Yellowstone season 2 review: The highs and lows of a tense season

Yellowstone’s Female Characters

But here’s my bigger issue with the series: the more I watch it, the more I wonder if it’s really for me. And that issue comes from the show’s treatment of its female characters.

There isn’t a single female on the series’ writing staff, and while a female director will helm a couple of episodes in the third season, in the series’ first two seasons only men have directed the show.

This lack of female perspective shows. The series is incredibly male-centric. It’s interested in relationships between fathers and sons, male colleagues, and male rivals, especially in the second season finale. Meanwhile, the major female characters — of which there are only two — feel more like what men come up with when they’re trying to write women, than actual women.

This is especially true of Beth. Reilly commits fully to the character in her performance but in season 2 Beth’s increasingly become a caricature. She insults pretty much anything that moves, mostly men. And how does she insult them? One way or another it involves the male anatomy. Over and over.

To me, this speaks a lot more to what the male writers behind Beth feel are the worst insults that could be hurled at them by a woman than something a woman like Beth would actually do. Beth is supposed to be both smart and accomplished. Most women I know who could be described this way would be more creative with their take downs. Although based on what we’re learning from Beth, I guess maybe they’ve been working too hard.

Yet, Beth’s obsession with the basest form of humiliation wasn’t limited to men. In one of the season’s most upsetting scenes, in the penultimate episode, Beth came to the defense of her sister-in-law Monica (Kelsey Asbille) by body shaming the boutique owner who tried to have Monica arrested for shoplifting.

It was clear from the moment she showed up that Beth was going to retaliate, but when Beth’s tactics turned from destroying things to forcing the shop owner to strip, commenting on her body, and looking down her underwear, the scene took a serious turn. All of the sudden, Beth was doing something very similar to the man who almost raped her in the seventh episode. Sure, she wasn’t as violent, but the feelings of sexual violation she played with were the same.

Once again this struck me as a very male conception of what would be done to hurt a female. A woman might body shame another woman, but she’s unlikely to try to sexually humiliate her because at one point or another most women, or someone they know, have been victims of that same kind of violation, and therefore, wouldn’t weaponize the experience.

Then there’s the other aspect of Beth. The Beth that tells the other characters how it is. In these exchanges, the character is meant to come across as deeply insightful. But it’s hard to believe someone who spends so much time as a walking ball of antagonism would also be that wise. People that are insightful typically are good listeners, a quality Beth has never been shown to have.

Sheridan has claimed that Beth is the toughest person on Yellowstone in an interview with Deadline. But being tough and being terrible aren’t the same thing. In fact, usually people who lash out like that are just trying to protect themselves. The interesting thing is women in business settings who assert themselves are often unfairly accused of being b*tches. The Yellowstone writers have taken this idea one step further and made Beth literally awful because it seems they believe that’s what a strong woman is.

Beth may have a reason for being the way she is but two seasons in, we have yet to get a good explanation.

Then there’s Monica, the more palatable female character on Yellowstone. Monica spent most of the season confused and indecisive about her relationship with Kayce. This is the thing, though, she was absolutely right to leave him. Kayce’s convinced himself that the only thing he’s good at is killing people. That character trait combined with his father’s influence doesn’t lead anywhere good and Monica’s instinct to get away from it was understandable.

Yet by the end of the season, Monica not only returned to Kayce, she returned to Yellowstone Ranch. And in a truly bizarre act, she apologized to Kayce for leaving in the first place — another moment that seemed like wishful thinking on the part of the writers.

Monica has a quiet strength that’s admirable but her relationship with Kayce is dangerous for her, and as was made clear in the season’s final episode, their son. While I appreciate the Native American perspective Monica brings to the show, her relationship with Kayce is pure melodrama.

The show makes its male perspective clear, even when a woman’s onscreen, which causes it to feel like Yellowstone is speaking to an audience that doesn’t include me.

Although the show has been successful, it hasn’t garnered any real awards consideration and doesn’t appear to be taken seriously by the Hollywood establishment. The combination of genre issues and female characterization could be at least partially to blame. If Yellowstone wants to continue to expand its audience and have more appeal in future seasons, remedying both of these issues would go a long way towards that goal.