December 18, 2022 • 52 mins
Jen and Jefferson debrief on Yellowstone season 5 episode 7 then dive into the premiere of the prequel, “1923”. At the ranch, the gathering takes a turn for the worst when brucellosis is discovered among the bison. To prevent transmission of the disease among the Yellowstone cows they must relocate the herd, along with half of the bunkhouse, Meanwhile, Jamie learns of Market Equities' plan to attempt impeachment. Then everyone confronts their relationships ahead of the one-year split at the fair. Everything operates around what the herd needs and things were no different in “1923” — Jefferson and Jen discuss the new Yellowstone origin story which is set against the backdrop of the roaring 20s and prohibition.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Official Yellowstone Podcast. I'm
Jen Landon and I am here with my great co
host Jefferson White. We have an amazing episode for you today.
We are going to be talking about episode seven of
season five of Yellowstone and the series premiere of nineteen
(00:27):
twenty three.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Huge week, Huge week for Yellowstone fans, ourselves included.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So don't go away. We're going to take a quick
break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And we're back. Big week for Yellowstone. Huh.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, it was. It was an episode filled with tremendous change.
And if I were to say there's a theme, I
would say departure would be the theme.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, And I can't help but notice I'm excited to
talk about, you know, episode seventy Yellstone. I'm also really
excited about to talk about nineteen twenty three later on,
in part because there's some interesting echoes. You know, there's
some themes that transcend both shows totally and really sort
of demonstrate the ways in which these worlds are connected,
(01:26):
you know, across decades, the struggles that have faced the
Dutton family are connected and sort of cyclical in a
lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, that I found that incredibly satisfying as a viewer myself.
There's something about ranching that inherently doesn't change. That's one
of the important things that Taylor talks about and writes
about into it in his stories.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah. So this episode of Yellowstone, episode seven opens in
a third timeline, which is the time that we've been exploring,
and I think it's nineteen ninety seventy events of Rip's childhood,
you know, these events with young Rip, with Rowdy and
with young young John Dutton played by Josh Lucas, and
this episode sort of echoes It's funny, it's interesting. Rip
has been fighting for Beth his whole life. It's amazing
(02:16):
to see as in the events of modern day Yellowstone,
we see Rip come to Beth's defense over and over again,
fight on her bath of her honor, to protect her,
fight to sort of preserve her legacy, fight to sort
of support her ideology. We witness maybe the first time
that Beth has gotten Rip into a fight in the
(02:38):
beginning of episode seven here, because we see, you know,
out on the trail out doing this big gather. Rowdy
starts to perhaps besmirch Beth's honor, and Rip takes offense
at it.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, it sets this this dynamic up in which we
become aware that Rip will kill and be killed for Beth.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah. And we've observed, you know, throughout this season and
throughout five seasons of the Yellowstone, this idea of, you know,
how cowboys settle conflicts, how cowboys settle arguments. Right, you know,
we've watched Rip settle arguments. We've watched him sort of
mediate you know, quote unquote mediate other fistfights. This one
gets out of control and escalates in a sort of
(03:22):
frightening way that results in I don't think deliberately, I
don't think that Rip is deliberately doing quite such a
critical wound to Rowdy. But Rowdy Rowdy gets messed up
pretty bad. And it's interesting. It's this moment, with this
this sort of cowboy code of honor. Rowdy says to Rip, hey,
you know, go get help, tell him, I just fell
off my horse. You know, like you and I both
(03:44):
know that we were settling an argument the cowboy way here.
You know this isn't your fault. You go get him
and tell him I fell off my horse. There's no
reason that you should sort of have to accept responsibility
for what's happened here.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
So I think it gives us this moment where we
as an audience connect with Rowdy in a way that
makes us really like him, to sort of set up
the devastation of what comes later. And you hit on
another thing, Jeff, that was so smart, which was of course,
that Rip didn't intentionally set out in any way to
(04:17):
create this much harm. And the theme that it establishes
for me is that what Rip doesn't know is his
own strength, and what we see him become over the
years is somebody who is so strong and is very
aware of that strength, but at this juncture in time,
he is somebody who's not aware of it.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and he's somebody who sort of over time gets
himself under control. We've seen him kill before, you know,
the first time we're introduced to Rip, it's when he's
killing his father, his own father who has killed his mother.
So the first time we see Rip, he's engaged in
this emotional brutal violence. This is another time that you know,
(04:56):
emotions ride high and this fight escalates wildly and Ripped
sort of once again is not fully in control of himself,
and it is it really shows that the Rip that
we know in the present timeline. You know, Cole Hauser
has through years of hard work and through years of
sort of discipline, he is now in control of the
(05:20):
monster that he's capable of being right.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So when he lets it out in his adult life,
it is it is a conscious choice to do so.
Cole Hasard is such an amazing job of embodying Rip,
of course, but his body language going into a moment
where he is about to inflict harm, his walk becomes
so deliberate. It is one of the more distinct and
(05:46):
terrifying walks I have ever seen ever portrayed by anybody.
It's he really embodies that incredibly.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, yeah, my man's got some presence, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Let's dive back into that moment where Ripped doesn't tell
the lie, Rip doesn't say Rowdy fell off his horse,
but and says what he instead tells John the truth.
