Yellowstone season 2 episode 1 recap: a new day at the Yellowstone

NOTE: this post contains spoilers for Yellowstone season 2 episode 1, "A Thundering."

Kicking off Yellowstone season 2 is Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), who has a dream where he stands over the plains, bloodied. He sees a burning tree and a woman on fire. Then he sits next to Dan (Danny Huston), whose face is severely burned. Rainwater asks what happened, but Dan pulls a gun and is about to pull the trigger when Rainwater wakes up.

Foreboding start. Let's recap everything else that happened in the season 2 premiere.

New man on the ranch

John (Kevin Costner) and the Yellowstone cowboys ride to the edge of a forest to get a bunch of cows out from there. They don't want to risk the horses, so they send dogs. The cows run out and the cowboys corral them. Kayce (Luke Grimes) hears another cow still in the forest, so he rides in and chases him out. Lloyd (Forrie J. Smith) says it was reckless, but John, with a smile on his face, says it's only reckless if you can't see it through.

A man named Cowboy (Steven Williams) arrives on the Yellowstone looking for work to get some cash on his way to Arizona. He speaks with John first, but John tells him Kayce is the man to see. Kayce and Rip (Cole Hauser) both take note of this, as it's typically Rip's job to pick the ranch hands.

New environments

Jamie (Wes Bentley) is staying at Christina's (Katherine Cunningham) now that he has been cut off by John. Jamie doesn't seems comfortable though. That is doubly true when he goes to get them coffee and is annoyed by the hipster vibe. Christina seems oblivious to it all though.

Beth (Kelly Reilly) is also lining up a new place, an office. However, she has no intention of making this permanent. When asked if she wants to sign a multi-year lease, she explains she'd rather be poisoned than be in Boseman this time next year. She opts for the six-month lease.

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Meanwhile, Rainwater pitches the casino plan to the tribal council. He explains they will own the land and annex it into the reservation as soon as they can, allowing them to build whatever they want with no government oversight. One council member (Ryan Begay) doesn't see how this new project benefits the reservation, so he will not support it. But he's alone in this stance.

Also looking for a change of scenery is Monica (Kelsey Asbille). She goes to the university to accept the teaching offer they gave her last season. However, the funds for the Native American Studies class she was promised have been pushed for next semester, but she can teach American History, covering Columbus' arrival to the Declaration of Independence. The dean (Steve Coulter) assures her she can teach her version, so she accepts and looks forward to teaching students about "the man who introduced genocide to the western hemisphere."

Challenges and challengers

Beth has hand picked a new candidate for John to support for attorney general against Jamie, a state prosecutor and former rodeo queen named Cassidy Reid (Kelly Rohrbach). When John comments that she looks like Beth, Beth gloats that Jamie will hate her.

Cassidy meets with John and Beth at the Yellowstone. When she asks why he isn't supporting Jamie, John says he wants what is best for Montana. Worried her small town roots won't help get the vote out, John assures her he'll take care of that.

Elsewhere, Cowboy is not overly impressed with the rest of the Yellowstone crew. He calls out Colby (Denim Richards) and Jimmy (Jefferson White) and nearly gets into a fight with Ryan (Ian Bohen), but Rip gets them all to back off. However, Rip has his own frustrations, as Walker (Ryan Bingham) refuses to eat with the rest of them. Cowboy offers to bring him his food. Turns out they know each other from past jobs. Walker warns Cowboy about working on the Yellowstone. Cowboy says Walker doesn't need permission to leave, but Walker corrects him, "here you do."

Facing his own tricky dynamic is Kayce, who visits Monica and wants to know how their current separation is supposed to work with him seeing Tate (Brecken Merrill). She lets Kayce watch Tate as he sleeps. However, the separation isn't going easy for Monica, who cries in the living room.

One person with a solution is Beth. She meets with Bob (Michael Nouri) and pitches purchasing land to put into a conversation easement, then enrolling it in a government program that pays them not to farm it, in turn paying off their initial investment and allowing them to be profitable in two years. When Bob asks why no one has done this before, she says it's because they don't have the cash to survive the first two years, but Bob does. As for what Beth gets out of this deal, it would create a moat around the Yellowstone. Bob tells her to start buying land.

A bull walks into a bar

Avery (Tanaya Beatty) is disappointed all the other cowboys want to do on a Saturday night is sit in the bunkhouse and play cards. Cowboy has a suggestion though — cowboy poker, which is sitting at a table in the middle of a corral and let a bull come in and charge at them. Last one to get up wins.

Cowboy, Avery, Ryan, Colby and a reluctant Jimmy play. Shortly after the bull gets let in, everyone but Avery runs from the table. She gets hit by the bull, but is somehow OK. Rip chastises them for acting like idiots, telling them to go to the bar if they want to do stupid stuff. But after laying down the law, he asks Lloyd who won.

Taking Rip's advice, they go to the bar. Jimmy and Avery start to have a nice conversation when another guy comes up and asks Avery to dance. When Avery tells him no, Jimmy boasts and tells the guy to "f**k off." The guy doesn't take this well, grabboing Jimmy and beating him up. The other Yellowstone cowboys try to help out, but they are outnumbered and get beat up too.

Kayce finds the cowboys licking their wounds in the bunkhouse, then goes to tell Rip. They can't let this stand. They let a bull loose in the bar. As the patrons come out, Jimmy calls out the guys who beat them up and Rip and the others beat them with bats; everyone accept Walker, much to Rip's annoyance. But Rip has other people to get mad at, telling the bar owner the next time someone messes with a Yellowstone cowboy to call him or have his bouncers break up the fight. Kayce takes it a step further, saying maybe next time they'll just burn the bar as punishment.

John's regrets

John spots Dan at a diner. Dan has a noticeable rope burn around his neck from the hanging in the season 1 finale, but tells John he isn't leaving Montana. In fact, he purposefully didn't go to the cops because he wants John to be on the Yellowstone when it's taken from him. John warns Dan the next time he's on the end of a rope, John won't cut him down.

Back on the ranch, John collapses and is bleeding from his mouth. They get the vet on site to help him, who takes an X-ray to discover he doesn't have colon cancer, but a ruptured ulcer. Not able to use any anesthesia, she cuts into John to cauterize the ulcer. A helicopter then transports John and Kayce to the hospital. Kayce tries to be optimistic, saying with no cancer John isn't dying yet. Except since he's been acting like he's going to die, John now realizes he has a lot of things he needs to undo.

Yellowstone season 2 episodes air Sundays on CBS and are available to watch on-demand on Peacock.