When someone recommends a TV show, they never explain it properly because they already bought in and accepted the premise.

My brother recommended The Madison, a new Taylor Sheridan series.  The premise is that the father of this fancy NYC family goes to Montana every year to fish and do guy stuff with his brother.  The father and his brother die in the first episode, so the show is about the fancy wife and the rest of the family going out to Montana to settle mortuary and estate business, while experiencing the back-to-nature lifestyle that the father cherished.  

Not plausible.  This loving couple is married for decades, and every year, the husband goes off to Montana for the time of his life with his brother, and the wife never goes along? 

They have the time and money, but she never made the effort to fill in that gap in their relationship.  That is too fantastic to believe.

In my experience, the wife would want to share something so personal and cherished by her husband, or want to make sure it’s basically safe, or want to know what he’s up to, or want to horn in and make it a family vacation.  Something.

One summer in Hong Kong, this was my teaching assistant.

He is a rocket scientist.  More specifically, he is a university mathematics professor who specializes in orbital mechanics.  He has black belts in five martial arts and is a competitive ballroom dancer.  He took the job of being my gofer for three weeks as we taught 11 year-olds how to program Lego robots.

He was serious-minded and from Latvia, so he sounded Russian and seemed like he could be one of Putin’s bodyguards.  When we first met, he said, “Rick.  I must tell you, I know nothing about children.”

He was attentive to his privacy, so I am not being very specific about his background or identity.

He was an excellent TA and great to work with, but I was curious about why he would take a month to work in a job usually held by a college freshman that paid very little.

His wife was several levels up in my chain-of-command.  Usually, everyone on-site at a CTY summer camp was a temporary employee.  Program coordinators, like his wife, were full-time Johns Hopkins staff, and stayed in Baltimore, maybe visiting a site for a day. 

My TA took the job to see what his wife did.  He wanted to understand why she was so enthusiastic about the program.  He had the opportunity to learn more about something that was important to his wife, so he did.  Some version of this seems typical for committed spouses.

My brother, who is and has a committed spouse, wasn’t troubled by the lack of interest shown by The Madison wife.

Since a TV season is usually less than a dozen episodes, I am trying The Madison.  It occurs to me that I am only watching this series for my brother’s sake and because I have the time and the means to do so.  Something the wife in The Madison, and maybe my brother, wouldn’t understand.

I’m not doing a full review, just first impressions from a few episodes.

Dr. Jack and Snake Plissken are brothers.

In the series, Dr. Jack is loaded, and has the jack to afford a big spread in Montana where he lives alone and goes fishing.  He might be a fishing guide or he may be retired.  He has been living like this for decades.

IRL, Matthew Fox is a pilot and avid fisherman, two pursuits that are central to the plot.

Kurt Russell’s unique talent is the ability to hold a baseball cap on his knee, without worrying about it falling into the river.

Seriously, in that scene, the baseball cap was distracting . 

Since fishing is boring, jocular dialogue demonstrates the relaxed relationship between the brothers.

Snake:  “If I don’t catch anything soon, I might switch to a bobtail swallow!”

Har-har-har.

Jack:  “You do that and you may as well fish with a ring-neck spooner for all the good it will do you!”

More robust laughter. 

I just made up that dialogue, but it was something like that.  When I talk to my brother, we are more earnest and informative.

Davy:  “At that cabin, there isn’t even a bathroom.  It’s an outhouse, and it’s on wheels so he can move it.”

Me:  “Why doesn’t he have a composting toilet?”

Davy: “They have those?  How does it work?  Do you have to empty it?”

Me:  “There is bacteria or something to breakdown the crap, then I don’t know what you do.”

Davy:  “There’s a hornets nest in the outhouse, and the daughter gets stung on her ass and other places.”

Me: “Now that’s just willful negligence.  Hornets are dicks.”

Then I tell him a hornet story. 

Anyway, Snake’s relationship with his brother and trout fishing is deep and meaningful.

Snake and Catwoman were married and had 39 wonderful years together.

They live in NYC, are rich and members of high society.  Catwoman mentions that they are attending the Met Gala.  They have two daughters, and one of them has two daughters.

