The Madison is being advertised as a Kurt Russell\u2013and\u2013Michelle Pfeiffer show, so it may surprise viewers to realize that\u2014mild spoiler alert\u2014Russell\u2019s character dies in a plane crash halfway through Episode 1. The death gives the show a very Nicholas Sparks feeling, as Preston still makes appearances via a logbook he leaves in his cabin that Stacy reads, and in flashbacks in Stacy\u2019s mind. The two seem to have had a lot of conversations about evolutionary history. \u201cMen thrive when they\u2019re singularly focused; women thrive with multiple tasks,\u201d Preston says to explain the appeal of Montana to Stacy, who, luxuriating in a bubble bath in an absolutely gorgeous freestanding tub, replies, \u201cWhat a bunch of bullshit! Just say you want to go fishing with your brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Stacy loved Preston, as we hear over and over, and once he\u2019s gone, she feels guilty that she didn\u2019t make Montana a family destination more often, or maybe allow him to live a different kind of life, without mandatory appearances at the Met Gala\u2014one more like his brother\u2019s. The fact that this makes little sense\u2014we see in other flashbacks that Paul was in Montana because his own grief has pushed him into a state of unhealthy isolation, and there\u2019s no way Preston could have made the kind of bubble-bath\/Met Gala money he made in New York while living in Montana\u2014is honestly OK. This is grief; as the therapist played (totally straight-faced) by Will Arnett in later episodes says, it comes out in all kinds of ways.<\/p>\n
Viewers of other Sheridan shows will spot recycled elements in The Madison\u2014or, to put it more charitably, types of characters the showrunner has returned to over time. Sheridan loves to write rich women, and the Clyburns offer a full palette of possibilities. Stacy Clyburn calls her daughters and granddaughters \u201cspoiled bitches\u201d while she\u2019s in the \u201canger\u201d stage of her grief, and while that\u2019s certainly one type of rich lady Sheridan likes to mock, the fixation is a little more multifaceted than that here. Stacy, like Demi Moore\u2019s character Cami Miller on Landman<\/a>, mourns her wealthy husband with a verve and commitment that starts to seem like wish fulfillment on the part of a wealthy, aging writer. Pfeiffer plays Stacy sharp, tired, and wise\u2014an aspirational living legacy for a guy who did no wrong. Stacy, of course, says she will never love again.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, daughter Abigail (Beau Garrett), a Pilates-toned thirtysomething who wears jarringly heavy makeup every day of her visit in Montana, has married and divorced a useless musician and is living off her father\u2019s money. Abby seems to be a Montana girl born in the wrong place, which you can see by the character detail of her having gotten pregnant at 20, and by the romantic plotline where she falls in love with a handsome sheriff (Ben Schnetzer)\u2014shades of Yellowstone\u2019s Beth Dutton, the sad little rich girl who was always going to end up with the cowboy Rip. And Abigail isn\u2019t the only New York girl on The Madison who fantasizes about having sex with what Stacy would call a \u201creal man.\u201d In a startling conversation in a later episode, Stacy\u2019s best friend from New York, who\u2019s visiting Montana to help out, confesses that she wishes \u201csome cousin of the Unabomber\u201d would kidnap her and hold her in his cabin, in what she describes as \u201ca warped romance-novel version of abduction.\u201d Women, Sheridan perceives, all want this same thing\u2014a man who will bury your dad and uncle on a hill by a river, using only horses, a shovel, and two leather straps.<\/p>\n
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