Only Gunshots to Guide Us

Agree with most of the bad reviews here. We all WANT the series to succeed. The pace isn't the problem... it's the ULTRA-contrived situations. You can see every problem coming about 10 miles away.

Alex went from strong and independent woman in Season one to incredibly fragile and dumb now. Massively traumatized about doctor exam (with witness present). Traumatized beyond words to wash dishes and bus tables. Stands and lets predictable perv diner fondle her for 5 minutes before smashing his face and teeth out. She goes into a totally deserted bathroom in Grand Central Station by herself and gets mugged. AFTER she was warned OVER and OVER and OVER about how many thieves were at the station! Ridiculous! Also all these situations where there would normally be 100 people, it's just poor Alex by herself (bathroom).

Young wife at ranch traumatized beyond belief from a syringe. Why? She never even says she's afraid of needles. Finds out she's pregnant and now she loves the snow, long winter, and needles.

Spencer is told in DIRECT TERMS by 3 creep hobos on train they will attack him as soon as he falls asleep. But does nothing about it and falls asleep! He was armed with 2 firearms... why not make the baddies jump off? When given a nice new truck to escape during shootout, he intentionally crashes it so he can run on foot to a train. Why not use the truck?

CGI animals are insanely bad. Looks like a movie from 40 years ago.

Dalton character Whitfield is unimaginable bad guy with prostitutes in white slavery, BDSM bondage, savage beatings, real dungeon and killings. All while being a suave, well dressed, well spoken, wealthy mine and land baron. Ridiculous!

Priest and Sheriff are also insanely evil, aimlessly killing innocent natives, and trampling little kids to death. Gimme a break!

But meanwhile Creighton who was extremely violent and vengeful in Season One is now timid and seems to object to violence. Now he is a refined gentleman?

Sheridan doesn't need to make the bad guys ULTRA ULTRA ULTRA bad. It makes it unbelievable. What's the next Shark to jump?

Too many contrived dilemmas you can see a mile away. Too much ultra violence. Too many plot threads.

We want this to work. But placing every single character in a wildly unrealistic scenario 4 times an hour is pushing it into total ultra violent and unbelievable fantasyland.

Some of these early reviews seem to forget that these Yellowstone prequels are made to dive into the stories of how the Dutton's got where they are in the current time, who helped or hindered that along the way, and why they fought so hard to keep their land and the ranch together over all of those years. It may seem slow moving at times, but I feel that's Taylor Sheridan's intent; life was exponentially more difficult and these stories take the watcher along with these characters in order to offer a glimpse into what impact their experiences had on the current day outcome. I think it's creatively necessary.

This episode continues to throw barriers in the paths of each character, but it was entertaining and I am enjoying speculating how these storylines all come together.

Lastly, a shout out to C Thomas Howell and his character. I'm a child of the 80's and as I watched this episode I kept thinking that the head cattleman in the saloon looked so familiar; in fact that's why I went to IMDB today. Wonderful surprise to discover that there was definitely a reason.

I'm absolutely blown away at how someone like Taylor Sheridan can just hit it out of the park week after week with multiple shows like 1923, Yellowstone, 1883 and the magnificent land man. Tonight's episode for 1923 was like watching an Academy award winning movie within one hours time frame. The productions of each show is magnificent and the attention to detail is spot on. I heard that Taylor Sheridan hasn't been out to Los Angeles in over six years and it shows he just doesn't have any of the fakeness the artificial BS that so many movies and TV shows have today. It's great storytelling, excellent acting, and they're not overly concerned with casting people because of the color of their skin or some DEI rejects that aren't qualified for the job. As the old saying goes he's keeping it real.

Taylor's harsh view of human nature continues in this transitional episode, as the fates of three major protagonists hang in the balance. The song lyric: "If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all" applies.

So Spencer makes a minor breakthrough in being fortunate enough to contact the sheriff (Robert Patrick) back home. But the misfortunes occurring to Alexandra keep mounting, though a British couple throwing her a lifeline signals things are finally looking up for her.

I continue to root for the Native American characters, but it seems that Taylor Sheridan is heading for them to meet a tragic fate, like their ancestors before them.

The magic that this program had in the first season has dissipated precariously in Season 2. It's as though the Montana winter has frozen the creativity of the screen writers who now seem to assume that the show can rest on its slowly thawing laurels.

What this show as devolved into is a series of mini-crises: one mini-crises resolving into another min-crisis, all of which seem quite fabricated - nothing that really adds to the overall plot - but instead, seems only to push a rather boiler-plated pseudo-drama forward at a snail's pace. I swear, it's like the series creators are just filling time. There is nothing that novel or innovative, nothing special stands out. Season 2 is devoid of everything that made Season 1 simply wonderful.

It's tepid. It's gotten boring. It's predictable.

I can probably sketch out the rest of this season myself and probably be pretty accurate - a lot more of languid plot which isn't developing much at all.

It's sad. It's as though the life is draining out of what once were vibrant characters in a landscape which had infinite possibilities at character development.

What happened to this show? It's become a caricature of itself. That's not a good thing.