What do you think John's feelings were about that?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I think he respects it. It's obviously the more difficult
decision to make. It also sets up a relationship that
echoes for decades, because you know, this season of Yellowstone,
just a few episodes ago, we saw it Rip come
clean with John and say, hey, sir, sorry, we killed
some of the park wolves on the ranch. You know,
another one of these moments where Rip could have lied
(06:29):
to John, he could have sort of made his life easier,
he could have tried to duck accountability. But he once again,
you know, he can't lie to John. That's his sort
of highest loyalty. It seems like.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Totally and it feels like though John has respect for
this honesty, it is a burden that John then has
to carry, you know, he has to carry.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It also makes him come, yes, exact, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Like it's like he's got to now, he's got to
do something about it. He yeah, he's complicit.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, it's a kind of it's a kind of it
foists this responsibility then on John. But John has accepted
the responsibility of young Rip.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
It's a really beautiful like in the same way that
Rip accepts the responsibility of Carter and has to own
up to it. When John Dutton's horse is killed as
a result of Carter's carelessness in season five, you know,
John Dutton took responsibility for a young Rip and took
responsibility for the consequences of bringing this kid onto the ranch.
(07:27):
So we really are seeing this kind of cycle of
fathers and sons. You know, even if they're not biological
fathers and sons, the responsibility that is shared between these
kind of mentors and mentees. It's really neat to see
this young Rip and young John Dutton then mirrored in
Rip and Carter, mirrored in Casey's relationship with Tate. Yeah,
(07:49):
it's a fascinating sort of cycle to continue exploring.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And Taylor also sets up here in a timeline sequence
with the loyalty that is essential to the ranch when
he says, he says to Rip, I if I do this, essentially,
if I do this, if I help you, then you
have to be loyal to this ranch until the day
you die. It's a sort of precursor to what we
as the audience now leads to branding.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, since the beginning of Yellowstone, we've seen these kind
of what have sometimes seemed like extreme commitments. You know,
we've said, wow, geez, you sign up, show up with
your first day of work, and they say, hey, you're
going to be here till you die. But in this
case we sort of understand that often those those commitments,
those loyalties are born in blood, you know, so John
(08:38):
is accepting responsibility for the death of Rowdy and in
exchange for that, Rip is pledging his loyalty to the
ranch for life.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And then moving into the next scene, We've got We've
got Jamie and Sarah. This is one of my favorite scenes.
This is a scene where Jamie opens up to Sarah
about how he was never supposed to to become this
and by this he means a lawyer, the soup guy,
that he was raised to be a cowboy, he was
meant to be a cowboy, that his father submitted his
(09:11):
application for him.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You're totally right, John needed a different kind of soldier.
John had plenty of cowboys, and with Jamie he said, Okay,
I need a different kind of soldier, and he sent
his kid off to Harvard Law to become a lawyer.
And it's wild because all season we've seen John, Rip, Casey,
the rest of the family expressing the spiritually satisfying, cathartic
(09:35):
joy of participating in this way of life. They're out
on the ranch early mornings, watching the sunrise on horseback,
kind of savoring the best of what this life has
to offer, celebrating the best of what this life has
to offer, and Jamie has not had a minute of that.
Every time they're out there gathering cows at dawn, you know,
(09:58):
really in touch with the roots of this culture and
this tradition and this way of life. Jamie is in
a boardroom, he's in a shitty hotel, he's somewhere else
sort of fighting a battle on a completely different front.
He has been utterly denied the benefits of this way
(10:19):
of life, and at the same time, he's been asked
to give his entire being to protecting this way of life.
He's been told, Hey, spend your entire life protecting the ranch,
protecting our western tradition, protecting our family's heritage. But you
don't ever get to enjoy it yourself. You don't get
(10:41):
to spend time with us, you don't get to be
on the ranch living the lifestyle that you are fighting
to protect. And we're seeing the weight of that responsibility
just absolutely rip him apart.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, it's so smart what you've said. And it's like
everybody else gets to have some kind of job for John,
but also gets to be their child or somebody that
he cares about and is tender to. And in a way,
Jamie just has the job part and doesn't really have
(11:13):
the son part. It feels doubly screwed up because he's
the one who's adopted. You'd think John would have gone
out of his way to make him feel more included.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, this season, we watch John and Casey have all
these beautiful moments of togetherness. We watch John be a
father to Casey, be a grandfather to Take, be a
sort of father figure to Carter, be a father in
law to Monica. We see John in part wisdom to
(11:44):
all of these people around him, wisdom and kindness and love.
We don't get a single I'm counting on one hand
over here the tender moments between John and Jamie, and
I can count him on one finger the finger and
even go up, you know, in.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
A weird way. The best thing that Jamie could do
is start to work for the ranch as a ranch hand,
kill somebody to save the ranch, go to the train
station with that body, and then get branded, and he'd
be treated a lot better, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And he's tried a lot of this stuff. Season two,
he worked on the ranch for a little bit as
after the murder of Sarah Nuyan, who he killed somebody
to protect the ranch. You would think Jamie's done everything
in his power to belong here, to sort of get
a little bit of his dad's love, and he's been
denied it at every turn, which is brutal. So we're
(12:40):
going to get right back into it. We're gonna jump
back into more of this episode after this quick break.
