We’re only three episodes into the latest “Yellowstone” prequel, “1923,” and it’s already better than the original series.
Before you rip my head off, I still think “Yellowstone” is one of the greatest shows of all time. It’s just that when you compare the current season of the modern-era show to creator Taylor Sheridan’s latest prequel series, starring Helen Mirren, Harrison Ford and a slew of other A-listers and epic up-and-coming stars, the latter just has to come out on top.
It’s not the insanely high budget of “1923,” nor the countless filming locations or incredible way the production team has cultivated the truest form of televised escapism I’ve seen in years that make “1923” better than this season of “Yellowstone” — it’s the script.
Sheridan has made his shows and films the best Hollywood has ever seen because he refuses to dumb down his content for anyone. His work is subtle while making huge, poignant statements about how we choose to live now, and how our history should never be forgotten.
🌟 REVIEW🌟 via @KaySmythe
The first episode of the epic new “Yellowstone” prequel, “1923” dropped Sunday, and was absolutely stunning. We’re already obsessed.
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— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) December 19, 2022
Sheridan is the only writer in Hollywood who consistently tells the truth about the way Native Americans have been systematically targeted for destruction in the last hundred and more years. In “1923,” the most horrifyingly accurate storyline is that told from the evil Catholic boarding schools that effectively stole Native American women from their families and land in an attempt to beat their beautiful culture from the face of the Earth.
Sunday night’s episode also shed light on how almost all of the problems we currently face as a society have been cultivated by others for profit. Take electricity, for example: we survived for potentially millennia without it (or at least 10,000 or so years). After it was discovered, companies asked We The People to pay them for the electricity and then buy things that work via electricity, just so we can “have time to do other things.”
Like what? Now that we have electricity to mass-produce our food, we’ve gotten disgustingly unhealthy to the point where some idiots are trying to normalize being fat? (RELATED: REVIEW: ‘Tulsa King’ Is Going To Make Hollywood Hate Taylor Sheridan’s Talent Forever)
Electricity, while having some benefits — such as the mass production of modern medication — has largely created a system in the West where our lives are now lived for other people, businesses who pay us so we can buy food and clothes that we used to make for ourselves, because we had the skills. Thanks to mass production, we have normalized greed all over the world, and while we’re still not at the tipping point where our greed will disable our species, we’re getting there.
If you haven’t started watching “1923” yet, do so immediately. It will give you a shocking look at how our world worked just 100 years ago, and how far we haven’t come.
Then, once you’re contemplating every life choice you’ve ever made and how pointless it probably was, watch Sheridan’s other new hit show, “Tulsa King.” It’s very different, but just as good as all his other work.