Yellowstone
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(Watching this show is a little like sitting in the passenger seat during a drivers ed class.)
His mode for the season-three finale?
Its a whole lot of lurch.
Several storylines from this season jump straight ahead to their next phase, with minimal setup.
By my calculations, the time betweenlast episodes climactic murder-spreeand this episodes explosive cliffhangers is about 36 hoursat most.
Everything just goes sour for the Duttons in a hurry.
Lets start with the ending.
This chapter titled The World is Purple ends with nearly every member of the Dutton family at deaths door.
A bomb goes off while shes cleaning out her office at Schwartz & Meyer.
Masked thugs charge into his office with machine guns blazing.
Also felled by machine guns, while helping a stranded Californian change a flat tire.
The only Dutton spared is Jamie but maybe Jamie shouldnt be classified as a Dutton.
A few days ago he found out he was adopted.
That mustve been hard for you, to which he replies honestly Not really.
So forget about Jamie.
The real question is: Are you worried about the fate of Kayce?
Remember when Kayces livestock agents were shot by cattle rustlers?
Remember when Colby and Teeter were trampled by horses?
In each case, the episode ended on a dark and ambiguous note.
In each case, ultimately, everything turned out fine.
Instead, itll have cemented its place as just another tawdry, disposable action melodrama.
But ye gods, that earnest pontificating.
What keepsYellowstonestuck in neutral is that it rarely seems to revel in its own trashiness.
Sheridans honestly trying to say something with this show.
At times, what he has to say is engaging.
But theres rarely much dot-connecting inYellowstonebetween its big speeches and its big moves.
What are the lingering repercussions when a person gets killed?
How do you move lots of money around?
How do you commit crimes and not get caught?
How do you accomplish even mundane tasks, like running a multimillion dollar business?
In the end, this was just an okayYellowstoneseason, split roughly equally between engaging moments and infuriating idiocy.
But how was the assault planned?
And how will it affect the people involved?
Most likely, in another episode or two,Yellowstonewill lurch ahead to something else.
Given his season-long beefing about cellular telephony, thats a legitimately good joke.
(If they ever start holding elections in May, were fucked.)
Josh Holloway was underused this season.
I couldve used many, many more scenes of John growling disdainfully at this cocky, charismatic know-it-all.
There are too many characters on this show who act like theyre in a soap opera.
We need more like Rip, whos apparently in a Sam Shepard play.
