‘The Madison’ is Not Part of the ‘Yellowstone’ Universe, & Like... Why Not?!

Why’d I think The Madisons was a Yellowstone sequel?

If a new show looks like a Yellowstone show and talks like Yellowstone, that still does not make it a Yellowstone show. Taylor Sheridan’s latest series The Madison is not part of the Yellowstone-verse, as confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter.

You’ve definitely seen the ads and just assumed Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell were in a new Yellowstone show, right? Even when you start to learn more about the show, it seems a little silly that they aren’t connected. They’re both about families. They’re both named after places in Montana; Yellowstone takes place near Yellowstone National Park and The Madison takes place under three hours away by care in the Madison River Valley. But the Clyburn family and the Dutton dynasty will never, as of now, meet in fiction.

“That was certainly a question because that’s how it was [announced] in the world,” Patrick J. Adams, one of the cast members of the new series, told The Hollywood Reporter. According to the trade publication, The Madison was originally conceived as a sequel to Yellowstone.

In 2023, THR reported that a show in the Yellowstone-verse with the working title 2024 was in the works. That next year (fittingly), in August, that show cast Pfeiffer in the lead. By December it had on new title: The Madison. It was still, at that time, supposed to be a Yellowstone sequel. That happened. You didn’t imagine it.

Sometime between then and now, according to Sheridan, the show he wrote got further and further away from Yellowstone until he considered it to be a standalone thing. Adams told THR that, even when they were filming, they expected a crossover to happen that never came. The cast and crew is so enthusiastic about continuing the show that maybe it is good that it’s own thing. They can create their own lore.

Are there other Taylor Sheridan stand-alone shows?

Yes! There is a “Sheridan-verse” that includes Yellowstone, its actual prequels and sequels, as well as a handful of other shows from the creator that are Dutton-free. The Madison is certainly not an outlier. Sheridan wears a lot of showrunner hats.

Probably the most well-known non-Yellowstone member of the Sheridan-verse before The Madison is Mayor of Kingstown. That series takes place in Michigan and stars Jeremy Renner as the reluctant leader of a corrupt community. Next, IMHO, is Landman with Billy Bob Thornton as a Texas oil, well, landman. There’s also Lioness, which stars Zoe Saldaña as the leader of a team of female CIA operatives. Finally, don’t forget Tulsa King: a mafia dramedy set in Oklahoma starring Sylvester Stallone.

All of those shows can be found on Paramount+ and are ongoing. Technically, Sheridan is working on more non-Yellowstone shows than those in the Yellowstone universe. Really, the only reason that it feels weird for The Madison to not be a sequel or spin-off is the setting’s physical proximity to the Dutton Ranch in Montana. That, and the fact that it was supposed to be a sequel. Who knows? Maybe Sheridan will change his mind again.