"Apres moi, le deluge."

-- attributed to Louis XV of France

In the last episode of season 4 of "Yellowstone" the
patriah of the fictional Yellowstone Ranch in Montana
has a discussion with one of his Indian frenemies.
The Indian asks him what will happen in 100 years.
John Dutton (Kevin Costner) replies that his precious
ranch will disintegrate in far less than a century,
along with the rest of humanity, and it is up to God
to restart the whole enterprise if He has the stomach
to.

That is an odd admission, given that the entire series
is about the Dutton clan, their "cowboys," and sundry
criminal associates' effort to keep their land from
the Indians whose had ancestral claim and want to
build casinos, and from corporate types who plan
condos, airports, and a Western theme park like Aspen,
Colorado. Why can't Dutton be less of a nihilist,
and plan for a lawful, orderly transition for the
good of all?

His corporate raider daughter, played by the great
Kelly Reilly in her most charismatic role (and the
only reason to watch "Yellowstone"), openly admits
that she will sell the ranch the moment John croaks.
Yet the clan remain fanatically loyal to Dutton's
death wish. Even his former nemesis the Indians
kidnap and torture a man who has info about an
assassination attempt on the clan. (They tie a
rope round his wrist and drag him on horseback.)
John Dutton throws the battered man a gun before
murdering him -- the closest that season 4 has a
claim to fair play. For the clan proceeds to break
every law to hunt down their enemies -- including
the 2nd amendment, infringing upon the right of
a local militia to bear arms by simply slaughtering
them. (The operation is fronted by the "Lifestock
Commission" led by Dutton's son -- nepotism and
landownership elitism being a big hit around here
-- but instead of serving search warrants, this
quasi-military police just start shooting with
assault rifles.) But that is gentile compared to
the strangulation, rattlesnake attacks, hanging,
and other techniques that would make drug cartels
frown. At the very end, John Dutton decides to
run for governor of Montana to serve his nihilistic,
corrupt interest -- no doubt cheered on by the 15
million viewers of this show, one of the most
watched scripted series in the U.S. And you wonder
why the Republic is collapsing.

Glimpses of this rampant law-breaking and U.S.
Constitution-trampling are there in earlier seasons,
but without quite the same gleefulness or corruption
of youth. The Dutton grandson shoots and kills a
man, and we are treated to an interminable sermon
by a Shaman, saying the kid should feel no guilt
at all, shouldn't apologize. Meanwhile the foreman
of the ranch -- the most toxic and vilest among the
characters -- takes in a feral boy and promises to
make a "man" out of him. Well, the last thing we
need is to have a clone of this thug, who actually
brands the ranch's newcomers with a red-hot iron.

Perhaps even more cringe-inducing is the extreme
sentimentalism attached to frontier cowboys, which
the previous seasons at least spared us. This
season is full of tribal self-identification moments
about cowboy chic. In fact, creator Taylor SHeridan
is clearly the long-lost twin of Jane Campion; they
are on the opposite sides of the political divide, but
philosophically they are two peas in the same pod.

I will keep watching as long as Reilly is in it,
and root for the death of the vile Dutton clan
and their criminal associates (except Kelly
Reilly). Of course, this has the self-defeating
flavor of watching Manchester City Mercs soccer
games on Peacock, and hoping the team funded by
the bottomless pockets of Middle Eastern oil
sheiks will lose once in a blue moon.

----------------------------------------------

That's sad thing about Villeneuve's mediocre
adaptation of _Dune_. Frank Herbert is a true
visionary among science fiction writers,* putting
ecology at the center of so many of his novels.
Herbert can be deliberately provocative and
Socratic; his best book is probably _God Emperor
of Dune_, which splits our sympathy between a
thousands-year-old tyrant and the young rebels
out to destroy him. Herbert probably classified
as Libertarian. He preached evolution and
adaptation, and would have scoffed at my brand
of environmentalism aimed at saving the coastal
cultural treasures, like its museums and concert
halls where Anne-Sophie Mutter plays in. Yet
Herbert would have been especially harsh on the
John Duttons, slaves to rituals and unwilling to
adapt. Who can forget the pathetic "museum
Fremens" in _God Emperor of Dune_? Villeneuve's
cowardly adaptation does not even try to stimulate
this kind of discussion.

*Even the most venerated SF "classics" come off
as juvenile compared with Herbert's work. I
dutifully read Isaac Asimov's _Foundation_ in
college. It was written for kids. At one point
there is some problem, so the colony adopts the
"capitalism" approach, and it is instantly solved.
Wonderful. I never have to read this dim wit's
books again. Whereas even with Herbert's minor
work, I get much more out of it now than when
I was reading it as a teenager.

On Friday, June 24, 2022 at 10:22:02 PM UTC-6, septimus_...@q.com wrote:
> "Apres moi, le deluge."
>
> -- attributed to Louis XV of France
>
> In the last episode of season 4 of "Yellowstone" the
> patriah of the fictional Yellowstone Ranch in Montana
> has a discussion with one of his Indian frenemies.
> The Indian asks him what will happen in 100 years.
> John Dutton (Kevin Costner) replies that his precious
> ranch will disintegrate in far less than a century,
> along with the rest of humanity, and it is up to God
> to restart the whole enterprise if He has the stomach
> to.
>

I probably misremembered (and am too lazy to head over to Peacock to check).

The other party in this conversation is probably not the Indian Frenemy, but the
activist judge who throws an environmentalist protestor (Piper Perabo of "Covert
Affairs" fame) in jail for 30+ years, while the Dutton criminal associates continue
to roam free despite their murder sprees, conspiracies to commit torture, corruption,
and a laundry list of other offenses. This judge, like at least two members of the
U.S. Supreme Court, probably lied under oath to get himself elected too.

The Perabo character is depicted as a clueless idealist who (probably?) sleeps
with the Dutton patriarch, at least twice her age. Real environmentalist leaders
would have trounced Dutton in debate about getting rid of cattle. It is not just
animal suffering, although that plays a large part too. Cattle release disproportionate
amount of green house gas, and worst of all, they take up all the land that could
have been used for reforestation or solar panel/wind farms. Experts in the field
contend that every square feet of land on earth needs to be deployed to generate
energy or storage CO2 -- there is just no luxury for cattle grazing. The best thing
we can hope for is that the Dutton gang is finally sent to prison in seaon 5 so the
land can be converted to a beautiful field of man-made blue silicon, with a few
patches left for "Museum cowboys" to nurse their stupid nostalgia -- while lunching
on Impossible Burgers. That's a TV series worth making.