@unclegrambo Published March 14, 2026, 4:00 p.m. ET Where to Stream: The Madison Powered by Reelgood More On: The Madison ‘The Madison’ Episode 3 Recap: Don’t Call Me, Daughter ‘The Madison’ Stars Patrick J. Adams & Elle Chapman Know Exactly How Their Characters Met: “He Constantly Feels Like She Is Out Of His League” ‘The Madison’ Episode 2 Recap: All Butts Are Off Michelle Pfeiffer Had A “Couple Of Tequilas” With Taylor Sheridan Before She Agreed To Star In ‘The Madison’: “He Laid It Out For Me” We’re back in conversational flashback mode for Episode 3 of The Madison (“Let Her Fall”), and this time Stacy and Preston Clyburn are discussing their oldest daughter’s impending divorce. Abby married some guy named Dallas, a “dilettante,” according to Preston, who she and her daughters are better off without. But these parents could have predicted this union’s failure, because for them the root problem is their daughter. Stacy wants to let Abby figure out her next move herself, by removing the financial safety net they probably left in place too long.
“If you had had parents that you could run to every time life got hard,” Stacy asks, “would you be the man you are today?” But Preston is more philosophical about the makeup of their oldest. “Even if we had remained poor,” he says – a flashback inside the flashback to Young Preston and Young Stacy eating ramen in a coldwater flat – Abby would have always been a dreamer. Big dreams, but no follow-through. Desires, but no belief. And he can’t just cut her off. It’s his job to be there for his children. Anyway, it wouldn’t make Abby finally love herself.
A soft fade, from lux Manhattan living to lush western vistas, which are disrupted by the bickering of battling sisters. Against a backdrop of elk sausage for breakfast, Paige has a few site-specific zingers to unleash on Abby. Calls her Little Miss House on the Prairie. A “juice-fasting fucking hypocrite.” And as Russell hustles Bridgette and Macy out the cabin door, Paige and Abby throw hands in an entertaining prizefight full of grunts, closed fists, crashing dishes, and flying sausages. Of course it’s Stacy who douses them with water. If she could only get her spoiled daughters to express this much emotion at the passing of their father.
We have enjoyed Stacy Clyburn’s personal back to the land movement, her own tribute to Preston’s passing. And it’s all in service to The Madison being Michelle Pfeiffer’s show. Even when Stacy isn’t saying anything, just observing, we understand how she’s assembling the parts of a transformed life. And to this end, she’ll use the task of picking up Paul’s truck from the cops to challenge Abby.
But first let’s expand their local universe. Before Cade Harris drives them into town they stop at the ranch next door, where he lives with his wife Kestrel (Danielle Vasinova) and their kids. (Cade and Kestrel’s backstory – rodeo rider meets barrel racer – makes them Bunkhouse Boys-adjacent, the way The Madison is Yellowstone-adjacent.) And once they’ve claimed Paul’s big Dodge Ram 2500, driving back on US-89 in a convoy with Cade, Stacy drops her tough love bomb. Either Abby stays in Montana with her mother, or Stacy will sell the New York house she bought her daughter. She can figure out life’s next steps on her own. This is the cut-off Stacy lobbied for in the flashback, and it results in Abby demanding to be let out of the vehicle.
Cade notices this in his rearview, so he calls in an assist. And while Abby is scooped from the highway shoulder by handsome Madison County sheriff’s deputy Van Davis (Ben Schentzer) – hmm, that seems convenient – Cade drives back to where Stacy herself has stopped. She is hefting Paul’s revolver, which she found in the pickup’s center console. Again this is Pfeiffier showing us Stacy’s inner life, where it would theoretically be so easy to rejoin Preston. But Cade is cognizant of what she’s considering. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, he calls it, and a contagious one: his father, uncle, and brother all committed suicide. His voice is gentle, respectful. “How would you feel about me hanging onto that?”
Van’s way with Abby was similarly respectful, full of “Yes ma’am”’s and quiet references to the differences in their lives. But the spark between them was immediate, and later, as they watch Cade and Kestrel’s daughter ride horses, Abby leans in. Van has two boys, and he’s a widower. She is divorced with two children of her own. You couldn’t build a guy in a lab who was more Montana meet-cute for this displaced New York girl. “Good timing is not something I was blessed with,” she says, and before the country boy can even ask, she kisses him and says yes. There is a cemetery to plot out and a funeral to plan, but after all that, she’ll have some free time. Maybe to pursue her own transformed life.
Back at the riverside cabins, Russell and Paige, with the little girls, have broken out the last of the homemade meals. The griping has softened, still out of necessity – some city people love to revel in their helplessness – but also from what is probably their own version of settling in. (“Indian tacos,” the local favorite for picnics, have become “Indigenous tacos.”) Stacy smiles from over on her little porch, where she sits with a glass of red wine and Preston’s journals. Hearing her family laughing together, by these tranquil waters, under this vast field of stars, she thinks a little tough love has helped make progress on the distance between all of them. She looks up. “Told you, honey.”
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