So crucial to the action of the last few episodes
has been gathering cattle to brand them, right, gathering these
(13:03):
cowclf pairs and branding them. This time, as the cowboys
ride out to go gather more, there is a startling
and alarming discovery, which is these stillborn bison calves, which
these cowboys who are also effectively veterinary scientists. These guys
are also just incredibly smart. They know how to interpret
these signs. These cowboys know that stillborn bison calves means brucellosis,
(13:28):
and it's very, very important that that disease not be
transmitted from those bison to the Yellowstones cows because if
it's transferred to the herd, it's going to run through
the herd, it's going to do an incredible amount of damage,
and the Department of Wildlife basically is going to dictate
that the entire herd be put down to avoid that
disease spreading further. So the only option they have, effectively
(13:52):
is to figure out another place to bring these cows
where they're going to be safe from these bisons, safe
from the possible transmits of brucellosis. So immediately John Dutton
starts getting on the phone and figuring out where the
f are we going to put one of the biggest
herds in the state. Where are we going to put
(14:13):
all of these cows, which is a big logistical nightmare
and also implies you can't just send the cows. You're
going to have to send a lot of cowboys with them.
So this immediately sets up this kind of heartbreaking situation,
which is that functionally half of the bunk cows is
going to have to leave the state for god knows
(14:35):
how long to move the cows and then babysit them
wherever they wind up.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And of course we find out that the cows are
going to be moving down to Texas, So really the
cows are moving closer to you, Jeff. That's I feel
like we're like inching closer to Jimmy as these cows
the audience is like with the cows on their way
(15:02):
to Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, exactly, find Texas. So it sets up this fascinating situation,
and we've talked about this all season, that John's resources
are being spread ever more thin. John himself has been
torn away from the ranch and basically dropped into Helena
with all of these political responsibilities. Beth is jet setting
(15:23):
around trying to sort of help her father manage his
political responsibilities and also do double duty and take care
of the ranch, figure out how to keep the ranch
from collapsing financially. And now Rip is going to have
to go to Texas with the herd. Right, so, all
of a sudden, John Dutton's soldiers are spread so thin,
(15:46):
Casey is going to be, you know, left on the ranch,
left responsible functionally for the day to day operations of
the ranch, along with Lloyd, along with Ethan Lee Colby.
And when Rip is given the sort of choice of
who he's going to bring with him on this big
drive down to Texas, he says, I want Teeter.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Thank you, great choice.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
We're doing a draft here, he says, I want Teeter.
I want Walker because Walker's from Texas, he knows where
we're headed. And I want Ryan. And right there you're
talking about three people who are suddenly in long distance relationships,
not to mention Rip himself, who's having to leave behind Beth,
who is obviously his sort of center of gravity. And
(16:32):
Ryan says, Ryan says, I just love this line. He says,
cowboying is how I sing. If the Grand Old Opry
is your super Bowl, moving five thousand head to land
we don't know, and keeping that herd together, getting it
through winter, new disease, new predators, that's ours. So Ryan says,
this is our super Bowl. This responsibility, this duty is
(16:54):
some It's not something we're afraid of. It's something we
look forward to and embrace.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I love when Ryan says that to Abby, and it
pushes forward a mentality of cowboy that is mirrored in
the nineteen twenty three episode when we get to that,
which is that the cattle will always come first being
a cowboy, and ranching will always come first. And I
(17:24):
will leave it at that, because Helen Mirren in twenty
three expands on that idea with dialogue that is better
than anything I could say. So we have we now
know a bunch of people are how to detect us,
and then we jump to Jamie Ellis and Sarah and
(17:46):
Ellis and Sarah are enraged because John Dutton has put
the ranch into a land trust, and Sarah basically is like,
how could you let your father do that and sort
of shames him. Baraides him, but then gives him the
(18:07):
key to the castle after and says that sounds like
an impeachable offense. It's an ominous but also exciting moment
as a viewer to sort of get a taste of
what is to come. And in the next scene, the
scene opens with another one of those moments, which is
Beth calling the four Six's Ranch, And that was an
(18:31):
incredibly exciting thing for me to read as an actor,
because all during that season, I'm aware that you, Jefferson Wright,
are at the four Six's Ranch, and that we don't
see you, and that I don't get to see you.
And then I find out that I get to go
to Texas, and then I see Beth call the four
Six's Ranch, and again my dream is that those cows
(18:53):
make it all the way to the four Six's Ranch,
which is I think exactly what it looks like.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, it's one of these cool things where there's this
you know, this mythology of the Dutton ranch. And then
there's also this mythology of the Four Sixes, this like
real life mythology, you know. The Four Sixes is a massive,
historically sort of precious cattle ranch in West Texas. We
were introduced to it in season four of Yellowstone. The
(19:19):
myth of that ranch started to sort of build and cook.
We've only seen it from Jimmy's kind of Ansei view,
and then it's a really exciting moment when Beth calls,
you know, Beth calls up the supply house of the
Four Sixes and we start to sort of see it
from the eagles eye view, from Beth's view.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
In a weird way, the brucellosis ends up becoming a
potential financial blessing that the Duttons wouldn't have stumbled upon
any other way, because Beth says in the scene with John,
you know, and of course throughout the entire show, that
they never turn a profit, that they just scrape by
to keep this ranch going.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
And there's different models for how it can work. Beth
has proposed and tried to sort of enact different models
to make the Yellowstone Ranch solvent over the last five seasons.
