I must’ve been living under a rock the size of Montana because I just watched the first episode of Yellowstone and holy shit, where has this been all my life?
Kevin Costner as a modern day cattle baron who owns the largest ranch in America?
Sign me the fuck up. But it’s not the premise that got me.
It’s how they introduce the story that made me realise I’ve been wasting my time with everything else.
The first episode grabs you by the eyeballs from minute one and doesn’t let go.
No bullshit exposition dumps. No gentle world building. Just pure, immediate tension that makes you lean forward in your chair and forget you were supposed to be doing literally anything else with your evening.
Within the first twenty minutes, you know exactly who these people are, what they want, and why they’re willing to kill for it.
The stakes are clear, the conflicts are established, and you can practically taste the violence simmering just beneath the surface.
This is how stories need to be introduced. Not with forty five minutes of character backstory and careful setup.
Not with gentle nudges toward the plot. Just drop people into the deep end and let them swim or drown.
Yellowstone doesn’t fuck around with pleasantries.
It shows you a world where power is measured in land, family loyalty is everything, and modern progress is the enemy.
Then it throws fuel on that powder keg and lights a match.
You can feel the action coming from episode one. It’s like watching storm clouds gather on the horizon.
You can feel the tension in the air and the pressure drop as you know lightning is about to strike, you just don’t know where or when.
Now I have to binge the entire series like some kind of Montana ranch obsessed maniac, and I’m not even sorry about it.
Sometimes living under a rock means you get to discover gold when you finally crawl out.
Consider me officially obsessed.
I’ve also now considered upgrading my cabin in the woods lifestyle to a cabin in the woods that must also double as a ranch and house horses and all of that good cowboy shit too.
Stephen Walker.