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The ranchhand card game feels far more lived in than any of the petty real estate squabbles of Big Sky billionaires.
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This need to heighten every interaction and plot development to atmospheric levels is often disappointing because some of the best work on “Yellowstone” has come in smaller doses. Jamie might very well testify against his father, but his deep breath before proclaiming “I’m ready” only underlines the fact that he’s always been willing to bend to the plans everyone else has put in front of him. (On set, do you think they called that rope the Danny Nooseton?)īeth has spent so much of her life defining herself by what she doesn’t want to be that it’s only a matter of time before that sense of opposition is steered in a way that makes a family reconciliation necessary. Kayce (Luke Grimes) has passed his third or fourth point of no return by leaving Dan to die by hanging. These are characters so rooted in their own dysfunction in their own psychological hangups that it’s not a question of what will happen when the show comes back, but how that horribleness will manifest itself. The farewell actions of each member of the Dutton family as the season comes to a close, are almost anti-cliffhangers. Much like we see Dutton allies and enemies alike go to the most extreme measures just to feel anything, “Yellowstone” has picked the most unusual ways to mitigate the preachy, verbose backstabbing that keeps sending the show in circles. Rather than intensify the family showdowns and the tensions within the Dutton empire, those weekly dire setpieces only serve to sap the political intrigue of any bite. It’s hard to build a growing sense of dread when there’s an inevitability to this kind of thing happening week to week. It also had to be a battle against nature, complete with wolves devouring a dead bear’s carcass for metaphorical good measure.
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For a show determined to examine the darker side of human tendencies, showing bad behavior wasn’t enough.
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All of these individual moments require a certain amount of horrible luck - points to “Yellowstone” for turning “getting bit by a horsefly at the wrong time” into a major late-season plot point.
#YELLOWSTONE SEASON 1 SERIES#
One by one, each major player in this saga of Dutton hubris is visited by some parade of horrors, perfectly timed to add another wave of trauma to an already-fraught series (that began, by the way, with the brutal death of a family member). At the end of the season, Kayce’s wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille) is currently recovering from head trauma received from landing on a slab of concrete the wrong way during a fight at her son’s school. Episode 8 featured a woman being stuck through the stomach by a metal fence post. 'Yellowstone' Season 5 Teaser: Kevin Costner Returns to the Ranchįrom 'Barbie' to 'Babylon,' Here's Everything Margot Robbie Has in the WorksĮpisode 7 ended with two people falling off a cliff in the wake of a bear attack. 'Tulsa King' Teaser: Sylvester Stallone Is a Mafia Capo Out of His Element in Oklahoma
#YELLOWSTONE SEASON 1 TV#
But through animal metaphors and escalating human endangerment, “Yellowstone” Season 1 opted to show a staggering level of violence that may not have been unique in TV as far as volume, but ran an unexpected gamut of different ways to put people in danger. The series that started with a horse getting shot right between the eyes was never going to be one that dwelled on the happier side of human nature. How, then, do you maintain audience interest in a show governed by so much personal and institutional history? By offering up weekly doses of mortal peril that would make the first season of “9-1-1” blush.