“We have lost our center as a family, and I have to be honest that we have lived a fairly blessed life to this point, so the contrast. Mine is not a family designed to withstand tragedy. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.”
From Madison Avenue in Manhattan to the Madison River in Montana there is somewhat of a wide gulf of culture and standards of living. That’s exactly the kind of setup that is perfect for a guy like Taylor Sheridan. His entire life has been about thriving within that contrast. He’s created a new genre that one could call the modern western series. The man himself is cut from both worlds, so he understands the territory. He planned to be finished a bit ago, but he fell in love with a $300 million ranch, and to pay for it he’s cut a deal with Paramount+ to be doing this for quite a while longer. That means fans of shows like Tulsa King and Landman can rest easy, because they’re going to be around for a while yet. It also means that his television universe is also likely to continue to grow. The latest example of that growth is The Madison, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell. Give the man his props; he knows how to attract big talent to the small screen. It’s mostly because they know the part will fit like a glove on anybody’s hands but O.J. Simpson’s.
“Then let’s get to it.”
Preston Clyburn (Russell) is a very rich man with a wife and kids. We don’t exactly know what kind of business he’s in. It actually never comes up. Only that he works hard at it, and it does involve shareholders’ meetings. But New York City isn’t where he feels at home. So he’s built a cabin on land next to his brother Paul (Fox) on land that belonged to their family for years. The cabin has indoor plumbing, except for a toilet because of how close they are to the Madison River. So he has an outhouse. His family never travels here when he comes … well … because, did I mention it has an outhouse? But it’s his escape to fish for trout and just escape from New York. Of course, we know Kurt Russell is particularly good at Escape From New York. Tragedy strikes when his pilot brother attempts to fly them to an isolated spot for virgin fishing.
Wife Stacy (Pfeiffer) now has to deal with the sudden loss. The family is comfortable in New York, but it’s not like that’s working out greatly for them. Daughter Paige (Chapman) was just mugged in broad daylight just outside an elite store. She’s recently married to hapless and often befuddled Russell (Adams). The other daughter Abby (Garrett) is recently divorced with two daughters of her own. Mom and dad never really liked the dad anyway. The daughters are Bridgett (Miller) and younger Macy (Pollock). They all end up coming to Montana to deal with the things one deals with in such a loss.
Of course, most of the family is put off by the rustic living. The outhouse gets to be an issue. But the place has its nicer moments. For Abby there’s the local deputy, but when Stacy decides to stay, at least a while it causes conflict. She decides to keep the land and the cabins … and the outhouse. What remains plays out over only six episodes. The episodes mostly deal with the different ways they each deal with their grief and also with the culture shock. For Stacy she has haunting regrets that she never took Preston up on his invitations to join him there. She realizes it was an entire world of his she could have shared but never did. Now it’s too late, as the songs go.
The series enjoys great cinematography, and that’s a hallmark of Sheridan’s production. All of the episodes were written by Sheridan and directed by his longtime collaborator Christina Alexandra Voros, who also acts as the show’s cinematographer, and it looks awesome. There are differences here. This is the first of the Sheridan shows to offer little in the way of violence and that level of conflict. Most of the conflict is internal here, and we only really get one scene where the daughters have a short catfight. No shooting and only a couple of horses, and you have a somewhat new kind of a thing from Sheridan. It works, and while I do enjoy the action of his other shows, it’s nice to see something more akin to an emotional ride here. Kurt Russell continues to appear. With her regrets Stacy has a ton of shows where she’s having flashbacks to conversations she had with Preston. Sheridan does a good job here of subtlety. Most of those conversations were over the phone with him in Montana and her in Manhattan. Sheridan has always used that kind of a contrasting theme, but here I think it takes a level upward.
No extras. You get six episodes on two discs.
Both seasons one and two were filmed together, so a second season is assured. Why they didn’t stick with the usual ten or at least call this shoot a single season, I don’t quite understand. But Sheridan is a busy man. He’s dealing with several ongoing shows and now the third Sicario film about to go in production. I think this is a step up for the series creator. Maybe you don’t have to have wall-to-wall action. “Lesson learned. Less is more with this stuff.”
