If you've been watchingYellowstone since it first premiered in 2018, and you've since continued to give everyTaylor Sheridan television drama a try, then you've probably noticed a few patterns.The more shows that Sheridan has under his belt, the more they feel cut from the same overly soapy dramatic cloth, complete with similar structures, characters, and themes. But after all this time, we continue to wonder if this trademark style, seen again most recently inLandman, which just beganits second season on Paramount, indicates a clichéd trap for the filmmaker.
Taylor Sheridan Continues to Fall into the Same Narrative Pitfalls
As fans online have wasted no time pointing out, many of Sheridan's biggest shows —Yellowstone,Landman,Tulsa King, etc. — follow the same basic formula. Sure, they're set in different places and follow different sorts of people, but they all seem to feel like the same show.Sheridan is the king of introducing unlikable leading characters that we'll be stuck with through seasons on end, forced to endure yet another liberal helping of sanctimonious monologues by characters you'd never ask for directions from, let alone familiar, political, or business advice. Most of the time, you can skip them entirely and still get the point, with Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly)becoming the worst offender byYellowstone's end.
When it comes to the basic plots, Sheridan recycles them like clockwork. Although set in different parts of the country and dealing with different industries entirely,Yellowstone andLandman in particular are far more similar than they are unique. Each follows a grumpy old man trying to secure his family's livelihood by putting himself between the encroaching forces threatening to destroy what he's worked for decades to build. At the same time, he deals with an abrasive woman in his life (either a daughter or an ex-wife) who puts him completely on edge and threatens to blow everything up due to her impulsive nature, and a son who has rebelled against his father's wishes, falling in love with a woman he expressly told him not to. (And let's not forget the newcomer who knows nothing about the industry but dreams big anyhow.) And that's not to mention that an important character or family member will likely be killed almost instantly in the first episode, only to be largely forgotten about afterward. We can see bits and pieces of this same template in Sheridan's other shows, includingTulsa King,Mayor of Kingstown, and even1923.
Even shows that feel remarkably different from Sheridan's usual neo-Western/crime fare,like the spy dramaLioness, still manage to pull from his other works. While the first season was unique by comparison, the main plot ofLioness Season 2 focuses largely on U.S.-Mexico border politics that feel like they were copied and pasted from his previous efforts with theSicario films — and it's not the first time. The very first episode ofYellowstoneends with Beth asking her father, John Dutton (Kevin Costner), who she should be fighting. "Everyone," he replies. While it's a fine line that makes sense considering the context, it feels quite lazy when we realize he wrote the same exchange forSicario: Day of the Soldado, whereBenicio del Toro's Alejandro asksJosh Brolin's Matt Graver who he's going to start a war with. Can you guess Brolin's reply? This is just one example of a reused line ("You'd think there are ten of me," anyone?), butjust as Sheridan often reuses the same faces in his material, similar story ideas and dialogue stray into other projects.
Many of Taylor Sheridan's Characters Are Cut From the Same Personality Cloth
When someone says "a Taylor Sheridan protagonist or character," what automatically comes to mind? Is it a smug, nihilistic, cowboy-like leading man who spends more time waxing poetic about the way things were, what used to be, and what it takes to keep the "business" afloat than anything else? There are clearly differences between John Dutton andBilly Bob Thornton's Tommy Norris, but each man appears to wrestle with the same things. EvenSylvester Stallone's Dwight Manfredi andJeremy Renner's Mike McLusky fight similar battles to keep their respective empires afloat. Likewise,Ali Larter's Angela Norris has been compared unfavorably by many to Beth Dutton due to their shared self-centeredness, ability to exploit whoever is in their path to meet their goals, and bullheaded behavior. While Angela is arguably a shell of a character by comparison (Beth is genuinely intelligent), it's easy to see how the two might be different sides of the same coin, with Sheridan expressing once again his struggle to write these types of female characters (though, admittedly, not all see it that way).
And this isn't even to mention the characters that Taylor Sheridan himself plays. No matter ifhe's Travis Wheatley onYellowstoneor Cody Spears onLioness, he makes these characters the center of attention in whatever scenes he's writing for himself. With Travis in particular, the self-indulgence became so obvious by the end ofYellowstoneSeason 5 that fans everywhere were not just sick of the character, but never wanted to see Sheridan on screen again. (Although we did like him as the historical Charles Goodnight in1883, that show is pretty stellar all around.) It's when he writes himself these overly macho roles that we can't help but roll our eyes. In the end, the main issue is that the vast majority of Sheridan's characters feel like caricatures stuck in static places where they can only repeatedly make the same decisions until the show ends... Looking at you, Kayce Dutton (and we hopeLuke Grimes will breathe new life into the character with the upcoming Sheridan-lessY: Marshals).
Taylor Sheridan's Landmark Neo-Western Strides Up the Streaming Charts
The movie earned four Oscar nominations.
Of course, there are certainly exceptions.Zoe Saldaña's Joe McNamara is fiercely intelligent, strategically proficient, and a capable warrior who doubles as a concerned mother. There are nuances and intricacies to her that simply don't exist in most of Sheridan's neo-Western content. Likewise,1923 as a whole — despite following the exact same "greedy land developers attacking the Dutton Ranch in hopes of turning it into a resort for the rich" plot fromYellowstone — offers a more well-rounded and emotionally available look at the show's brand of cowboys and Indians than we ever got on the flagship series. Very much in the same footsteps as1883,both1923 andLioness feel fresh by comparison due to the more self-contained nature of their stories, forcing Sheridan to come up with genuine beginnings and endings to character arcs rather than trying to aimlessly draw things out before ultimately failing to stick the landing.
Could Recycled Ideas Be Behind Taylor Sheridan's Fallout With Paramount?
With the news that Taylor Sheridan and Paramount are parting ways, we have to wonder why. Ever sinceYellowstone was a ratings hit for the new Paramount Network,the studio gave Sheridan the full reins when it came to expanding both the Yellowstone Universe and his general television empire. It seemed as if new Sheridan content was coming out every few months, and his name was even attached toprojects likeLawman: Bass Reeves, which he had very little to do with. While there are rumors thatSheridan's ideas for a 250th American anniversary series were "too political," leading to the split, there are other behind-the-scenes reasons too, namely Sheridan's struggle to play well with others, according toThe Hollywood Reporter. Sheridan famously got rid of his entireYellowstone writers' room after the second season. Still, we have to wonder if recycled ideas are part of the problem.
Because Sheridan works on so many of his projects by himself —Mayor of Kingstown andTulsa King being the two exceptions to the general rule — it could be that Paramount had gotten sick of the filmmaker's voice. After all,with all the thematic crossover between his works, it's hard not to feel like Sheridan has gotten repetitive over the years. (We're sure thatthe cost of his shows probably was a factor as well.) But whether you love each new Taylor Sheridan drama or you wrote off his Paramount content years ago,his move to NBCUniversal is certainly an interesting development none of us saw coming. Perhaps over there, Sheridan will be able to flex his creative muscles a bit more and produce grand new stories that will have the whole world talking the way it once did withYellowstone.
Yellowstone is available for streaming on Peacock, while the rest of Taylor Sheridan's television library is available on Paramount+.
