Yellowstone

It's the first current series that I've watched in a long time.

I thought I'd try it when it debuted a few weeks back, because there aren't very many modern day options for a setting that includes lots of horses. My initial thought was that it's the "same old, same old" as far as motivations of the adversarial characters and such. Plus, the main character, played by Kevin Costner, comes across as rather bland and simplistic, for all his harsh ways.

I stuck with it, and now it's pretty much grabbed me. Mainly because the characterizations of the grown children are getting so fleshed out -- well, two of the three, anyway. Lawyer/politician Jamie is still a big mystery, in a lot ways. I normally don't have much patience with alcoholic or drug abusing characters, because I can't relate to it. But now that the super hard-edged Beth has shown us a softer said (helped by relating to a horse, a species that she otherwise detests), and with scenes of how hard her deceased mother had been on her, it's difficult not to feel compassion for her.

For all the patriarch's blandness, the show has a lot of salty language and harsh events, and I do find it rather disturbing that cold-blooded murder doesn't bother anybody, as long as the purpose is perceived as just. Still, there's been a lot more equine emphasis than expected, considering that the show isn't about horses.

I've reached the pointed of eagerly anticipating the next episode.