Yellowstone is a modern-day western series that premiered on June 20, 2018, on Paramount Network and quickly became one of the most popular shows in the country with its most recent season number three having an 80%+ approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes. At one point it was streaming’s second most-watched show overall according to the Observer, only behind the Walking Dead. Yellowstone takes place in Montana and follows the Dutton family, who controls the largest contiguous cattle ranch in the United States. The family is led by their father, John Dutton (Kevin Costner), who inherited from his father the massive cattle ranch near Bozeman and is willing to protect it by any means necessary. This piece of land, bigger than Rhode Island, faces many threats in the form of progress, vacationers, land developers, and the bordering Native American reservation. Each of these threats wants nothing more than to take the land that has been inhabited by the Dutton family for generations and make it their own. In light of these challenges, John Dutton and his family have no choice but to fight to preserve their way of life no matter the cost. 

John Dutton has an unorthodox approach to dealing with those who threaten him, his family, and his land. The Dutton’s take matters into their own hands. Instead of going to the law, John, his son Kayce (Luke Grimes) and his team of branded cowboys deal with their problems with chicanery and violence. This way of dealing with their threats is seen in virtually every episode of the show as they have many enemies and people who want to rip the land right out from under their control. These people that pose a threat to the ranch often end up in what is referred to by the Dutton family as the “train station”. The train station is essentially where they take people to be executed and tossed into a canyon where their bodies are never found. John Dutton has the ability to be a good person but when he is presented with an obstacle or a challenger he can quickly become the most evil thing on the planet. Something that I especially love about the show is the two sides of John Dutton that are so often shown but also the acknowledgment that of all the animals on planet earth, human beings have the capability of being the meanest and most evil of them all. This capability to achieve such an evil side of humans is so perfectly reflected in John. In the very first episode, tensions between the Natives and the Duttons were extremely evident. The natives took the Dutton’s cattle and refused to give them back which ended in the deaths of two people, one being John Dutton’s son Lee (Dave Annable), and the other being a Native American who is Kayce Dutton’s brother in law. 

A very fascinating part about this TV show and its characters are that John seems to always be at war with the Natives but his son Kayce is married to a Native woman who lives on the reservation, giving John a connection to some on the reservation. The Natives want the land back that was stolen from them hundreds of years before and them taking the Dutton’s cattle was their way of picking a fight and getting the attention of John Dutton. While the Natives pose one threat at the beginning of the series, John decides to join them in fighting another, more important battle: land developers who are very interested in Dutton’s land as well as the area around it. Plans to build airports and condos don’t sit well with the Dutton’s and those who live in the Broken Rock Reservation. Partnering with each other is the only way they can attempt to prevent their home from becoming a city. John Dutton will do whatever it takes to stop Montana from becoming a city, and he is willing to use corruption and the influence he has in Bozeman to kill whoever gets in his way. 

John Dutton is at the heart of this trending show. There are several fascinating and important characters in this series, but John Dutton is the most interesting as he is both a hero and a villain. Dutton is almost like a mob boss in the sense that he uses his power to get away with crimes, but at the same time, regardless of the murders he has his cowboys carry out, he is portrayed in many scenes as a loving family man who has strong ties to the land he grew up in and is dead set on carrying out his fathers dying wish – which was shown in a very heartwarming scene – to not let anyone take the land from him: “not an inch”. I greatly enjoyed watching this show and it has absolutely become my favorite series during the pandemic. Yellowstone has everything that makes a good western film: action, horses, cattle, fights, and phenomenal music all of which leave you on the edge of your seat anxiously waiting to see what happens.

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