Yellowstone Recap: Ranch Redressing — Plus, Beth Rips [Spoiler] A New One
As far as Rip was concerned, Sunday's first Yellowstone was seriously bucked up. On one hand, Kayce kept stopping him from murdering (Worst) Employee of the Month Walker, who had the stones to note that they both had "a fondness for the farmer's daughter." On the other, despite Rip's years of loyal service, John demoted him to make Kayce the ranch's foreman. Rip even moved into the bunkhouse and let the boss' son beat him in a fight to signify to the hands that there had been a changing of the guard. "We're just tools" to the Duttons, Rip lamented to Lloyd. "That's all we'll ever be."
When Beth found out what had gone down, she implored Rip not to leave the Yellowstone. She needn't have worried, though. "This is my family," he told her, "whether y'all think of me that way or not." That same evening, Beth tore Kayce a new one, balking at his argument that he was taking over the ranch to protect it, so that he'd have something to leave Monica and Tate someday. "I'm protecting it," she pointed out. She wanted Kayce to stay as far from it and their father as he could, and "when he dies, you can have this place. I will give it to you."
In other developments in "New Beginnings," as Monica made plans to move into on-campus housing, Felix reminded her that she and Kayce had been married in ceremony; in other words, they'd be stuck together in the afterlife. At the same time, John urged Kayce to patch things up with his wife. The Duttons' patriarch couldn't figure out quite what had happened. "You happened, Dad," Kayce responded. So perhaps it was fitting that at the end of the hour, it was John who brought the couple back together. Undergoing water therapy — to Kayce's great amusement, we might add — John accidentally swam into the lane in which Monica was being rehabbed by a conspicuously handsome therapist. Cue the awkward looks in three, two...
Read what happened in Sunday's second Yellowstone episode here.