And this is the seed of this new idea for
this different sort of financial model, and she learns, you know, functionally,
how does the four sixes do it? Well? They sell
their beef direct to consumer. Instead of selling their beef
(20:24):
for a dollar fifty a pound to a meat packer,
they're selling you know, surloin for thirty dollars a pound
direct to a customer. And Beth hears that, and I
feel like that that's this huge moment for her. She's
a genius. She's an economic genius. That proposition all of
a sudden really lights up, really lights her up with possibility,
(20:44):
and she starts to sort of cook on this kind
of whole new model.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Of course, what this means is that Taylor is a
genius as well in terms of being able to identify
that meat packers are the are conglomerates that are holding
the rancher and the consumer hostage. As the consumer pays
more money for beef, the rancher gets less money for beef,
(21:11):
and nobody wins except for massive industry.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, this is a sort of a huge crisis facing
all people who work in agriculture around the country. Right, So,
I'm from Iowa. In Iowa, it's corn, soybeans, and pork.
It gets harder and harder every year for family farmers
to sell at the prices that these massive corporate sort
(21:36):
of big agribusiness institutions set. Right, they can afford to
sell at a much lower price. They can functionally set
the price of corn, soybeans, and pork when they're working
with these these massive, massive quantities that allow them to
make a sort of smaller margin of profit per sale,
whereas small farms. Family farms can't afford to do that. Right,
(21:58):
So this is the same question facing cattle industry, the
beef industry, and Sarah Atwood. Sarah Attwood sort of makes
a point earlier in the season. She says, Oh, yeah,
American beef is done. It's Brazil like, like real beef manufacturing,
big beef in ten years is going the way that,
you know, the way that American manufacturing went to China
(22:20):
over the last ten years. Big beef is going to Brazil.
American cattle ranchers are not going to be able to
keep up with the prices being set by these massive
corporate interests in Brazil and internationally. And so this is
you know, it's the steady march of you know, shifting
(22:41):
economic headwinds that John Dutton is trying to resist in
a million ways, and they're trying to sort of figure
out how to defeat this incredibly strong headwind that is
making it harder and harder for farmers to stay.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Afloat moving into lighter territory. Let's talk about the fair.
This was a massive scene, Jeff Sadly, again, you weren't there.
It took a while to shoot. I can tell you
for the audience. Here's a fun fact. We shot that
fair sequence in Montana and in Texas, and this is
(23:16):
just a testament to movie magic and the hard work
of our crew. Somehow Texas looked like Montana. I didn't
think they were going to get away with it, but
they did. But this is an amazing scene where we
sort of have all of the key relationships in the
show in one place. We see all of the dynamics.
(23:36):
The theme, of course is romance, and there are goodbyes
and then there are sort of steps forward, certainly with
John and Summer at the end of the episode.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, it's really sweet. You know, we've set up, as
you mentioned, this kind of departure, this exodus. Everybody's going
to have to leave, and that I think brings into
stark relief what they're leaving behind. So all these characters
are confronting these relationships, they're perhaps you know, realizing how
they feel because suddenly they're leaving, I think is something
(24:12):
we've all experienced. So all these characters are sort of
having this opportunity to articulate their feelings and sort of
express their feelings and plan for their future or lack thereof.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And we find out that the cowboys who are leaving
will be gone for about a year. And of course
the scene between Ryan and Abby with that beautiful quote
that you referenced, And when I was watching the episode,
of course part of me wondered based on how I
was clutching the pink bear, because I was really clutching
the pink bear because it was about thirty degrees outside
(24:46):
and it was the only way it could stay warm.
But watching it, I thought, is Teter more sad to
leave Colby or is she more sad to leave behind
the bear? And I frankly couldn't tell it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Is Yeah, what an amazing sort of moment. None of
these people are particularly verbally expressive. This is perhaps sort
of the nature of cowboys, you know, me and Jen.
Our whole thing is talking. In real life. We love talking.
That's why we're here doing a podcast. Talking comes very
naturally to us, and you can decide for yourself whether
we're any good at it. But these characters on the
(25:21):
show aren't necessarily talkers. They're doers, you know, they're people,
they're working people. They speak. They speak the language of horses,
they speak the language of these cows that they're responsible for.
They are literate in this entire other language. But they're
not necessarily the most eloquent when it comes to expressing
(25:42):
their feelings their rich inner lives. And it doesn't mean
they don't have rich inner lives, it's just that their
words aren't usually the way that they express them.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I feel like we can't wrap up this episode totally
without just hitting on the moment between John and Summer,
which obviously ends in what we can only assume is
a kiss behind John Dutton's hat, which if I was
a kid, I would have been like, they're making out.
But Summer gives John sort of a gem in terms
(26:15):
of reaching people and getting them to understand, because she
talks about how she may never agree with him about
certain things, but she understands why, and that the big
mistake that people make in some places, and the opportunity
that John has is to get people who don't agree
with him to at least understand why. And in the
(26:39):
same way that Sarah has given Jamie some powerful gems,
I feel like Summer imparts one to John here.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Obviously an incredible episode. We could talk about it forever,
and we may have just talked about it forever. I'm
looking at my watch and it says that we just
talked about that episode literally forever. So we're going to
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about my new favorite TV show nineteen
twenty three. Okay, this is a huge week for Yellowstone
(27:20):
fans because not only is there a new episode, yeostone,
but we also had the absolute honor of watching the
premiere episode of a new entry in the extended Yellowstone Universe,
the prequel nineteen twenty three. This is my new favorite show.