When Snake and Dr. Jack die in a plane crash, the whole family travels to Montana to settle affairs.  Since Jack had no attachments, Catwoman inherits his patch.

The Madison is a little bit like a knock-knock joke.  Accept the form, play along, don’t ask questions, and you might like the pay-off.

We don’t know how or why Snake and Dr. Jack have the money to live like they do, but since Catwoman is comfortable with high society, we assume they were born into fortunate circumstances.

In Montana, Jack has two cabins, a barn and a hornet-infested outhouse.  Where did Jack and Snake shit?  A medium sized hornet’s nest in the honey chamber of an outhouse makes it unusable.  The cabins have water and electricity, but no outlets, even though there are two refrigerators and lamps all over the place. 

How did Jack spend his time?  I’m only two episodes in, so maybe those details are explained, but I don’t think so.  Just accept that he lives close to nature, with a few minor inconveniences.

Snake seems to be a decent man who embraces a life that doesn’t suit him in NYC.  His family is terrible and deserve to live in a terrible urban area.  Even for high society, NYC is dangerous and isolated.  Snake is a mountain man, and Catwoman is a city mouse.

Catwoman thinks she is skilled at handling high society life, but she is weak and brittle.  When she hears of Snake’s death, she makes a scene in public and treats everyone horribly.

Catwoman is no Queen Elizabeth II who can handle adversity with stoic pragmatism.

I get it.  She just heard that her husband is dead.  You don’t get to 60 years old without some tragedy, and developing some ability to function.

Catwoman is rich, established, has friends and her children are grown.  Most people who lose a spouse don’t have all of those advantages, and behave much better.  She lived a blessed life, and acts like she is cursed.

In Montana, Catwoman finds Snake’s journal he kept on vacation.  She always felt that Snake was lucky to have married her, but never realized that she was lucky to have married Snake.  There was much more to him than she ever bothered to learn about.

Catwoman figures out that her kids are ‘little bitches’, but doesn’t make the leap to figuring out that Snake was a real man surrounded by little bitches.  Even his son-in-law is a little bitch.

The daughters and granddaughters are surprised to learn that they are little bitches.

They are.  They are the worst kind of cocooned privileged people who are living life on easy mode.

Catwoman realizes that she missed the chance to know her husband while he was alive, so by reading his journal and staying in Montana, she can cosplay life as the wife she could have been, but wasn’t.

I assume that will be the primary theme of the series.

The older daughter is starting to realize that her father was a man living with a bunch of little bitches, so she may experience some personal growth.  The younger daughter got her ass and lady parts stuck by a bunch of hornets, so we witness her struggling with that. 

Eventually she will realize that her husband is a little bitch, and he will either man up or she will take up with a cowboy.

The characters are mostly likeable, but ignorant.  The cast is so attractive, I had a time keeping the relationship’s straight.  The younger daughter seems only a little older than the older granddaughter, and the older daughter seems to be just a little younger than Catwoman. 

The Montana setting is scenic and shot well.  Every time they are outside, it seems to be sunrise or sunset. 

Because I have the time, I will finish watching the series.  I will always be vexed at how self-centered and disinterested Catwoman is in her own family.  She squandered such an attractive opportunity.

Had she cared, Catwoman could have gone out to Montana with Snake.  Before they had kids, Catwoman could have taken a friend to help her pass the time while the guys were fishing.  The friend would be attractive, single and morally flexible enough to sleep with Jack.  Catwoman and her slutty friend would stay for less than a week to allow the guys some time on their own.

When the kids were old enough, Catwoman and Snake would bring them along to learn to fish, ride horses and spend time in nature without devices.  Jack had the second cabin setup just for them, so he was amenable.

Okay, Snake gets some blame for this also.  When Snake and Jack were sitting on the porch, taking a break from fishing, they must have had some meaningful conversations.  You can’t trade witty barbs about pin-feather bobbins all the time.  Maybe Snake needed an escape from the tyranny of bitches, and didn’t see that he could actually influence his family dynamics.

Life was easy for Snake and Catwoman.  When you are coasting down easy street, it isn’t obvious that you can steer.