'Yellowstone' Proves Once Again that Taylor Sheridan Is Cowboy Aaron Sorkin

Most folks are familiar with the most cringeworthy scene in Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom, where —- as patriotic music swells —- Don informs an airplane pilot, “Our armed forces killed Osama bin Laden for you tonight.” It’s one of the cheesiest, most unintentionally hilarious moments in television history.

Taylor Sheridan doesn’t get as much flak for these moments as Aaron Sorkin does, but he pulls off similarly ham-fisted scenes nearly every week in one of his many, many series. I don’t entirely mind it because, like Sorkin, Sheridan’s melodrama often celebrates everyday working heroes: the military, ranchers, or (as of this week) oil field workers who ensure our homes are heated and our cars fueled. But while Sorkin was perpetually patronizing about his working-class protagonists — best exemplified by Jeff Daniels’ smugness in Newsroom —- Sheridan is just as smug and weirdly elitist about his version of working-class nobility.

Sheridan’s salt-of-the-earth characters embody a certain way of life that, according to him, gives them a superior grasp of the world compared to his villains: lawyers, businesspeople, and techbros. And, honestly, I get a certain charge out of that. Screw those guys. But Sheridan’s tendency to put his people on a pedestal — to the exclusion of everyone else — rubs me the wrong way, especially when you remember that Sheridan’s idyllic rancher lifestyle is funded by millions earned writing formulaic, Hallmark-esque westerns.

Take a scene from this week’s Yellowstone, which perfectly encapsulates Sheridan’s working-class moralizing. Beth (Kelly Reilly) gets pulled over by a police officer in Texas. When Beth tells the officer she’s on her way to visit her husband Rip, who works at the 6666 ranch, the officer’s tone changes completely. She lets Beth off with a warning and adds, “Tell your husband thank you for what he does.”

Beth: Wait, why would you say that? Why would you thank him?
Officer: I put the food on my table, too, but I don’t grow it. This is cattle country, ma’am. We know what it takes to put a steak on a plate around here. (Cue the patriotic guitar strings.)

It’s cheesy as hell, but for those of us who enjoy having blue-collar jingoism sledgehammered into our chests, it’s effective. The problem is exacerbated later, in a scene where Beth encounters Piper Perabo’s recurring environmentalist character. Beth venomously sneers, “Please stop throwing paint on people’s clothes. What do you think the woman in the mink coat does when you dump a ton of paint on it, huh? She buys another mink coat, you entitled dipshit.”

Perabo’s character exists solely so Sheridan can channel, through Beth (and John, earlier) his hostility toward liberal activists. And while that’s fine —- I don’t always disagree with his critiques —- Sheridan’s smug tone is no better than the condescension he accuses liberal activists of displaying.

Ultimately, it’s a weekly reminder that being a smug, entitled asshole isn’t exclusive to any political party or perspective. And Sheridan’s approach is just as polarizing as Sorkin’s, even if the guitars are twangier.