Yellowstone season 2 review: The highs and lows of a tense season
Spoilers below for the second season of Yellowstone!
The second season of Paramount Network’s flagship series Yellowstone continues to be a hit. The Kevin Costner-starring show has maintained its place as the most-watched cable series of the summer, according to the New York Times. I have to confess, though, after recapping the series for the past two seasons for ShowSnob, I’m more puzzled than ever by Yellowstone.
Genre Whiplash
In season 2, Yellowstone showed us far more of life on the ranch. We spent a lot more time with the ranch hands in the bunk house and we even went to a rodeo. These slice-of-life moments were interesting and fun. But the dailiness of these scenes made for a strange contrast with the rest of the series, which revolves around the Dutton clan.
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Sure, the Duttons run Yellowstone Ranch and periodically get their cowboy on too, but they spend more time wrapped up in or creating their own drama. And this is one place where I take issue with the series.
In interview after interview, Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan has called the series a Western, a genre designation journalists have used for the show as well. And there are parts of the series — like those scenes in the bunk house — that definitely fall into the Western category. It could be argued that the square off with the Beck Brothers this season was a classic Western match up, too.
However, there’s an increasingly over-the-top sensationalism to Yellowstone that makes it resemble a soap opera more than anything else. Between all the drama Beth (Kelly Reilly) generates just by existing, Kayce’s (Luke Grimes) marriage struggles, Jimmy’s (Jefferson White) encounters with the people he owes money to, and the big reveal of Jamie’s (Wes Bentley) ex’s pregnancy, the melodrama has become increasingly silly. The revelation of Christina’s (Katherine Cunningham) pregnancy, and her demand that Jamie become a better person if he wanted to be a part of their baby’s life, particularly had me scratching my head.
The jump between soap opera stylings and earthy cowboy activity made for a highly uneven second season. While the season-long story arc included a great deal of tension and gritty violence it could be hard to decide how seriously to take a lot of it due to those sharp tonal shifts.