(27:40):
I am obsessed with this first episode. I just want
to have a little disclaimer here. Jen and I we
work on Yellowstone. We have a sort of insider knowledge
of Yellowstone. We read those scripts, We spend a lot
of time percolating on it. We're going to talk about
nineteen twenty three because we're both huge fans of this show.
We are just like you watching this show alongside you.
(28:04):
We don't have any insider information. We're excited about it,
but just forgive us because some of you are going
to know a little bit more about this than some
of us.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Jeff, this is though I'm a fan of obviously everything
that exists in the Taylor Verse, I have to agree
that I think this is my absolute favorite. This is
the show that I'm going to be a super fan
about that I'm going to be sad on days that
I miss episodes when they air. I've been looking forward
(28:36):
to this ever since the casting announcement.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
This one is wild. Everybody wants to work on these
projects because Taylor's a genius and it brings in these
incredible collaborators. Not only actors like Harrison Ford obviously some
of the biggest movie stars in the world, but Taylor
also has an incredible eye for young talent. Taylor is
incredible at recognizing actors who haven't had opportunities like this
(29:05):
and giving them their first opportunities. So this cast is
chock full to some of my favorite actors. Not only
Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, You've also got Brian Garrett,
You've got James Badge Dale, you got Robert Patrick, you
got some of the best, you got Jerome Flynn, you
got some of the best character actors in the world.
And then also these young actors that it's so exciting
to sort of discover alongside audiences the way that Taylor
(29:27):
did with Isabelle May in eighteen eighty three. You know,
it's such a gift to have young actors that were
learning about for the first time alongside some of the
biggest and best movie stars of the world. So this
is a jam packed first episode. I just want to
take a second at the jump. Big fans of the
Yellowstone Universe, like myself, are going to be curious heading
(29:48):
into this what the relationship is between these characters and
the characters of eighteen eighty three, and this episode offers
us a great roadmap for that. So we learn in
this opening narration what happened in those intervening years. So basically,
Tim McGraw James Dutton dies in eighteen ninety three after
(30:09):
the action of eighteen eighty three. We saw it in
a flashback in Yellowstone season four, his wife Margaret Dutton
faith Hill sends for help. She writes to his brother
Jacob Dutton asking for help. Jacob shows up in eighteen
ninety four tragically after just barely after Margaret Dutton has
frozen to death. Jacob and his wife Kara functionally adopt
(30:34):
John Dutton and Spencer Dutton, the two kids of James
and Margaret. John is the character the young boy played
by Audie Rick that we saw in the Action of
eighteen eighty three, and he's the only character that overlaps
between these two shows. That's John Dutton. He's played by
James Badgdale. In nineteen twenty three. He has a son,
(30:57):
Jack Dutton, who is getting married. So Harrison Ford and
Helen Mirin, Jacob Dutton and Kara Dutton have functionally adopted
John Dutton and Spencer Dutton, who's in Africa hunting lions.
John Dutton has a son, Jack Dutton, who's getting married.
(31:19):
What do we think did we get it? You out
there listen to be honest, you folks listening to this
are in basically the same position we're in, So please
fact check me. Please send me a message on Instagram
if I've gotten this wrong. I drew a diagram I used.
I got a lot of help from Bria Brissey, who
is the expert Yellowstone historian who runs the Yellowstone Instagram account.
(31:42):
I called her panicking, asking her for guidance about this,
and that's what I just said out loud for about
eight and a half minutes. That's as clear as I
could get it.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Jeff, it was perfect, Jeff, do you remember what Elsa
says in the vio at the top, Like while you
were going through that, I flashed on this piece that
Elsa says, my parents had three children and only one
of them will live to see theirs grow, which sets
up people we care about are gonna die.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It still feels a little confusing, and maybe on purpose
in terms of who's who, and maybe that function is
to be like who's safe who's not?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yea, so one of them have already done. Her parents
had three children, one of them is her, she's dead.
The two remaining children are Spencer Dutton and John Dutton.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So we will spend the rest of our time wondering
about them.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I've learned by now by watching everything Taylor Sheritan.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Is every everybody dies.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Just worry about everybody. Just worry about everybody all the time.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Everyone's dead. I love that as Taylor's expanded the world
in terms of shows that correspond to it, the world's
gotten bigger. So Yellowstone is set on one ranch of Montana.
