- Taylor Sheridan’s new series, The Madison, premieres on March 14.
- The 6-episode drama explores powerful themes of family and grief.
- In this exclusive interview, stars of the show explain what makes the show a must-watch.
It’s a wonderful week to be a Taylor Sheridan fan. As if news of Dutton Ranchand Marshals being green-lit for Season 2 isn’t enough to make you excited for the 2026 television lineup, the fact that The Madison is officially here is sure to be the icing on the cake. Let us be clear, though: Taylor Sheridan’s newest series is not like the others. Yes, it’s based in Montana, and yes, there are cowboys in the series, but rather than being your typical, rough-and-tumble Taylor neo-Western, The Madison explores grief, gratitude, solitude, and navigating life after tragedy. In short, it’s unlike anything Taylor has ever created—and, if you ask the cast, there’s no better moment for the show.
“I think where we are in this current state, everyone has experienced deep grief—I have to remember, we are just a few short years away from a pandemic, you know?” actress Rebecca Spence, who plays Liliana Weeks—Stacy Clyburn’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) best friend in the show—tells Country Living. “I think everyone on this planet has an understanding of loss; has an understanding of dealing with the very uncomfortable, personal demands of grief and loss, and the reckoning that you have to do with yourself, and the time that it requires.”
***WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD***
As a refresher, The Madison follows a well-to-do Manhattan family on a journey to rural Montana in the wake of a life-altering tragedy. Stacy and Preston Clyburn (Kurt Russell), along with their adult daughters, Abigail Reese (Beau Garrett) and Paige McIntosh (Elle Chapman), and their families, all reside in the city. Despite being lifelong city dwellers—and the women in the family being self-proclaimed “city mice”—Preston has always adored Montana. Tragically, while embarking on a fly-in fishing trip of a lifetime with his brother, Paul (Matthew Fox), a storm casts the aircraft into the mountains, killing them both in the process. The Madison explores the grief that comes with losing the love of your life, a parent, and a grandparent, just as much as it reflects on the reality that we never truly know every single detail about a person, and the very best we can do is try to be present with the people in our lives, as well as with the emotions that arise.
“I think this [show] is an examination of time,” Rebecca shares. “These great, beautiful, expansive vistas that are shown—I think it's an invitation to slow down for a minute and to put away our distractions, and to really grapple with [the fact that] life comes at you, and you can't avoid it through money, through access, through privilege, through distraction, through an app—as hard as we try to, and as easily as we have become accustomed to getting what we want as conveniently as possible, grief does not allow you to do that. And so what happens when you remove those distractions, and you sit with it? Who shows up for you and who sits with you through those things? The examination of it allows us to recognize and honor everything that happens in that process.”
At a time when so many are consumed by their phones, social media, the news cycle, and myriad other distractions, The Madison urges viewers to learn to embrace each moment, especially in the face of hardship and unimaginable loss. “There are really absurd, funny moments that happen when you're least expecting them in a very down moment, and there are really touching moments, and there are really angry moments, and that entire spectrum of feeling emotions is something that [Taylor] writes beautifully in this series, and I think people who are willing to sit down with it and watch it are going to be profoundly impacted by this offering,” Rebecca says.
Patrick J. Adams, who plays Russell McIntosh, Paige’s husband, couldn’t agree more. “From my lens, we went through, in my family, a pretty serious loss, just a few years ago—very, very, very sudden—that really took my family and just knocked it over, much like this family has to go through in this series; and I think that while we make things about grief all the time, there's something about this series that's discussing it in a way that I don't know that it's ever been done before,” he reveals. “I think by taking a family out of their element and putting them somewhere wild and untamed, where they're very uncomfortable, it somehow physicalizes what grief feels like, which is to be completely removed from everything you felt like you knew.”
The way Patrick sees it, 2026 is the perfect moment for The Madison, but so could have been every year prior and hereafter. “This is as unique a way to discuss these things as I've ever seen, and in classic Taylor fashion, he's thrown everything at it and just put this incredible group of people to task and telling the story, and I think it's one of the great performances of Michelle's career—it just feels timeless; yes, now, but also anytime,” he explains. “I think this is something that we, as human beings, need to deal with; we need to know how to feel our feelings, we need to know how to put our phones down and look each other in the eye and cry deeply, and wail, and laugh at the same time—it's a really difficult thing to discuss and move through, but hopefully a show like this can really promote that.”
Beyond inspiring viewers to embrace their emotions, The Madison also makes a case for coming together and recognizing that, no matter your background, connection and community are possible.
“This show is about people from very disparate backgrounds who find common ground in their shared humanity, and in their shared experience of love and loss, and Taylor does such a beautiful job in drawing the whole spectrum of what that experience is, and how, in the darkest times, you look for light, and sometimes you find it in the most unexpected places,” says actor Ben Schnetzer, who plays Van Davis in the show. “Taylor is such a student of the human experience and condition, and has this gift of translating it into beautiful prose.”
Throughout the series, in showing how New Yorkers and Montanans relate, Taylor reminds viewers that it’s possible to overcome our differences in an effort to join together in our greatest time of need—whatever that may be in real life.
“I think [the show] also makes us ask [ourselves] what we think we know—what we think we know about ourselves and what we think we know about people, and sort of the prejudices that we have for certain people from certain places,” Rebecca explains. “It's a real test of saying, ‘Hold.’ You can't ask for empathy if you don't give it. And I think it's a real opportunity for both sides—I think it's easy to come to some certain assumptions about the Clyburns and who they are, and from the circle of privilege that they live—[Taylor] challenges all of those things, because he shows people in the totality of their humanity, to show that we actually all have a lot more in common.”
The first three episodes of The Madison dropped on Saturday, March 14, on Paramount+. The second three episodes will arrive on Saturday, March 21. As it currently stands, the next six episodes, presumably Season 2, have already wrapped filming. The questions now are, when will episodes 7 through 12 arrive, and will the series live on beyond that?
“There's no reason for it to end after two,” actor Kevin Zegers, who plays Cade Harris, tells Country Living. “We finished [filming] in December, and it certainly didn't feel like a conclusion; I certainly don't get the sense that it's concluded in [Taylor’s] mind…I'll do this as long as he wants to keep writing the story.”
