Published Jun 4, 2026, 11:45 AM EDT
Sean is a senior writer for ScreenRant and has been writing about new TV releases since December 2023. He has received multiple advance screenings of popular shows and ideated his own coverage read by hundreds of thousands of readers.
Sean is a self-published author of a Western novel. Sean has also written award-winning opinion pieces related to local politics while getting his Bachelor’s degree in journalism.
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An upcoming Western crime thriller from FX is set to combine the best parts of Taylor Sheridan’s movies and shows and Cormac McCarthy’s legendary novels. Taylor Sheridan and Cormac McCarthy are two of the biggest names in the Western genre as a whole. Sheridan’s movies and shows include major hits like Yellowstone and Landman, while McCarthy wrote some of the most acclaimed Western novels of all time, including Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men.
Despite their shared status, McCarthy and Sheridan’s stories rarely have much overlap. McCarthy’s novels are notoriously grim and brutal, such as the 2007 Coen brothers adaptation of No Country for Old Men. Sheridan’s more recent shows, while they rank among the best Western shows of the last decade, are decidedly lighter, contain more humor, and usually focus on sprawling family dramas and straightforward action.
Now, however, FX is set to adapt That Texas Blood into a show, and it should combine the best parts of Cormac McCarthy and Taylor Sheridan’s Western writing. FX announced a That Texas Blood television show is in production, and that it will be adapting the Image Comics story by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips. Though the series is still in early development and a long way away from a premiere date, it’s already worth being excited about.
Based on the That Texas Blood comics that the FX show is adapting, the upcoming series seems heavily inspired by the works of Cormac McCarthy. That Texas Blood begins by following Randy Terrill, a writer with a dark past who has to return to his small-town Texas birthplace after his brother, Travis, is murdered. Investigating the murder is Sheriff Joe Bob Coates, an aging lawman with an equally bloody past, and the Terrill brothers are only the beginning of his worries.
Joe Bob Coates immediately draws comparisons to Ed Tom Bell, Tommy Lee Jones’ character in the movie adaptation of No Country for Old Men. Both are old lawmen who have seen their share of violence, both get sucked into a massively violent criminal conspiracy, and both are trying to make sense of a very brutal world. Image Comics has even outright compared That Texas Blood to No Country for Old Men in its official description of the comic series (via Image Comics).
That Texas Blood also shares a few similarities with another Cormac McCarthy Western, Blood Meridian. Randy Terrill and Joe Bob Coates, at different points in the comics, are quite literally haunted by the images of violence from their respective pasts, and the story dives heavily into the realm of psychological horror. Like Blood Meridian, That Texas Blood is a story that’s largely about the cruelty of humanity, the rotten meanness of the world, and constant cycles of violence and retribution.
That Texas Blood clearly has the gritty and psychological story of Cormac McCarthy’s works, but it also has quite a few similarities to Taylor Sheridan’s works, particularly his earliest movies. The comic’s focus on brothers Randy and Travis Terrell immediately calls to mind the plot of Hell or High Water. Both movies focus on two brothers with dark pasts, one of whom is decidedly crueler and more psychopathic than the other, and their criminal exploits.
That Texas Blood is being adapted by Jim Mickle and E.L. Katz. No official release date has been released so far.
The almost ever-present and oppressive violence in That Texas Blood also makes it quite similar to another Taylor Sheridan movie, Sicario. Joe Bob Coates deals with the Terrell brothers, but he also reminisces about other instances where he had to stand up to violence and evil in his rural Texas town. Those flashbacks make him very reminiscent of Kate Macer in Sicario, as they’re both young lawbringers thrust headfirst into a startlingly cruel world that’s heavy with action.
Cormac McCarthy’s iconic novel Blood Meridian is one of the greatest works of American literature ever, but has somehow evaded a film adaptation.
More broadly, That Texas Blood also has a lot in common with Taylor Sheridan’s entire body of work. It’s a neo-Western set in the modern day, it deals directly with the concept that the West and traditional ways of doing things are dying, and it almost exclusively focuses on gruff characters in bad situations. Joe Bob Coates feels like an amalgamation of many of Sheridan’s older protagonists in his television series, from the many Dutton patriarchs to Tommy Norris in Landman.
Both Taylor Sheridan and Cormac McCarthy are legends of the Western genre for a reason. They know how to tell a great story, and those stories very easily translate to shows and movies. The fact that That Texas Blood is emulating so many elements of their respective writing styles is a great sign for the show, and a huge reason viewers should be on the lookout for FX’s upcoming Western crime thriller.
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