Yellowstone season 1, episode 2, “Kill the Messenger,” lived up to its title. The follow up to the series premiere dropped viewers into the aftermath of Lee’s death, specifically in the midst of the loose ties that pointed to a murder and not the initial narrative that Lee killed Robert in self-defense. Jamie Dutton was called into Governor Lynelle Perry’s office because this is the kind of case that will bring more than one person down in its wake.
The medical examiner’s findings showed that it wasn’t possible for Lee to have shot Robert let alone executioner style in the head and with a ring of five shots around his heart. This was because the bullet that pierced through Lee’s body severed his spine and caused paralysis. If the news were to catch wind of this, what had been labeled a tragedy would become a racially motivated murder that leads back to John Dutton since this would mean a third shooter was present.
When Jamie brought this news back to his father, they both knew that they would need to cover up what happened in order to protect their family, specifically Kayce, even if it meant doing things that, for John, would go against their faith. First, they had to get two agents who saw Kayce bring Lee’s body back to the ranch to recant or change their story.
To do this John called in favors. Getting an old friend to convince his son to walk back his statement wasn’t difficult, but in order to convince the other witness, John had to lean on a man of the cloth who owed him big time. The clergyman tailored a sermon to suit their needs in order to compel the devout agent into feeling guilty for “bearing false witness,” or in this case, using knowledge he has to ruin another man’s reputation.
With the witnesses handled, John then had to make a decision on whether to cremate his son’s body in order to destroy the evidence of Lee’s lack of involvement in Robert’s killing.
What did John do with Lee’s body on Yellowstone?
At first, John was vehemently against the idea of cremating Lee. He wanted to get the medical examiner to change the report. Jamie wasn’t sure that was going to work because the photos told a clear story, one strong enough that would give the authorities the power to exhume Lee’s body to confirm what the report stated. He felt they should get ahead of the situation and unearth him themselves.
The decision weighed on John so much that in the middle of cashing in on his favor with the clergyman, he confessed (without elaborating) that he’d never been sorry for his sins but was about to commit one he would carry the guilt of. He also sought Beth’s counsel, and she reminded him Kayce was his wife Evelyn’s favorite and they swore to her that they’d protect him. In Beth’s mind that made the choice easy.
Having learned that the medical examiner had been fired from his position in Chicago after getting caught smoking embalming fluid, John had already decided he wasn’t going to negotiate with a drug addict. This left John with only one option if he was going to save Kayce. He’d need to cremate Lee even if it meant that his son wouldn’t rise during the Rapture.
It was a concern of John’s since he was raised in a Christian faith practice that believes the physical body must be present for this to happen. John isn’t religious, but he couldn’t seem to shake the idea that he could be preventing his son’s body from reuniting with its spirit when the time comes. Still, in order to not lose yet another child, he did choose to cremate Lee.
His casket was dug up and it and Lee’s body were put into an incinerator that’s used to dispose of the bodies of horses at a facility that isn’t owned by the Duttons. John poured Lee’s ashes into a hole he dug in front of Evelyn’s grave in the family cemetery.
Why did Rip kill the medical examiner?
The last loose end to tie was the medical examiner. When John decided he wasn’t going to fool with him, he sent Rip to do some dirty work. With the M.E. being an addict, he became a liability. Rip walked in on the man rolling cigarettes that he was dipping into embalming fluid.
After a brief scuffle, the Rip got the best of him and coerced him into helping stage his own suicide. He said that that’s what the medical examiner truly wanted anyway since he smokes so he doesn’t feel anything, he’s simply attached to the habit of living. Grabbing the laptop with the official copy of the report, and double checking that it wasn’t on a computer at the M.E.’s home, Rip placed it on top of the microwave containing a flammable liquid and medical instruments.
He granted the medical examiner one last embalming fluid saturated cigarette and then choked him enough to have him pass out. With gas leaking from uncapped lines and a microwave catching fire, the scene was set for the evidence of Kayce’s actions to be burned along with the M.E.
However, Yellowstone will circle back to this case. After all, Chief Thomas Rainwater saw the report as did Ben Waters and Mo. They suspect Kayce killed Robert. John knows the tribal council was shown the report, but he doesn’t know what conclusions they’ve drawn from it.
With much of the evidence gone, there’s not much of a case left but that doesn’t mean Thomas won’t use this at some point. He’s a man who bides his time as he displayed in “Kill the Messenger” when he kept what he knew about Kayce’s actions quiet as he was unwilling to play that card just yet.
Instead, he and Ben covered up the mercy killing of a meth maker whose lab, bearing a Confederate flag on tribal land, blew up. Kayce had put him out of his misery, and Ben admitted that if it were him, he would have let the despicable man burn.
