‘Yellowstone’ recap: A cattle crisis, a crucial flashback, a little fun for the cowboys
Season 5, Episode 7: “The Dream is Not Me”
Spoiler alert (seasonal!): Now you listen to me. I don’t want any plastics and I don’t want any ground floors. And I don’t want to hear complaints about spoilers *ever* from anyone. You understand that? (But seriously, y’all, watch the episode if you haven’t yet.)
Nicole Russell, opinion writer: What an episode this was! I immediately got the feeling that this is what the writers had been building toward.
Episode 7 starts with a flashback, which I normally don’t like, but this is probably one of the most important moments back in time we’ve seen yet. If you’ve ever wondered why Rip is so intensely loyal to John Dutton and the Yellowstone Ranch, we learn the answer to that question here.
Rip’s a teen here, and while out keeping watch over the cattle with another cowboy, Rowdy, in the middle of the night, Randy confesses his lust for Beth to Rip, who also fancies her. Rip, ever the orphaned dog ready to bite, beats the ever-lovin’ cowboy out of him. Though Rip races back to John to get help, by the time they get to Rowdy, he’s died from his wounds.
The men make a pact: Even though Rip confessed to beating Randy to a pulp, John says he’ll cover for him as long as he’s loyal to the ranch, literally, until his death. Wow. The fact that Rip’s loyalty pact with John involves his defense of Beth’s honor makes it all the more revealing.
Ryan J. Rusak, opinion editor: Indeed, I enjoyed almost everything about this episode: the beef business nerdiness; the fun at the state fair; the romantic interludes. Even the political angles were tolerable. And as ranch-hand Lloyd might say, this one was chock full of cowboy, uh, stuff.
I agree that the opener hit me as a crucial flashback. We see here why Rip is willing to do the extreme things he’s called to do to defend the ranch. It’s also a good reminder that so much of what happens on the Yellowstone is built on violence and crime.
Nicole: In the next scene, we see a poignant moment between Jamie and Sarah, our political alliance … I mean, romance. The two discuss why he wants John’s approval so badly and just why the ranch is not going to survive. “Tourism is Montana’s only resource,” she says, then vows to help Jamie save the ranch by helping him become governor himself.
Ryan: Jamie is just increasingly hard to watch, but that’s the point: We’re supposed to hate him. Mission accomplished.
MORE CATTLE DRIVING AND BRANDING
Nicole: Back at Yellowstone, we see all the men up before dawn, their women still sleepy. I had a brief, anti-feminist thought about how hard-working men, willing to get up and work with their hands before dawn, are the foundation of so many industries today and especially 100 years ago: Agriculture, oil, construction, architecture, military, law enforcement. Of course, women are involved, too, but this scene really showed that clearly.
When the sun rises, there’s a smart-alec moment between Beth and Summer, unsurprisingly, but it turns into a sweet exchange between Beth and Monica, where Beth reveals she really does understand Monica’s pain, although she doesn’t go into details. I suspect we’ll revisit this storyline, the root of Beth’s pain about not being able to bear children, more later.
Ryan: A friendship or alliance between Beth and Monica would be an interesting development, if only because it would help make each a better-developed character.
Nicole: Senator Lynelle Perry opens the next scene, divulging to tribal Chairman Tom Rainwater that the Department of Interior has approved two pipelines to go through Montana and that the proposed plan is for them to go right through his reservation. She vows to stand against it. Somehow, down the road, this will surely involve John.
Back to our cattle, heading through the hills and valleys to get branded. Cowboys discover stillborn bison, meaning that the disease brucellosis is present, threatening the ranch’s cattle and their pasture.
As the cattle are being branded, castrated, and vaccinated, John tries to figure out how to move his herd to a leased pasture where they can eat, probably the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas. Rip hand-picks a few cowboys and the lone cowgirl, Teeter, to join him to accompany the cattle that will feed elsewhere.
When John tells Beth, she brainstorms that there’s got to be a better business model for Yellowstone. This has always felt like a plot hole or flaw: For all his passion for the ranch, Beth reveals that John’s “business model” hardly boasts any income or profit. That doesn’t seem like John, an ambitious, smart man. So you get the impression Beth may save the day by starting a Yellowstone-branded beef operation. Why haven’t they been doing this already, you ask? Well, we need more problems in “Yellowstone,” or it wouldn’t be “Yellowstone.”
