Yellowstone: Season One

July 15, 2019 9:06 AM - Season 1 (Full Season)

The Dutton family, led by John Dutton (Kevin Costner), controls the largest contiguous ranch in the modern day United States. This huge piece of land puts them constantly at odds with those it borders: land developers, an Indian reservation, and the nearby national park. From writer/producer Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water.)

Airing on the Paramount Network, which is apparently an actual channel that has this one show.

The Paramount Network was formerly known as Spike, formerly The National Network, formerly The Nashville Network. Everything else on said channel appears to be a grimly awful reality show.

posted by DirtyOldTown (8 comments total)

This is essentially Taylor Sheridan giving us Dallas as set in contemporary Montana. Its Central focus is the Duttons but the reservation and local working people feature prominently as well.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:08 AM on July 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

I watched the pilot assuming I would hate it, but found it fairly engaging in that Thing Your Dad Would Like That Isn't Bad way that Kevin Costner often operates in.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:09 AM on July 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

I watched the pilot and maybe episode two. Yellowstone was okay, but didn't hold my attention. The characters were a bit too over the top, especially the daughter. The scene where she and one of the ranch hands have sex and then after finishing, he says something about meeting up later and she replies, "You always mess it up," was interesting (it was set up as kind of a first time seduction, but not really), but also showed off what a not very nice person she was. That isn't a show that's going to keep me watching.

One thing I did like was the examination of how rural Montana was slowly being gentrified.
posted by Fukiyama at 1:12 PM on July 15, 2019

This has to be one of the worst shows I've ever seen. Just finished season two. Truly dreadful.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 11:51 AM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have not read the comments cause I'm not done with S1 yet, but damn that opening scene in E1 was almost enough for me to nope out. :(
posted by supermedusa at 9:11 AM on December 18, 2022

I must be way too bored. Yellowstone is pointlessly and relentlessly violent, the toxic masculinity is a character on its own, but I find it compelling. The Native American themes are really interesting and Montana is stunning. I'm up to mid-season 2, we'll see.
posted by theora55 at 9:10 PM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wow, metafilter is not a fan I guess. I have binged my way into season four where it's starting to feel both stretched and cheesy, but until now I've genuinely been enjoying the hell out of it. It really is terribly violent, the term "murder hobos" comes to mind, but I appreciate that the violence takes its toll, people continue to be scarred or injured or traumatized by these actions. The daughter, Beth is broken and pretty fucking awful, except where she isn't, and the how of that is really nicely done. The toxic masculinity is absolutely it's own character and that is writ large, compared and contrasted with male friendship and love, male loyalty is shown to be wonderful and also devastating and destructive. There's a lot of great lines, especially from the characters outside the "white dudes in cowboy hats" set, and some important reminders about the institutional violence perpetrated to this day against native communities.
posted by Iteki at 7:23 PM on February 29

Up to episode 3, one son's entire character seems to be angel of death. Am I missing some deeper point or does he just go around killing people? I'm 3 hours in and it's mostly just unpleasant people being unpleasant to each other. Is it going to cohere into some interesting plot, or just spend about 5 minutes per episode on that and stick with general unpleasantness.
posted by biffa at 1:36 PM on October 6