The Madison just dropped the first part of its six-episode first season. And if you watched, you’re surely either still crying, looking at property in Montana, wondering what inspired creator Taylor Sheridan to tell this specific story, or all of the above.
I fell in the latter camp. In the first episode, it’s established that Stacy and Preston Clyburn (played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell) have had a seemingly idyllic marriage for 39 years. He’s a successful businessman; she’s a devoted wife and mother who’s on the board of various charities. They live a lavish life in New York City, though Preston also spends a lot of time with his brother Paul (Matthew Fox) in the Madison River valley in central Montana. If it was up to Preston, he’d spend the next few decades at Paul’s rustic property in the serene landscape instead of the hustle and bustle of New York. Stacy, on the other hand, loves living in the country’s biggest city, just not the lack of manners and decency that comes with it.
And then, Stacy’s life is turned upside down when Preston and Paul are killed in a single-engine plane crash in the mountains. She flies west to mourn the love of her life as well as the life she’s known. With her to bury Preston and Paul in Montana is her remaining family: Daughters Abby (Beau Garrett) and Paige (Elle Chapman); son-in-law, Paige’s husband Russell (Patrick J. Adams); and granddaughters, Abby’s kids, Bridgett (Amiah Miller) and Macy (Alaina Pollack). There, they all come face-to-face with their own insecurities and fears, questioning the very relationships and feelings they’ve been avoiding.
The series, which has already been renewed for a second season, has been billed as creator and writer Taylor Sheridan’s most intimate work to date. But the question begs, what inspired Sheridan—who is behind hits like Yellowstone, 1883, 1923, Landman and more—to write such a deeply personal story from the female gaze?
“I think it’s fair to say he’s recently coming to a point in his life where he has certain thoughts about his own life that he then turns into a story,” Kurt Russell, who plays patriarch Preston Clyburn. “However, it’s not necessarily connected to him.”
Michelle Pfeiffer, who turns in one of the most powerful performances of her career, was equally in the dark about the inspiration for exploring such grief and transformation. Even though Pfeiffer flew to Texas to meet with Sheridan before he even started writing episodes (“He wanted to write around the person he cast,” Pfeiffer tells Glamour), he kept his reasons close to the vest.
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