‘The Abandons’: Netflix's Shockingly Bad Attempt at Its Own 'Yellowstone'

Everyone wants their very own Yellowstone. For Netflix, The Abandons will not be it.

A cross between Taylor Sheridan’s Western hits (most notably, 1883) and HBO’s classic frontier drama Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter’s series is a pretender through and through, piling on clichés without any sense of authenticity, rhythm, or originality.

A compendium of evocative fiddle music, beautiful landscape panoramas, and fighting, shooting, riding, cursing, and scheming, this 19th-century saga, premiering Dec. 4 on Netflix, is a clunker that, with its every plot twist and cornball title card, flirts with parody. No matter the voracious scenery-chewing of Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey, its manifest destiny is bleak.

(Warning: Some spoilers follow.)

In the Washington Territory ci