Something worth fighting for: The definitive ranking of Yellowstone mustaches

2. Lloyd Pierce — Yellowstone

Played by: Forrie J. Smith

Mustache Style: Horseshoe

Lloyd Pierce is an outlier in the Yellowstone bunkhouse, an old-timer, a cowboy from another era, with the energy to (mostly) keep up with the younger hands and the experience and institutional knowledge to (mostly) steer them out of trouble. He is a bow-legged rider with a boot in two different worlds, speaking up for the value of tradition while doing whatever it takes to help the ranch adapt and meet each new threat.

The salt-and-pepper horseshoe of actor Forrie J. Smith is a perfect accouterment for the role, a facial hair style that hasn’t evolved since the early '70s. It, quite literally, marks Pierce as someone who begrudgingly accepts change but prefers things to stay the way they’ve always been.

1. Shea Brennan — 1883

Played by: Sam Elliott

Mustache Style: Chevron/Walrus

Sam Elliott is already on the American Mustache Mt. Rushmore and he lent the gravitas of his prodigious pushbroom to 1883. Elliott’s mustache is really a work of art — bringing authenticity and both physical and psychological heft — to the character of Shea Brennan. Its bulk and volume stood in sharp contrast to his willow-thin frame and, wrapped around that playful, crooked smile, were a visual reminder that for all the loss, hardship and suffering Brennan had endured in his life, something essential still endured.

It was a pantheon performance by a pantheon mustache.