We are in Montana, we do not leave Montana, and
then we go to eighteen eighty three, and then we
start to cover a chunk of America. And then, as
(33:07):
you've said, by scene two of nineteen twenty three, we're
aware that we're going around the globe for this version,
and then the parallels of the wildness between the two
was incredibly exciting. So jumping into that first scene, right,
we've got some guy running and limping and terrified, running
(33:28):
away from someone, and the reveal is Helen Mirren And
in that second, like I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
I know that this is going to be epic, and
I feel like she blows me away by how she
transforms in every role that she does. But she took
on this sort of weight of a frontier woman in
(33:49):
a way that blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, it's a woman who has lived a life like
one of the sort of exciting things about this is
discovering these characters after an incredibly long and difficult and
life that has sort of traveled great distances. So even
in that opening narration, we hear Elsa Dutton from eighteen
eighty three sort of describing the family's journey that brought
(34:11):
them here and now, one of the very first things
she says is violence has always haunted this family. And
what could be a more potent expression of that than
this opening scene that makes that that brings Kara Dutton
sort of directly into that violence, thrusts her right into
it after a long and difficult life of vine.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
And then I mean, I feel like in westerns we
often see the duel right who pulls their gun faster,
But there's this great moment Kara Dutton Helen Mirren goes
to shoot the guy after he sort of appeals to
her gentleness or he uses God, but it feels like
he's trying to get the sympathy that he thinks a
(34:53):
woman is going to bestow on him. And she fires,
it doesn't go off, and then there's this great mad
dash to reload their guns. And I felt like I
hadn't seen that before, not in that way, it was
so exciting and it felt so fresh. Of course, she
gets the shot in and then again because we don't
(35:15):
have the scripts, I don't know if it was written
in or if it was a choice, But she then
screams right, and she's somebody who can make the brutal
choice without a thought, but it's not not painful for
her that it does cost something. I felt like that
(35:36):
entire scene was such brilliant storytelling and character revealed right
off the bet.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, it's so excited. I mean like it's also we
don't know where that falls in the timeline, so classic
Taylor Sheridan plot device is showing us events that will
occur later. Eighteen eighty three opens with this kind of
dreamy fugue showing us also being shot with an arrow.
We don't know when this sequence falls in the action
of the show show. We just know that the show
(36:02):
will carry us to this violence. Violence will haunt this family,
will sort of continue to pursue them.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Elsa says that thing that violence will has followed her family,
but then says for those of us you know who
don't who it hasn't followed or something that they will
go seek it, and then we which is sort of
it feels a bit like Taylor making a statement about
human nature, which I certainly agree with, is that we,
in some way we are hardwired for violence and aggression.
(36:30):
It's in our DNA, and it's about what we do
with that impulse and how we channel it into creative
ways in which we're not we're not harming.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah, and it's a fascinating you know, speaking of the
sort of second scene here as we cut to Africa,
I believe to Kenya, I'm not one hundred percent certain
about that. I don't know if it's it's clarified in
the episode, don't think it is. We find Spencer Dutton hunting,
and Spencer is this fascinating character who I can't help
but see as a sort of clear and distinct ancestor
(37:06):
of Casey Dutton. A man who went to war sort
of experienced profound loss and violence and trauma and war,
and then has spent the rest of his life trying
to escape it, perhaps but in doing so falling back
into it over and over again. A man who's so
haunted by what he was asked to do. You know,
(37:30):
we see these scenes of him throughout the episode. In
World War One, in trench warfare, you know, just scrambling,
fighting for his life, fighting to protect himself and his comrades.
And now we find him later after that sort of
still who knows what it is. You can't tell if
he's running from something or if he's running towards violence.
(37:50):
You can't tell if he's being haunted, you know, if
he's chasing violence or violence is chasing him. It's a
sort of fascinating relationship.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, And we talked a little bit earlier about the
sort of parallel moments over time that Taylor hits on
both in this episode and in the episode of Yellowstone
that aired this week. And when we see Spencer Dutton
shoot the lion, we know right away he's a hell
of a shot. And I just got to say, Brandon Sklennar,
I don't know if I'm saying his name correctly. He
(38:19):
is one of those actors that it just is like
I felt like he was a movie star that I
had seen before, movie storre, the massive presence. I will
watch anything he does. He turns me into the woman
in the Safari at the Safari dinner, like I'm just
so blown away by him. But on the one of
(38:39):
the parallels is is that we know he's an amazing shot,
and go back to the fair scene in Yellowstone and
we've got Tate just shooting at like one of the
carnival games and he's just naturally an amazing shot.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, it's a really fascinating You know that John Dutton
has talked about these sort of echoes, this kind of
ongoing battle, and it really is an amazing thing to
jump back into it and see literally those recurring images
throughout time. Speaking of John Dutton, let's get into let's
(39:18):
get into the main event. I hesitate to say the
main event because there's so many incredible events in this
first episode of nineteen twenty three, but let's get into it.
We got Harrison Ford playing Jacob Dutton. Incredible.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
He inhabits this world so beautifully. And the thing that
both he and Helen bring to this that I thought
was really fresh for me was in a way was
comedy that I didn't expect because they're both so bloody talented.
(39:55):
Their ability to find humor or in these moments was
so was so refreshing. And then we've got Jacob. I
just listen to Harrison. Harrison takes us into what I'm
assuming is Bozeman, right, or is it Livingston? Maybe it's Livingston,
(40:16):
Like what town are we in? Right? Because the Dutton
Ranch is set in Paradise Valley. We know that we're
already in Paradise Valley at the Dutton Ranch because we
see the baby births, I think, or maybe not, maybe
the ranch move, but it feels like right right.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
I think, so, yeah, beginnings of a wrong.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
So I'm wondering if that was Livingston, which is a
beautiful town by the way, When I lived in Montana
years ago, that was my main town that I would
go to. And then we get to see some of
the colorful aspects of that time period, and I loved
that they just went for it. They're like, we're throwing
(40:56):
boxers in the street, We're throwing you know, prohibition. They
just threw it all in and it was so satisfying.
