In Sunday’s back-to-back episodes of Yellowstone, John made a powerful enemy, Beth made a splash, Rip made a killing, and Jamie… hoo boy, he made a crack that just about got his ass handed to him. But those are just the bullet points; read on, and we’ll go over everything that happened in these Season 1 repeats.
‘THIS AIN’T CHECKERS, SON, IT’S CHESS, AND YOU’RE ABOUT TO PLAY WITH MASTERS’ | In “Kill the Messenger,” John set in motion a massive coverup to keep Kayce from being implicated in brother-in-law Robert’s shooting. “How massive was it?” you ask. It was so massive that it involved the Duttons’ patriarch extorting a priest to influence an agent from the Bureau of Land Management, ordering Rip to, ahem, assist in the medical examiner’s suicide, and having Lee’s body exhumed and cremated.
Meanwhile, as a guilt-ridden Kayce made plans to re-enlist, he happened upon an exploding trailer on the outskirts of the reservation. (What? It could happen.) After he put the badly burned survivor out of his misery, Rainwater, clearly thinking two steps ahead, erased the gunman’s involvement in the mercy killing. In other twists of plot, Rip invited Beth to “go get drunk and watch some wolves kill an elk.” In the park, it became even more apparent that their past was long and complicated. In a roundabout way, she admitted that she loved him, too.
‘SHE DID THIS, LET HER UNDO IT’ | Set on the anniversary of the day that John’s wife Evelyn died, “No Good Horses” flashed back to 1997, where we witnessed how Beth’s timidity on horseback inadvertently led to her mother’s demise. In the present, the water in which Beth was bathing outdoors had to have gotten steamed when she saw that her daddy had had a sleepover on this, of all days, with Governor Perry. But Beth still agreed to his request that she run for an open seat on the assembly — this, despite Jamie’s long-held desire to get into politics.
When Jamie tried to have it out with Beth, things devolved to the point that he said he couldn’t remember anymore what she’d been like before she’d killed their mother. One thing (Beth beat the crap out of him) led to another (he punched her back), and John was warning Jamie, “Hit your sister again, I’ll put your head through the wall.” Nonetheless, he said that he would, however reluctantly, support his son’s run for attorney general.
THIS IS YOUR HOME, BIG FELLA’ | In other developments, Kayce’s knack for stumbling upon trouble put him in the right place at the right time to save a Native-American girl from kidnappers. Later, Rainwater was en route to a fancy event off the reservation when John had the local sheriff arrest him for stealing his cattle. Thomas quickly caved to John’s demand for the return of the livestock, but obviously, their war had just begun.
As a matter of fact, at the end of the hour, it looked like the ground in which Kayce and the kidnapped girl’s father had buried the baddies’ bodies was about to be excavated. Since the girl had reported no crime, Kayce could wind up being tied to what Rainwater could make look like a double murder. A whole lotta leverage in that! Finally, aw, gee… Robert’s widow, overcome with grief, killed herself, making orphans of their children. (And you thought Kayce felt bad before… !)
