5 Yellowstone Episodes Every Dutton Ranch Fan Has To Watch

Before you binge-watch "Dutton Ranch," you may be wondering how much of "Yellowstone" you actually need to see before giving this Paramount+ drama a try. While you don't have to watch any of Taylor Sheridan's contemporary horse opera, if you want to better understand the rich psychology of Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser), there's no better place to go than Big Sky Country itself.

"Dutton Ranch" does several things better than "Yellowstone," but the sequel series wouldn't be where it is today without those original five seasons. If you don't have time to plow through the whole show, though, we've put together a list of the five most essential "Yellowstone" episodes to watch before diving head-first toward Rio Paloma, Texas. Long before Beth and Rip packed up and moved to the Lone Star State, they were Montana born and bred — and it was their time up north that prepared them for everything they experienced down south.

Since "Dutton Ranch" has already been renewed for Season 2, there's no better time to kick off those cowboy boots and relax while revisiting the original Yellowstone Dutton Ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana. There may be more Duttons on the original series than newcomers bargained for, but that only adds to the layered character arcs that make "Dutton Ranch" so grand.

While you may be tempted to start at the beginning with Season 1's "Daybreak" (a fine series premiere as ever there was), perhaps the earliest episode that "Dutton Ranch" fans ought to look back on is Season 2's "Resurrection Day." Now, there's some context about the Duttons' feud with the Broken Rock reservation, Dan Jenkins (Danny Huston), and the villainous Beck brothers that you may not be privy to, but it's the stuff between Rip and Beth that makes this episode a must-see.

Considered the best episode of the second season, "Resurrection Day" shows Beth and Rip having a moment on the ranch beneath the stars. Before Rip can confess his love to Beth, she stops him cold and asks that he tell her another time when it will "save" her. Well, that time comes sooner than she thinks, because when Beth's office is attacked by the Becks' hitmen, Rip arrives like a bull in a china shop just in time to save the day. Taking a few bullets himself, he holds a distraught Beth and tells her that he loves her.

"Resurrection Day" is a pivotal moment in Rip and Beth's relationship, marking a significant turn in their enduring commitment to one another. It's here that we understand that these two were always the "Yellowstone" endgame. Without it, "Dutton Ranch" may have never come to pass.

Everyone who knows "Yellowstone" like the back of their hand knows that Season 3's "Cowboys and Dreamers" is one of the most downright gut-wrenching episodes of the show. Through flashbacks, we learn that Beth had become pregnant as a teenager with Rip's child, only for her older brother, Jamie (Wes Bentley), to take her to get an abortion. What she didn't know at the time, however, was that she had also been sterilized as a result, and the pair would not be able to have children of their own.

While the episode doesn't only meditate on this tragedy, the first 10 minutes or so of "Cowboys and Dreamers" highlights why Beth and Rip's teenage fling ended in the first place, juxtaposing it with the solid foundation they've built upon all these years later. It's a tough bit to get through, but it's essential in our understanding of why Beth so vehemently hates her brother Jamie — who Beulah (Annette Bening) references on "Dutton Ranch" — and how deeply Rip loves her.

"Cowboys and Dreamers" is also known for one of Beth's best burns, though that comes a bit later. You may not need to watch all of this "Yellowstone" classic before "Dutton Ranch," but that understanding of where Beth and Rip come from will help inform the next choice on this list. 

Although the young orphan Carter (Finn Little) first appears in the Season 4 premiere, "Half the Money," it's not until the next episode, "Phantom Pain," that Beth brings him home. When she does, the response from Rip isn't quite so friendly. When he asks who Carter is, she replies that Carter is him, just twenty years ago "with the same options you had." Although Rip initially rejects Carter, he quickly comes around, and the boy is swiftly adopted into the Dutton Ranch.

"Phantom Pain" lays the foundation for the makeshift family dynamic between Beth, Rip, and Carter. It helps us to understand Rip's initial reservations, Beth's motherly instinct, and Carter's desire to prove himself to the only other parental figures he's known outside of his deceased mother. By the end of the episode, they're basically their own little nuclear family. "This makes you happy, doesn't it?" Rip asks her, and the answer is undoubtedly that it does.

The unit we see together in Texas on "Dutton Ranch" began years earlier in Montana, and "Phantom Pain" delivers that origin story with all the gruff cowboy grit you could hope for. For even more context, Rip and Beth would marry in an unofficial ceremony in the Season 4 finale "Grass on the Streets and Weeds on the Rooftops."

Before creator Chad Feehan was tasked with continuing Rip and Beth's adventures, "Yellowstone" set up their move to Texas. Sure, they still start the sequel series up in Montana (see the next episode recommendation), but in the second half of the fifth and final season, Rip takes the Dutton herd down south to the Four Sixes Ranch to graze — and it's there that he and Beth first taste real peace.

"The Apocalypse of Change" comes off the heels of John Dutton's (Kevin Costner) murder — easily one of the most shocking "Yellowstone" deaths — but it takes place in the weeks prior to the assassination. Beth heads down to Texas to spend time with her hubby, and while there, they find peace knowing that "cattle country" still exists without all the tourists and out-of-staters trying to close in and change the landscape. For this pair, that's pretty appealing after years of fighting for the land.

Despite being set in Montana, "Yellowstone" spent its fair share of time in Texas, and "The Apocalypse of Change" almost serves as a backdoor pilot of sorts to "Dutton Ranch." It's here that Beth and Rip are first anchored to the Lone Star State, and prompting audiences to theorize that this is where they might end up. Eventually, it turned out that those folks were right.

This one is perhaps the most obvious answer, since "Life Is a Promise" directly precedes "Dutton Ranch" in Beth and Rip's on-screen chronology. As the series finale to "Yellowstone," Taylor Sheridan crafts a "happy ending" that gets the Duttons out from under Market Equities' thumb, secures the land that they fought so long and hard for, and sets Beth, Rip, and Carter up on their own homestead outside of Dillon, Montana — a few hours east of Paradise Valley.

Of course, we know from the very first episode of "Dutton Ranch" that this new slice of cowboy heaven won't last forever, but it's a fine prologue to the Paramount+ sequel that establishes everything you need to know before they move down south. In fact, it's here that Beth finally gets her revenge on her brother Jamie, shoving some genuine skeletons in her closet in the process. As the Duttons grieve the loss of their family patriarch, there's clear hope for the future beyond the Yellowstone.

"Life Is a Promise" is essential viewing for "Dutton Ranch" fans and is a darn-perfect finale to a show that spent a lot of time recycling the same material. Sure, we know that the story doesn't end here for basically anyone involved — Beth's other brother Kayce (Luke Grimes) goes on to headline the CBS procedural "Marshals" — but it's necessary backstory that sets up the life we next find Rip and Beth living.