I knew exactly. It made me on a time travel
just for just briefly. I don't really want to be
there for most of that decade.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Well yeah, I mean, and it's a decade like characterized
by extremes, right, because it's both the roar in twenties,
it's both this excess, this sort of bacchinalien excess and
the you know, you know, prohibition and this kind of
response to it. Right, it's the it's this changing world
and then this effort to stop that change. You know,
(41:41):
it's a world that is pulling in two directions at once,
especially sort of in response to the profound global trauma
of World War One. Right Like, there's these this sort
of generation of men who return from World War One
having seen the world, the best and worst of it,
the most beautiful and ugliest aspects of the world, and
(42:03):
human nature kind of pulling in two directions at once. Yes,
this boxing match, this sort of excess, and then right
after that these sort of warriors on behalf of prohibition
and the plenty in suffering. You know, like Jacob's got
this sort of you know, he in some ways is succeeding.
He's got a lot to be happy about, but also
(42:23):
his herd is suffering. From the very beginning of this,
we learned that there is not enough grass. There is
sort of famine spreading here. The herd is really suffering,
and every surrounding herd, including these sheep farmers, these sheep herders,
they're all suffering immensely gosh.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
I think that takes us right to the beginnings of
Yellowstone Ranch where we see Jack Dutton, who's played by
Darren Mann and he's breaking a cult, which we've also
seen on Yellowstone, and that whole experience of seeing the
and it's baby version of see the round pen. Didn't
(43:04):
you have the roundpin? Didn't you like, oh, this hole,
that's our home.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I know when you saw the cowboys leaning up against
the round pin, I was like, Oh, that's amazing. Echoes
to the second episode of Yellowstone where we see Jimmy
getting his ass absolutely kicked by a bucking horse while
everybody sort of leans and watches. I also just have
to flag one of our little insider thing here. When
you work on Yellowstone, you really get to know the
stunt guys because they work very hard and they're always present.
(43:29):
I have my first Jordan War exciting. So some stunt
performers wind up getting tagged in over and over and
over again on Yellowstone because there's some stuff that only
a few guys in the world can do. There's only
a few guys who can fall off a horse over
and over again. The way that our stunt performers. Can
you know, we have a really incredibly talented stunt team.
So the first Jordan War exciting of nineteen twenty three
(43:50):
is that Jerome Flynn's character whose name is Banner, punches
him in the face as that sort of argument escalates
in the town hall or wherever it is. First guy
to get punched in the face. Boom, that's Jordan.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Wore I saw at the ranch. I see Case Ream
yeah standing, which for those of you who don't know,
Case Sream is Jake ream Son. Jake plays Jake on
Yellowstone obviously, and I was like, oh, it's my buddy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
It's so nice to see those familiar faces. We're also
introduced to the first time for the first time to
Brian Garretty's character Zaane. Brian clearly sort of authority figure,
a bit of a rip style figure who sort of
got a lot of responsibility on the ranch, who the
rest of the cowboys are looking to, perhaps the sort
of leader of the bunk house, it would seem. In
(44:44):
nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Three, moving into what is potentially the most painful sort
of segment storyline sequence of the show, but also my favorite,
is the world that is the American Indian Boarding School.
And when that first shot opened up and you see
sister Mary, who's played by Jennifer Eliot and like played
(45:07):
brilliantly and almost not fully of this earth. She looked
almost ghoulish standing there, and she proceeds to then you
know Quiz who we come to know is Tiona or Tiana,
and that is played by Amina Niv's pardon me for
(45:28):
any mispronunciations of any of this. And again, like talk
about in this scene alone, we have two more all
star performances. I feel like any one of these could
be nominated for an award. And then what becomes just
one of the more painful sequences that I've seen.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, I kind of I would say, like a sort
of fearless exploration of a brutally unjust chapter of American history.
Taylor likes to show us the West as we were
manticize it. He likes to show us these sweeping vistas,
you know, the joy that these cowboys have in doing
(46:08):
their work. And then he'll also show us the uncomfortable
stuff that we don't necessarily know about, you know the
dark side of that myth speaking of, you know, these
conflicts that echo back and forth in history. In this episode,
we're setting up this conflict that's brewing between Jacob Dutton
and these neighboring sheep herders and sheep farmers, leading to
(46:30):
a conflict that's not unlike the conflict that we first
saw in the pilot of Yellowstone, where these cows have
wandered off of John Dutton's land and onto this nearby reservation.
So we're setting up a sort of conflict around the
rights to graze at a time when grass is particularly
scarce and is gold. You know, right now, at this
(46:50):
moment in history, grass is gold. It's the only way
that these cattle, these cattle ranchers can keep their cows alive,
and it's the only way that these sheep herders, sheep
ranchers can keep their sh pep alive. So you've set
up a real powder keg of a situation here, and
you know, also a pretty a funny illustration. You know,
we were talking in EPIS season five, episode seven of Yellstone.
(47:13):
We were talking about the sort of life style of
being a rancher and how everything has to operate around
what the herd needs. There's a conflict, a similar conflict
set up in this episode in nineteen twenty three, Jack
Dutton is supposed to get married, his wedding has been set,
and all of a sudden he has to go on
a cattle drive instead of getting married, which is I
(47:38):
can't imagine that's a critical crisis in a personal life.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, I loved that, the naivete of his response of
why shouldn't the marriage be like the wedding? And then
I forget who says it, but they're like, yeah, I'd
like to see how that goes over. Of course, Karen
knows this is going to be disastrous, gets in her buggy,
goes over there, knowing that the it, knowing that it's
going to be bad. I believe Elizabeth tells Jack to
(48:05):
go sleep with a cow, which is one of my
favorite moments. And then Kara sits down with Elizabeth and
turns that around in a way that she sort of says,
the cows, you know, the cowt will always come first,
you know the ranch will always come first. You'll have
your first born, and you know basically you will come second.
