CBS delivered 2 episodes of Yellowstone this week—episodes 2 and 3—titled “Kill the Messenger” and “No Good Horses”—and there was no shortage of drama. 

In the stretch of two hours, Kayce got into a lot of trouble and dealt with more dead bodies than one ever should within a day, while his father, John Dutton, worked tirelessly to put into motion a cover-up to protect him—his late wife’s favorite child—from being implicated in the death of his brother-in-law, Robert, which took a toll the family as Robert’s widow killed herself in the final moments of the episode, orphaning the kids and making him feel guiltier than ever. 

Kayce planned to re-enlist as he was consumed with the guilt over his actions and wanted to “provide for his family,” but his plans were derailed when he witnessed a trailer explosion (likely a meth lab, he told Monica). When he found a badly burned survivor who requested that he “kill him,” Kayce put him out of his misery, with Monica’s approval, and when the cops showed up, they took the fall for the mercy kill at the orders of Rainwater, who has big plans to destroy the Dutton’s and erase their very existence. 

The Dutton vs. Rainwater war intensified when the former got the latter arrested for stealing his cattle. It was a battle of the egos when Dutton informed him that he would stay in prison until he returned what was rightfully his only for Rainwater to make it clear that he’s eyeing Dutton’s land, which belonged to his people, and hoped to buy it all up—calling himself the “opposite of progress” and underscoring that he’s “the past catching up with you.”

Dutton’s unphased response was simply, “You’re a thief,” before calling prison a “place where the past catches up with everyone.”

And the past surely was catching up to Dutton, who was trying to forget that it was the anniversary of his late wife’s death. Flashbacks revealed that she was killed on horseback, a death she contributed to Beth’s fear of riding (“She did this, let her undo it” are harsh dying words to your daughter, tbh). It explains a lot about Beth’s personality and attitude, and the anniversary is the hardest on her as she takes a bath outside, watches her father have a “sleepover” with Governor Perry, and then promises to run for office—at his insistence—which doesn’t sit well with Jamie, the lawyer of the family who wants to run for Attorney General. 

He confronts Beth about it, though she doesn’t mince words, informing him that no one believes that he’ll win and she’s always brought in to clean his messes. She reminds him that all she ever does is for their father while all he ever does is for himself. As she implores him to “be a man,” he punches her in the face, a blow that does not sit well with John, who promises to support Jamie in his run for AG, but also has no qualms about putting “his head through a wall” if he ever hits his sister again. 

It’s clear John will do anything and everything for his children, with Rip helping a medical examiner (with a history of getting high on embaling fluid) die by suicide—in a very intense scene that shows that no one here is messing around or afraid of getting their hands dirty. There are a lot of explosions across these two episodes.

John also has Lee’s body exhumed and cremated so that there’s no evidence that could link it all back to Kayce. 

But again, Kayce has a way of getting into trouble, stumbling upon a strange van where he killed two kidnappers responsible for holding a Native American girl hostage. Kayce initially wanted to go to the police, but when the girl refused, he took her home to her parents and helped them brush the whole thing under the rug by joining the girl’s father to bury the bodies. However, the final moments of the episode reveal that it may be the site of a construction zone, which would locate the bodies and link them back to Kayce’s gun. It seems he’s bound to go down for murder in some way, which will surely delight Rainwater. 

And Dan, who is in a dispute with John over land rights—and not pleased that John had the river moved to put a dent in his looming residential and commercial developments—pursues Beth as revenge, ignoring all the warnings that she’s an “assassin.” Beth isn’t gullible, however, as she knows who Dan is and what he has planned, though she doesn’t seem to mind either. However, her heart is very obviously with Rip, who she has a long and complicated past with. 

How are you enjoying the first season of Yellowstone on CBS thus far?

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