Yellowstone premiere recap: Big trouble in big sky country
Yellowstone's two-episode premiere picks up approximately nine months following season 4's conclusion. We know this because Monica (Kelsey Asbille,) revealed to be pregnant late last season, is now about three weeks from her due date.
During that stretch, John Dutton (Kevin Costner) has also run a successful political campaign. In fact, the first episode opens on election night, with him receiving a congratulatory/concession call from the competition. Accompanied by his predecessor/love interest Lynelle Perry (Wendy Moniz) – who's also won her senatorial bid – John delivers a no-nonsense victory speech, essentially promising to halt progress. As Governor, he wants Montana — and especially his coveted ranch — to remain unmolested by greedy corporate outsiders and tourists that treat his home state like a playground.
During the address, his Attorney General son Jamie (Wes Bentley) still seems bruised over not being nominated for the seat, while daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly) simultaneously gloats over the win and glares at her despised brother. Meanwhile, Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) catches the speech from his casino, where he warns Mo (Moses Brings Plenty) that Dutton's new position will likely benefit the land but not their business endeavors.
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But the Broken Rock Reservation leader's response is tame compared to Caroline Warner's (Jacki Weaver). Fearing the Governor will shut down her plans to build an airport and ski resort on his land, the Market Equities' CEO – who memorably promised to turn Beth's home into a toilet last season – throws her drink… and a few F-bombs. But her sleazy associate Ellis Steele takes note of Jamie's obvious sorrow, and immediately wonders how they can leverage this weakness. The answer, apparently, is calling in the big guns, specifically a woman named Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri).
Next, we take a trip back to Beth and Rip's (Cole Hauser) tumultuous, teenage courtship. Long story short, the rich daddy's girl clearly likes the rough ranch hand, but takes every opportunity to demean, disparage, and embarrass him during their first date. She wakes up in her present-day home with Rip, now her husband, full of guilt and apologies. He makes her promise to let it all go, seek some happiness, and find a new nemesis to unleash her negative energy on.
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When we catch up with Kayce (Luke Grimes), he's in full Livestock Commissioner mode, chasing down horse thieves along the Canadian border. He and his men capture the criminals, while he puts the Canadian police – who're whining about jurisdiction – in their place. Still working the case later that evening, he gets a call from Monica, who's experiencing serious pregnancy pains. They decide she'll drive to the hospital with Tate (Brecken Merrill), while he'll immediately hit the road and meet her there.
The next morning, John's being sworn in, but he stalls, taking a lengthy, awkward pause before reciting the oath. He finds his groove, however, and promises his cheering supporters he'll cancel funding for the airport project and double taxes for non-Montana residents. Jamie stresses to Beth these bold moves will set the state back 30 years, to which she demands he do whatever it takes to help make their father's proposals happen. Rainwater's cutthroat attorney Angela (Q'orianka Kilcher) isn't happy either, blaming her boss for allowing John to reach this position of power.
On the ride back to the ranch, Jamie and Beth bicker while John tries to enjoy a drink. Jamie again warns of the problems that'll come with pulling the plug on the airport project, but John, like his daughter, reminds him he's their puppet and will do as he's told. John also reveals that, while he loves Montana, he's only in the political game to protect the family ranch.
Rip's not entirely sold on John's new role either. During the inauguration party – which he watches from afar to keep an eye on his open-bar-indulging cowboys – he informs Beth he fears for the future and believes the family will ultimately lose their land. The next morning, John's in a worrisome mood as well. He runs into Carter (Finn Little), Beth and Rip's sorta-adopted son, and sees the boy's physical growth as a sobering reflection of his own mortality. He jokingly threatens to fire Carter if he grows a beard. (In John's defense, both Carter and Tate have seemingly aged five years since last season).
Dutton heads to his ride to start the work day, but Jamie says they need to go to Billings instead. En route to the hospital, Monica and Tate were in a tragic car accident. When John arrives, he talks to Tate, who's bloodied, bruised, and sporting an arm cast. The boy informs his grandfather that the newborn, who was named after him, didn't survive the crash. In the background, Kayce is embracing Monica, who's unconscious in her hospital bed.
The premiere's second half returns to the night of the accident. Monica's distracting pain, combined with an equally distracted oncoming driver and an errant bison, have left her screaming on the side of the road and Tate stuck in the passenger's seat. He frees himself with a pocket knife before finding his mother moaning in distress. Monica commands him to find his phone and call for help.
