exposited through the lectures of a Native American studies professor (Kelsey Asbille).
Beyond her, the show's characters are unusually flat: A son (Wes Bentley) who's the black sheep of the family and is annoyingly timid about his fate; a daughter with a vicious bark (Kelly Reilly) who seems to shows no rhyme or reason with her verbal lashings; a son who's just a simple cowboy from a 1950s movie (Luke Grimes), and the patriarch who takes the typical salt-of-the-Earth Kevin Costner and adds a dose of vague curmudgeon tendencies. The show has been compared to HBO's hit series "Succession" in that the patriarch goes out of his way to give his kids daddy issues well into adulthood. The only difference is on that show it's universally regarded as entertaining.
Despite how flatly written these roles are, the actors (particularly Bentley, Reilly, and Costner) really sell the material although it's no surprise if you've followed their filmographies.
The film shines a light on the contemporary American West and bridges the gap between genre tropes of the classic Western and the modern landscape admirably ("Hell or High Water" did this as well). Again, there's not as much of a big thesis here: Native Americans and non-native developers (represented by Gil Birmingham and Danny Huston respectively) also want a slice of the pie, but these are actions presented without any commentary. In an age of politicized bents, that's refreshing but it doesn't necessarily equate to action.
The show is watchable which is a big ask for a viewer for an hour-long drama with complex storylines. With my incomplete judgement (I've only seen six episodes and started second season), however, there's a lot of room to improve here.
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