The Madison review — Taylor Sheridan's emotional standalone series gets everything right that Marshals: A Yellowstone Story is getting wrong

TechRadar Verdict

It's almost annoying how well Taylor Sheridan can write female characters, and the Clyburns' love and loss in The Madison is his best work yet. Michelle Pfeiffer reminds us why we need her in everything, and those gorgeous Montana mountains are a character in themselves.

Pros

• +Michelle Pfeiffer pours her heart and soul out
• +A pitch perfect ensemble cast
• +Impeccably handles themes of love, loss and grief
• +Just as much humor as there is drama
• +Those Montana mountains have never looked more beautiful

Cons

• -Absolutely nothing like Yellowstone, so don't expect similarities
• -Verges on soap opera, which is new for Taylor Sheridan

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After Paramount+ dropped the first trailer for The Madison, I knew that Taylor Sheridan's new standalone series would be heading in a completely different direction to anything we've seen before. In short: less Yellowstone and Marshals, more Ransom Canyon and Virgin River.

I love being right as much as the next person, but this tonal shift could have gone one of two ways. With The Madison being so widely (and incorrectly) reported to be a direct Yellowstone spinoff early on, fans have willingly shaped their own misconceptions of what might be waiting in store.

Truthfully, the fact that the Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell-led drama is a world away from Kevin Costner and co's legacy is the ace up it's sleeve... and Sheridan's jump into new TV territory has arguably gifted us his strongest show of all time.

Pfeiffer plays Stacy Clyburn, a well-to-do New Yorker who comes from the Upper East Side social scene, and is frankly rolling in money. She's married to Russell's Preston, a reluctant city bod who wants nothing more than to retreat to the cabins he's built in the Montana wilderness.

After a family tragedy, the entire gang is uprooted, including begrudging daughters and grandchildren who have clearly never seen a blade of grass in their entire lives. What ensues is a messy outpouring of grief, loss and love that immediately tugs at the heartstrings.

Life is cruel, overwhelming and unpredictable, which is something that Sheridan has always impeccably understood. It's only further testament to his craft — and why the 'Sheridanverse' exists in the first place — that he can effortlessly transition from cowboy feud to everyday tragedy.

Marshals: A Yellowstone Story wishes it could be as good as The Madison

The Madison is beautiful simply because it's got the basics right. Our inciting incident is completely unexpected, as is the following resolution. As a result, one family, who couldn't seem more like strangers if they tried, face an impossible situation.

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