REVIEW: ‘The Madison’ Is Tyler Sheridan’s Best Series

Paramount+ is back with another Taylor Sheridan series, and this time, it’s all about grief, and pretty much only that. With Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead role, The Madison captures a family at the point of tragedy and how that moment impacts the rest of their lives. 

In The Madison, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell are a married couple, Preston and Stacey Clyburn. They’ve done well for themselves and their daughters, offering them a life of privilege in Manhattan. One daughter, Paige (Elle Chapman), is a nightmare of a human entitlement, spending more time worrying about her needs being met than understanding other people, even her husband, Russell (Patrick J. Adams). The other daughter, Abigail (Beau Garrett), is the eldest and seemingly more down-to-earth, with two daughters of her own, Bridgett (Amiah Miller) and Macy (Alaina Pollack). But her taste in men is shown as her biggest flaw as she deals with her divorce. 

Throughout the series, we see conversations between Preston and Stacey about their daughters, their futures, and whether they should keep helping them or push them to help themselves. It’s Sheridan’s not-so-subtle continuous message that rural trumps city. Ultimately, we know what Tyler Sheridan is always going to say, given his work on Yellowstone and Landman, and there is no way around it. However, it’s hard to define why I agree with him for once. 

A Yellowstone spin-off, The Madison is Tyler Sheridan’s most intimate and relatable work.

Maybe it’s because I have been traveling the United States far more frequently, which has made me love and miss Texas in a way I didn’t expect. So, maybe it’s the kindred spirits between former Texas State Bobcat Sheridan and me connecting across media. But the reality is that I don’t hate his takes on city life versus rural life, I only see the ways in which a city in Texas, like Austin, is drastically different than a coastal city like New York City or Los Angeles. And having met more than enough people on both coasts, the way we are raised speaks volumes. 

The Madison exposes my frustrations when I visit the coasts, but whether it’s accurate is something I can’t detail. When we focus on something other than the urban vs. rural dichotomy that Sheridan emphasizes, The Madison becomes more intimate. More specifically, this is one of the most intimate series Sheridan is attached to. 

This is about one family and a mother’s regrets, but more importantly, it’s about one woman as she tries to find a path forward after her husband’s death. Stacy doesn’t know who she is anymore. Not only does she not understand who she is as an individual, but Stacey also doesn’t understand what her life is like without her husband, who served as her bellwether. 

Michelle Pfeiffer’s grief-filled performance carries The Madison. 

The family has shrunk, and so has their ability for empathy. It’s an element of the series that changes the Cyburns as they head to Montana to settle their uncle and father’s cabin. It becomes a place of grief, but it quickly turns into a site of honor when Stacey discovers Preston’s journal. 

In that journal, Stacey sees the land and the cabin through his eyes. It’s too late to appreciate it with him, but not too late to find the life that he wanted and take it for herself. While The Madison embraces family drama as a central theme and narrative device, the heart of this series is Stacey, and Michelle Pfeiffer carries this show’s weight with grace and emotion. 

Despite some dialogue hiccups that don’t acknowledge subtext, Pfeiffer’s performance as Stacey is deeply emotional and relatable. This is a woman who is not the same person without her husband. Not the same mother without her husband. And most importantly, showcases the grief someone feels when their children are older, not something to keep a close eye on. 

This is the type of grief my mother or father will face. I saw my grandfather suffer. I have been with my husband for 12 years now, and even though that is a drop in the bucket compared to the decades these two characters have shared, he has changed me irrevocably. This doesn’t mean that I won’t survive a life without him, just that I truly can not imagine it. 

The Madison will benefit from a Season 2, where the melodrama can settle.

The Madison is that liminal space at the moment of loss where everything stands still, right before you choose to accept the world is now without your loved one. The melodrama in The Madison is still present, but it’s almost masked by the intimacy of our time with Stacey. 

The series is filled with humor and heart, but it’s how we see Stacey grow as a character, and the small ripples of change we see in the Clyburn daughters that make the show’s impact. While some of the family drama is a bit too on-the-nose, the takeaway is simple. Love changes us, and grief changes that love, making it stronger and more forceful, pushing people to hold on to it more tightly. 

The plot moves from Manhattan and Madison Avenue to the Madison River valley of central Montana, but the emotion we see along the way makes The Madison the most relatable of Sheridan’s ever-growing list of Paramount+ series. A Yellowstone spin-off, there is a future for the Clyburns in Montana, and Season 2 can’t come soon enough. 

The Madison is streaming now, exclusively on Paramount+.