I'm bamboozled by how much love this gets because, for me, the silliness of the story was only matched by some of the truly rotten dialogue.
The series obviously has investment - the settings and production by and large are stunning. And there's some heavyweight acting chops available with Ford, Mirren, Dalton and others.
But there's a helix of story arcs that coil around each other without building to anything.
Jacob Dutton grumbles about the world changing and the horse gives way to the car ("Where's mah hitching post?!?") while the fight for the storied Yellowstone ranch heats up. Timothy Dalton's Uber-villain is so disgusting and arch (we know this because of laboured sexual deviancy scenes) he may as well be stroking a white cat.
Meanwhile, Jacob's nephew sets sail from his dream job of big game hunting in Africa to chart a course home, picking up a feisty damsel along the way. These two, Spencer and Alexandria, get the absolute worse of the dialogue but they sure do have some crazy adventures. Lion attack! Ghost ship! Shipwreck! Ship-board duel! These crazy kids can't catch a break.
Also meanwhile, young First Nations girl, Teonna, stolen from her family, is tortured into violent revenge by missionaries from central casting. While maybe the most compelling of the stories, it's a colour-by-numbers escape quest that, unsurprisingly, eventually leads to Montana.
Which, I guess, is where all roads lead for Season 2.
I rather enjoyed 1883 and have never seen a second of Yellowstone but even so, I hope that other seasons of this part of the canon make for better connective tissue between the two than this series is.
The series obviously has investment - the settings and production by and large are stunning. And there's some heavyweight acting chops available with Ford, Mirren, Dalton and others.
But there's a helix of story arcs that coil around each other without building to anything.
Jacob Dutton grumbles about the world changing and the horse gives way to the car ("Where's mah hitching post?!?") while the fight for the storied Yellowstone ranch heats up. Timothy Dalton's Uber-villain is so disgusting and arch (we know this because of laboured sexual deviancy scenes) he may as well be stroking a white cat.
Meanwhile, Jacob's nephew sets sail from his dream job of big game hunting in Africa to chart a course home, picking up a feisty damsel along the way. These two, Spencer and Alexandria, get the absolute worse of the dialogue but they sure do have some crazy adventures. Lion attack! Ghost ship! Shipwreck! Ship-board duel! These crazy kids can't catch a break.
Also meanwhile, young First Nations girl, Teonna, stolen from her family, is tortured into violent revenge by missionaries from central casting. While maybe the most compelling of the stories, it's a colour-by-numbers escape quest that, unsurprisingly, eventually leads to Montana.
Which, I guess, is where all roads lead for Season 2.
I rather enjoyed 1883 and have never seen a second of Yellowstone but even so, I hope that other seasons of this part of the canon make for better connective tissue between the two than this series is.