Fast-forward to present day, where Monica's back home and on the mend physically, but obviously emotionally broken over her loss. Outside, Tate tells Kayce he liked having a brother and wants his parents to try for another baby. Later that day, Monica meets Kayce on the porch. She informs him she wants to hold a funeral at the Dutton ranch. She also asks if the loss of the baby was the doomed future he saw during his vision quest last season. He assures her he didn't see the tragedy coming, and the "end of us" he saw is something that'll be decided by his choices.
It's back to business for John, who's absolutely loathing the day-to-day grind of politics. He meets and immediately fires his Chief of Staff, appoints Beth to the role, and continues to be laser-focused on squashing Market Equities' development plans. But Lynelle sets him straight, advising him that he must "play the game" to get things done. She also sides with Jamie, who warns that canceling Market Equities' lease outright will get them sued.
Beth takes the opportunity to again remind Jamie where he stands. She owns him, is unapologetically blackmailing him – with the recording of him hiding his murdered biological dad's corpse – and won't hesitate to send him to prison. Jamie claims to be protecting John and the ranch, but Beth doubles-down, telling him he can't be redeemed and will be put out to pasture once he's no longer useful.
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On John's orders, Jamie pushes through the paperwork to have the state pull its funding from the airport project. Jamie hands his father the executive order, but stresses it's a "declaration of war." John signs it during a press conference, which Market Equities anxiously watches. Warner is furious, and calls for her firm to sue for breach of contract. But she's also got a secret weapon. The aforementioned Sarah Atwood, just flown in via private jet, is also watching the press conference. A corporate shark with a Beth-like bite, she immediately picks up on Jamie's weakness: "He doesn't look up to the fight. I'm gonna start with him."
Trouble's also brewing back at the ranch. Rip and the boys come across a dead cow that's been eaten by wolves. While it's clear the poor animal was dinner for some hungry wildlife, there's some mystery surrounding what actually killed it. On the plus side, Rip's allowed Carter to do some actual cowboy wrangling, on John Dutton's personal steed, no less. The good vibes are short-lived, however, as the boy rides the horse into a hole, breaking its leg and forcing Rip to put it out of its misery. Rip scolds Carter, takes full responsibility, and breaks the news to John.
But the Governor's got more pressing concerns. With Market Equities' funding pulled, he's preparing to block their next move. This brings him and Beth – who's just verbally eviscerated a creep at the bar – to a meeting with a pair of political allies. John knows Warner's next play is to pivot to re-zoning the project, and these men can kill that request. John plays the game, per Lynelle's earlier advice, promising their reelection in exchange for the favor. He also reveals he's seeking a conservation easement for the ranch which, a surprised Beth warns, will essentially remove the family's ability to sell or develop the land. But John believes that's a small price to pay if it means no one else can ever touch the ranch.
This bold decision ushers in a flashback of a younger John Dutton (Josh Lucas) taking similarly extreme measures to protect his land. A construction company contracted to build a cellphone tower is using a pesticide that's killing wildlife on the ranch. Young Dutton confronts the foreman, whose cocky dismissiveness earns him a fist to the face. But the physical violence is just an appetizer to John's message-sending main course. He has his ranch hands steal the chemicals in the dead of night, before spraying them all over the foreman's property – and his unconscious body.
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Back in the present, Rip's ordered his men to hunt those cow-hungry wolves. Colby (Denim Richards) and Ryan (Ian Bohen) snipe them from afar, but discover, upon closer inspection, the animals are not wild. They're beloved beasts, with "their own Facebook pages," that have wandered from a nearby conservation park. They're also wearing GPS collars that send out distress signals when immobile for 12 hours. Killing the protected wolves carries a hefty prison term, so the cowboys call Rip for help. The black-clad boss man has the brilliant idea to attach the slain animals' collars to logs, then toss them in the river's current so they remain in motion.
As the episode closes, Warner glares at a newspaper headline reporting the denied re-zoning of her project. Meanwhile, John's enjoying his morning coffee while admiring the postcard-perfect view from his front porch. His assistant Claire joins him. She's awed by the land's beauty, and wonders what it takes to maintain it. "It takes everything we've got," John says without missing a beat.
As the camera pulls away from the porch, it briefly focuses on a tractor plowing the fields – and we're struck with the sickening feeling the dead wolves may have been turned to fertilizer. Finally, the camera makes its way to a creek, where one of the collar-strapped logs has collided with some other branches and brought it to a halt.
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