Ryan: The central tension of the show is John Dutton standing against time. He wants to keep the ranch, the industry and the state as close to what it’s been throughout his family’s history as he can, while everyone around him tries to make them into something else. He struggles against even the things that might make the ranch and the business better. Beth is going to have to drag him into this scheme, and frankly, watching those two square off could be fun.
JAMIE DUTTON PLOTS AGAINST HIS GOVERNOR FATHER
Nicole: In the next scene, we’re back to Jamie and Sarah and her cohort from Market Equities. They reveal to Jamie that John Dutton put his ranch in a land trust with a conservation easement, preventing the development the company seeks to bring. Sarah points out that Market Equities will sue the state for billions over a bad-faith negotiation, and she suggests Jamie present the idea that this is an impeachable offense for the governor.
This seems extremely far from any kind of reality, but we are watching “Yellowstone,” not an American election in process.
Ryan: Let’s not forget, too, that Jamie is John’s adoptive son, even if now thoroughly disowned. Let’s stipulate that all of this is not remotely plausible, but it’s an interesting new battlefield between Jamie and John. Would John even care if he were impeached and removed from office? Only if it would somehow mean that the ranch was back in danger. Or maybe he fights it out of principle.
Nicole: Thrown in toward the end is a little fun for the cowboys at the local fair. This is the first time I realized it must already be summer? Time flies when you’re governor. Everyone has a good time and the scene ends with John and Summer flirting awkwardly. Unfortunately, the two lack chemistry, which is too bad, because it’s Kevin Costner, of all people. How hard can that be? Not to mention, politically very stupid.
Our conclusion to this interesting episode is a scene that shows Jamie practicing his “John Dutton must be impeached” speech to Sarah, leaving us truly on the edge of our seats, for the first time this season.
Ryan: The other “Yellowstone” fan in my house and I, have thrown up our hands trying to figure out the timeline of the show. Is it summer, autumn or early winter? Who knows. But hey, it’s not a documentary, so we roll with it.
Random observations about episode 7
From Nicole:
The band at the fair was great. Are they real? Anyone know who they are? Update: A reader writes in to say the “band” is a performer named Zach Bryan.
The scene between Beth and John discussing their dying ranch really seemed to be a message to us about today’s farming culture and how hard it is for them to profit.
Line of the night for me was when John picked up a crystal decanter to throw because he was so frustrated about moving the cattle. “That’s 100 years old and belonged to your grandfather,” Beth says. “Break something else.”
From Ryan:
Fort Worth has been a key part of so much of the making and staging of “Yellowstone,” and we got another reminder in this episode, when Teeter wears a kitschy T-shirt bearing the city’s name to the county fair. Of course, her alleged Texas accent is ridiculous, so it’s not exactly a great representation.
Summer, John’s lover/environmental adviser/vegan antagonist, seems to swing wildly between cliche and convert. One minute, she’s giving a trite diatribe about feminism (seriously, her dialogue is consistently some of the worst-written dreck in the show); the next, she’s helping with the branding and waxing poetic about how the ranch is a true savior of the land.
There wasn’t a real brand-name moment to the minimal drinking in this episode. But as Nicole mentioned, John’s and Beth’s exchange over the Swarovski decanter was a great scene. The decanter clearly held whiskey, but of course no brand is clear. (Aside: John’s pour was healthy. That was enough to stagger even a Montana cowboy.) The only identifiable brand is again Tito’s vodka, so it’s pretty clear that the Texas company paid a healthy sponsorship fee for the season.
Line of the night: When Abby (singer Lainey Wilson) wakes up in a tent with cowboy paramour Ryan, who’s leaving for the day’s work, she tells him: “You better be worth this walk of shame. Half my church is camped out here.”
Reminder: Even the Yellowstone ranch takes a break for Christmas, so there’s no new episode on Dec. 25. The “midseason finale” (what an oxymoron) airs Jan. 1, and we’ll be right back at it then.
