The Duttons are getting ready for the big round-up following a nasty fistfight.
Warning: This is an overview of Episode 505 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 will ask Rip to take you to the train station. Sorry, but those are the rules.
Beth and Summer trade punches, Jamie and Sarah enjoy some afternoon delight, and just about everybody gets ready to drive the cattle in for branding. What are we to make of all this? Here are our five takeaways from “Watch ‘Em Ride Away,” Episode 505 of Yellowstone.
Takeaway No. 1
Truth to tell, this whole episode dragged a bit, didn’t it?
Takeaway No. 2
If we’re going to be entirely honest: Yes, Summer (Piper Perabow) had it coming. After all her rude snark about the meat served at the Dutton dinner table, the snippy little vegan is lucky John (Kevin Costner) didn’t just reach over and backhand her for her bad manners. And, mind you, we think John would have been entirely justified in doing so, considering the poor guy was trying to enjoy a family meal. But no: Once again, it was Beth (Kelly Reilly) — having fortified herself during another product placement for Tito’s Handmade Vodka — who handled the rough stuff. She and Summer went outside to duke it out, in a classic mismatch that had Rip (Cole Hauser) ultimately playing referee — more or less the same way he did when Lloyd and Walker squared off back in Episode 406 — and Summer learning the hard way that all the martial arts training in the world is no match for Beth’s right hook. (Do we dare assume the women have struck a truce at the end of it all?) Having said all that, however, it’s getting a little tiresome to see Beth comporting herself like the human equivalent of a runaway train. And it was more than a little jarring to hear John admit he envies Beth for her unfiltered “freedom.” Maybe that’s why, for all his sporadic disapproval of his errant offspring, and all the uneasiness she causes whenever she alludes to sexual activity — his or hers — he deep-down wishes he could be more like her.
Takeaway No. 3
To give her fair credit, Beth did have, hands down, the best line of the evening. Expressing her displeasure that John had invited Summer into their home in the first place, the brazen Dutton gal snapped: “She must be able to suck a marble through a straw.” Don’t be surprised if we soon see those words on T-shirts and samplers.
Takeaway No. 4
Sarah (or whatever her real name is) dropped by Jamie’s office to, ahem, confab. And while Jamie (Wes Bentley) once against duly noted that having sexual congress with someone aligned with an outfit dead-set on destroying his family probably is, at the very least, “unprofessional,” he didn’t say no when Sarah (Dawn Olivieri) suggested a repeat performance. Leaving us to wonder: Does Sarah have a pocketful of marbles handy?
Takeaway No. 5
Viewers who chronically complain about the relative dearth of ranch life detail in this drama nominally set on a ginormous ranch had to be pleased as John, his family and his ranch hands prepared to ride out and round up cattle for branding. A nice touch: John, slowly starting to grasp the finer points of political maneuvering, suggested to his assistant Cara (Lilli Kay) that TV crews be invited to the branding so he might generate image-enhancing optics. The men and women along for the ride faced the prospect of “empty stomachs and cold backs for a couple of days” as they departed the Yellowstone ranch during a sequence that played like something out of Red River. Trouble is, nothing of such importance ever runs smoothly on this show, so we’re already primed to expect — well, we’re hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.
