John and Beth squabble, Kayce begins a new quest — and Jamie realizes Garrett’s past might affect his own future.
Warning: This is an overview of Episode 409 of Yellowstone, so there will be scads of spoilers here. We strongly recommend that you not read this if you have not yet watched the episode. If you do read it before watching the episode, and then complain about spoilers, we’ll be forced to ask Beth to frame you for assaulting a peace officer. Sorry, but those are the rules.
John and Beth had a falling out, Kayce prepared to get in touch with his inner wolf — and Jamie was forced to address a conspicuous skeleton in his closet. What are we to make of all this? Here are our five takeaways from “No Such Thing as Fair,” Episode 409 of Yellowstone.
Takeaway No. 1
Beth (Kelly Reilly) was seriously upset because Rip (Cole Hauser) did nothing to stop John (Kevin Costner) from risking his life while blasting away at those robbers in the diner last week. (In his defense, Rip aptly noted: “I can’t stop your father from doing anything… I can either help him or watch him.”) But her anger was nothing compared to John’s volcanic rage after he learned that Summer (Piper Perabo) is in jail — and facing a possible 30-year sentence for “assaulting” a peace officer — because Beth convinced her to “take one for the team” while part of a protest against construction of an ecologically disruptive airport funded by Market Equities. By the way: For those of you who still doubted that John and Summer did the wild thing, the close encounter was confirmed twice: Once, during John’s visit to the imprisoned Summer; and again during the shouting match between John and Beth. When Beth accused John of being concerned about Summer (Piper Perabo) only because they, ahem, got frisky, John accused Beth of setting up the activist only because of that. “You really disappointed me, honey,” John said. “And I never thought I’d say that about you.” Does this mean Beth will be changing her Machiavellian ways? Probably not. But when we last saw her, she was asking Walker to play her some sad songs while she had a good cry. And we were left to wonder: Just how Freudian is Yellowstone going to get before the Season 4 finale next week?
Takeaway No. 2
Speaking of father-and-child disputes: It finally hit home for Jamie (Wes Bentley) that having a biological father who did hard time for killing his wife, Jamie’s mother, might be one skeleton too many to get uncloseted during his gubernatorial campaign. Mind you, it took the combined arguments of Christina (Katherine Cunningham) and Garrett Garrett (Will Patton) to make him even begin to consider keeping Garrett out of his image-making narrative. But the awkward question remained unanswered: Just what are they going to do about Garrett?
Takeaway No. 3
Could Garrett actually be trying to egg John into killing him? As part of a twisted scheme to help his son and take revenge on his enemy? Think about that scene in the diner — yep, the same place where John and Rip shot the bad guys last week — where Garrett blatantly poked the bear by accusing John of somehow causing him to kill his wife, and then claiming Jamie as a son. John didn’t take the bait — this time, at least — but perhaps he knows, or has begun to suspect, that Garrett was behind the assaults on him and his family. In any event, John departed with a cryptic encouragement for Garrett to eat hearty: “Because you never know which meal will be your last.” Sounds like someone will be taking a trip to the train station soon.
Takeaway No. 4
The good news for Jimmy (Jefferson White): He’s graduated from cowboy school at the 6666 Ranch, and will headed home to Yellowstone. The bad news: Looks like it’s time to say goodbye to Emily (Kathryn Kelly). Or is it? Since Jimmy is so doggone irresistible to women — yeah, we can’t understand it either, and neither does the actor who plays him — maybe theirs will be more than a passing fancy?
Takeaway No. 5
Since next week’s will be the Season 4 finale, we fully expect Taylor Sheridan will have a cliffhanger or two in store for us. Let’s hope Kayce (Luke Grimes) doesn’t actually fall off a cliff during the grueling ceremony he began this week to get in touch with his inner wolf. As Mo warned him: “You must stand on a cliff of death to understand your purpose in life.” Yeah, but what if his purpose is to be written out of Yellowstone?
