The wait is finally over – Dutton Ranch is here!
Nearly two years after Yellowstone aired its final episode, Beth and Rip’s story will continue on their new spin-off show Dutton Ranch.
Paramount+ reveals the log line of the show as, “As Beth and Rip fight to build a future together – far from the ghosts of Yellowstone – they collide with brutal new realities and a ruthless rival ranch that will stop at nothing to protect its empire. In South Texas, blood runs deeper, forgiveness is fleeting, and the cost of survival might just be your soul.”
When this log line was released, fans immediately wondered why they were in South Texas when they ended the Yellowstone series at a ranch in Montana. All our answers will be answered in due time.
Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser are both returning as Beth and Rip, and Finn Little will reprise his role as Carter, their psuedo-adopted son. Newcomers include Ed Harris, Annette Bening, Juan Pablo Raba, Jai Courtney, J.R. Villarreal, Marc Menchaca, and Natalie Alyn Lind.
Dutton Ranch includes nine episodes that will be released as scheduled below:
May 15: Episodes 1 & 2
May 22: Episode 3
May 29: Episode 4
June 5: Episode 5
June 12: Episode 6
June 19: Episode 7
June 26: Episode 8
July 3: Episode 9
Read our full recap of the first two episodes below.
Episode 1 – “The Untold Want”
The premiere episode begins with Beth saddling her horse and walking out of the barn to see Rip already staring into the gorgeous backdrop they call home, Montana. They go for a long ride, which, if you remember, Beth did not ride horses for a many years due to her mother’s death, so this is a big deal for her to actually enjoy this!
They take a break under a tree and reflect on the quietness and how much they enjoyed the day. They promised to do rides like this whenever they needed it, and fell asleep under the tree, but Rip was woken up by lightning strikes and thunder roaring in the wind.
A mountain in the distance went up in flames and the couple rushed back to their land. The fire was approaching their home too quickly and they knew they had to leave. Beth grabbed Carter, grabbed what they could from inside their house and loaded up their horses in the trailer while Rip cut the fences to free their cattle.
It was a frightening scene as Rip was mere inches from the flames and the winds were picking up.
Beth and Carter, with their horses in the trailer, drove away from the danger, looking in the rearview at the new life they built themselves literally burned to the ground. She knew Rip would want them to leave without him, so her not knowing if he’d make it out was an even more frightening than losing their whole ranch.
At the evacuation zone, Beth couldn’t wait any longer to know if Rip was okay so she and Carter unhooked their trailer and she went looking for her husband. She found him carrying a calf he went back to rescue. He collapsed to the ground as he got off his horse and said, “It’s gone, it’s all gone, I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. We start again,” she told him.
The show resumes six months later in Rio Paloma, Texas.
During the first morning we see him, Ripp tells Beth, “I miss waking up to the mountains.”
We then meet our first new characters, from 10 Petal Ranch, Rob-Will (Jai Courtney) and Chet (Hart Denton), who the audience can tell from the jump are unsavory characters. Well, at least Rob-Will.
He gets a ranch hand, Wes, from the bunkhouse and confronts him about looking at his tally books. Rob-Will is clearly skimming, and doing a bad job at that, and is mad he got caught. After confronting Wes about the situation, Rob-Will shoots and kills him, shocking Chet.
Then, we meet Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening), who clearly runs a tight ship. She arrives at her barn, where cattle are being ready to be moved, but no foreman or ranch hands in sight.
Rob-Will is her foreman, and we also learn that he is her son who still lives in her house, along with Joaquin (Juan Pablo Raba), 10P Ranch’s fixer. Because of his absence, she believes he has “fallen off the wagon” again. This statement, along with seeing Rob-Will snort cocaine after he killed his own ranch hand, show that Rob-Will is a wild cannon.
At a gas station, Rip and Azul (J.R. Villarreal), his foreman, run into Rob-Will, who is spewing racist remarks at Azul and eventually turns his aggression towards Rip. We all know this is terrible idea for Rob-Will. He pulls his gun on Rip, who grabs it away with ease and punches his aggressor. Rob-Will drives off, leaving behind Chet.
Beth walks into Beulah’s office to get six of their steer slaughtered to sell, but their meeting gets off on the wrong foot, go figure! Beulah offers to take them, even though they don’t usually do business with ranches that have less than 50 cows to slaughter, but will make an exception for Beth.
