It is the streaming series Yellowstone where America sees its reflection, the struggle between good and evil. Sheridan expects America to be answerable for her sins, showing the reverberations of consequence over the nation’s 400 years. At the very same time, Yellowstone shows that no one is without excuse; those once wronged now want to bear the cudgel against those they can dominate. Here is where Sheridan’s storylines turn into American history lessons with application for our present day. Sheridan desires “sameness” that will “give this country a sense of community,” what America “needs.” Acknowledging wrongdoing, in Sheridan’s narrative, begins by conceding, “As a nation the problems affecting anyone in that society are a problem affecting everyone in that society.” The Texas-bred screenwriter brings to the table his fifty-plus years of observing America, holding in tension the ideal and the real.
