Yellowstone
Best show on TV right now? Definitely Yellowstone. Oh yea. Yellowstone. Hadn’t watched it yet, though I love shows that use a lot of country music, but for some reason, hadn’t dipped into Kevin Costner‘s latest addition to a really amazing body of work.
Was visiting my folks last week, and my Dad is a fan of the show, so one night, it was up in his recorded list to watch, and we did. The episode cued up was Season 3, Episode 7, the most recent aired being S3 Ep9. Watching it was seeing the characters and story arcs almost completely up to date. I have to say, watching your first episode of a multi-season show late in the current run is great.
When I got back home, I bought all three seasons from Amazon Prime, and binged. Just today, I came up to the that episode I watched with my Dad, and it was almost like watching it for the first time. I could see how each of the characters had grown, and how the stories had developed. As weird as it it might be, I highly recommend it.
Some of the things I thought when I watched S3 E7 the first time were pretty accurate, some weren’t, and a couple were “OH! I understand now!”
The one that’s funny was a makeup thing. I noticed that Kelly Reilly‘s character, Beth, had a mark under her left right eye. I noticed it in the first scene I saw with her. She and Costner’s character, John Dutton, Beth’s father, had an emotional father/daughter scene, in which she cries a little. I could see the tear running right down that mark under her eye, so I’m thought is that from her tears messing up her makeup on a previous take? I couldn’t believe they could be that sloppy. Then, I saw it in a later scene, and that mostly ruled the makeup accident unlikely. Then, watching the series from the beginning, I saw she didn’t have the mark early in the show.
Of course, once I worked my way through Yellowstone, the whole thing got cleared up for me!
It’s really great TV, and looking at the credits, I saw one of the big reasons why. Two of the driving forces behind the show are John Linson and his father, Art Linson. Kurt Sutter, the creator of Sons of Anarchy, has said that without John Linson, SOA would never have happened. Of course, Yellowstone isn’t quite as violent as SOA, but it has its moments. The family drama and sharp storytelling is there. The creator of the show, is Taylor Sheridan, who SOA fans know as Deputy Chief David Hale, who…Oops, almost spoiled. Anyway, Sheridan has a winner here, and I have to believe that one of the reasons is he clearly knows the subject matter he’s writing and producing about. Sheridan appears in a couple episodes as a rancher from Texas, whose equestrian skills are clearly not learned to ride for the show. He knows how, and shows it.
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