Instead of taking a deposit, Beulah says they just take a cut of the proceeds, which Beth says is extortion. In true Beth fashion, she heads to a bar to figure out her next move. There, she encounters Carol, a bartender played by country singer Morgan Wade, Hoyt, an offensive cowboy, and Everett McKinney (Ed Harris).
During her drive home, the road is blocked for an accident, which left a horse impaled. She went to put it out of its misery, but she had a change of heart after locking eyes with the sweet horse.
Everett arrives to put the horse down, but Beth convinces him to try to save her, after making sure he is a good vet, of course.
Carter now attends high school, where he doesn’t think math is useful for a cowboy, but Beth assures him it is and encourages him to go to social events and make friends.
A girl Carter met at school, and clearly has a crush on, invites him to the rodeo that evening, even saying, “It’s a date!” Being the gentleman that he is, Carter arrives at the event with flowers and waits patiently. He learns quickly that she only asked him out so he could buy her and her friends beer. Even though he is only 19, he looks much older so he didn’t have trouble getting two six packs from the rodeo.
We know Rip will handle this situation quietly and hopefully that won’t bite him and Beth in the butt in the long run. On to episode two…
Episode 2 – “Earn Another Day”
The episode begins eight days after the fire that took their Montana ranch. Rip called everyone he knows to figure out where he, Beth, and Carter could go. Walker, one of the old Yellowstone Dutton Ranch’s hands, told him about an opportunity in Rio Paloma, Texas.
They go to meet the seller, who reveals that Beulah Jackson has been after their land for 20 years, but they knew the 10P would turn it into something they didn’t want. She trusts that Rip and Beth will leave it as is and continue her late husband’s legacy. Knowing that’s all her father wanted too, Beth assures her they will continue their vision.
Rip pulled a page out of John Dutton’s playbook and waited outside a prison on release day looking for a cowboy. He finds Zachariah Moss, who confesses that he found the Lord while in prison.
“Does your God prevent you from cowboying?” Rip asks him, to which Zachariah responds, “God loves cowboys.”
And so, the Dutton Ranch found their first ranch hand.
Joaquin and Rob-Will go to move Wes’s body off of the Dutton Ranch land, but they discover that it is gone. Rob-Will heads to a five-star rehab center in Sedona, Arizona, while his brother is left to clean up his mess, which is something he seems to have to do a lot.
Wes’s wife, Ava, and child arrive at the bunkhouse to try and see him, but obviously he is not there. Not even the cowboy can tell her where he is. Joaquin tells her he probably just ran off with another woman, but she is insisting that he’d never run out on them. It seems like she won’t give up until she finds an answer, which means trouble for the 10P.
Wes’s widow, Ava, shows up at the Sheriff’s office to file a missing person’s report and urges them to look into the people at the 10 Petal. Fearing for her safety, Ava packs up and attempts to flee.
This fact lets us know that the Sheriff is in the pocket of Beulah Jackson and that the missing persons report made by Wes’s wife will likely fall on deaf ears. Joaquin tries to pay off Wes’s wife, who is adamant about finding her husband and placing the blame on the 10P Ranch.
Beulah appoints Chet as foreman while Rob-Will is away at rehab, knowing that she has a hold on him for witnessing Wes’ murder.
Zachariah and Azul reunite and the prisoner thanks Azul for the work. They immediately begin moving the pasture to get ready for the calf that Rip and Beth bought at an auction, beating out Beulah, might we add!
Beth and Everett take a drive to San Antonio so Beth can meet Everett’s friend who owns a slaughterhouse. Knowing Beulah’s reputation, he advises people to go further out of town to avoid doing business with her.
Joaquin tells his mother about Wes’s body being gone and she instructs him to find out what Beth and Rip know.
Oreana convinces Carter to skip school so they can go hang out.
When Oreana drops Carter back off at school, we find out that she is Rob-Will’s daughter, and therefore Beulah’s granddaughter. This is shown through her receiving text messages from them, so Carter has no clue. And we bet this will be a problem for Beth and Rip.
Beth introduces Rip to Everett at the bar where they first met. Turns out, Everett sings a bit and when he got up on stage, Beth and Rip share a sweet dance.
In the middle of the night, Rip handles the body he found, which he was storing in a deep freezer. He drives out to an area where he stopped with Zachariah on their drive from prison and dumps the body there. The new train station.
Beth wakes up to find her husband gone and that’s where episode two ends.
Wow, what a ride! We gotta say, we’ve enjoyed these two episode thoroughly and we’re already mad there’s only nine episodes of the season. Tune in next Friday for Episode Three, “Act Of God Business.”