(48:27):
But then she says, and you'll be free in a
way that most people could only imagine or could never imagine,
and as somebody on a personal level, is somebody who
relishes their freedom. I found that to be just such
a really wonderful way of framing that.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
So back to Spencer Nuts in Africa, we see him
sort of experiencing this dream, this kind of flashback within
a flashback within a prequel, that is, his sort of
nightmares of what happened to him in World War One,
the sort of tremendous difficulty that he experienced in World
(49:09):
War One, the sort of profound violence of trench warfare.
We see that that is haunting him still to this day,
much like Casey is haunted by the violence he saw
overseas as a soldier in Yellowstone.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah. I think it's a common theme that people who
experience PTSD from warfare and a myriad of other things,
even home becomes a very hard place to reestablish and
a place to it's almost impossible to re enter it.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, he says, this beautiful thing. He's woken up by
a steward on the train and the guy says, hey, man,
you've reached your destination, and he says, I have no destination.
I've reached my next stop. That's all this is. So, Yeah,
exactly like you just said, he doesn't know where hum is,
he doesn't know how to stop moving, and he's haunted
by violence. You know, as Elsa says in that opening narration,
(50:12):
this is a character who's haunted by violence everywhere he goes.
Speaking of violence, He's not the only Dutton in danger.
So this tense relationship between these sheep herders and the
Duttons they're cattle ranch, you know, has come to a head.
(50:33):
There's a massive cattle drive happening. John Dutton, Jacob Dutton,
and Jack Dutton are pushing cows, much like much like
the sort of gathering we did in Yellowstone season five.
They're pushing cows. They're driving them to a pasture where
there ought to be grass. Yet Jack Dutton crests a
hill and finds that grassy pasture covered in sheep. So
(50:57):
functionally that grass, that gold, that green gold, is being
stolen by these sheep herders. Jack sort of peers into
the middle distance trying to see what's going on. He
sees a man on horseback, and then he sees a
muzzle flash and we cut away. So that violence that
haunts the Duttons is haunting them across continents, across generations.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
We really leave the episode with two did they live
cliffhangers because Spencer in Africa. We don't know whether or
not Spencer lives or dies.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Yeah, very exciting. It is classic Taylor Sheridan to kill
a main character in the pilot. He's done that a
couple of times. He killed Lee Dutton in the pilot
a Yellowstone. It is a brutal move to get the
audience invested in a character and then rip them away
just like that. So I'll be really curious to see
(51:54):
who makes it to episode two. I personally can't wait
for episode two. I'm hoping too.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Make sure you subscribe to the Official Yellowstone Podcast and
tune in with us every Sunday at Apple Podcasts or
wherever you get your podcasts. See us soon.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
The Official Yellowstone Podcast is a production of one oh
one Studios and Paramount. This episode was produced by Scott Stone.
Brandon Goetchius is the head of Audio for one oh
one Studios. Steve Rasis is the executive vice president of
the Paramount Global Podcast Group. Special thanks to Megan Marcus,
Jeremy Westfall, Ainsley Rosito, Andrew Sarnow, Jason Red and Whitney
(52:33):
Baxter from Paramount, and of course, David Glasser, David Hukin
and Michelle Newman from one oh one Studios
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Official Yellowstone Podcast. I'm
Jen Landon and I am here with my great co
host Jefferson White. We have an amazing episode for you today.
We are going to be talking about episode seven of
season five of Yellowstone and the series premiere of nineteen
(00:27):
twenty three.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Huge week, Huge week for Yellowstone fans, ourselves included.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So don't go away. We're going to take a quick
break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And we're back. Big week for Yellowstone. Huh.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, it was. It was an episode filled with tremendous change.
And if I were to say there's a theme, I
would say departure would be the theme.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, And I can't help but notice I'm excited to
talk about, you know, episode seventy Yellstone. I'm also really
excited about to talk about nineteen twenty three later on,
in part because there's some interesting echoes. You know, there's
some themes that transcend both shows totally and really sort
of demonstrate the ways in which these worlds are connected,
(01:26):
you know, across decades, the struggles that have faced the
Dutton family are connected and sort of cyclical in a
lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, that I found that incredibly satisfying as a viewer myself.
There's something about ranching that inherently doesn't change. That's one
of the important things that Taylor talks about and writes
about into it in his stories.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah. So this episode of Yellowstone, episode seven opens in
a third timeline, which is the time that we've been exploring,
and I think it's nineteen ninety seventy events of Rip's childhood,
you know, these events with young Rip, with Rowdy and
with young young John Dutton played by Josh Lucas, and
this episode sort of echoes It's funny, it's interesting. Rip
has been fighting for Beth his whole life. It's amazing
(02:16):
to see as in the events of modern day Yellowstone,
we see Rip come to Beth's defense over and over again,
fight on her bath of her honor, to protect her,
fight to sort of preserve her legacy, fight to sort
of support her ideology. We witness maybe the first time
that Beth has gotten Rip into a fight in the
(02:38):
beginning of episode seven here, because we see, you know,
out on the trail out doing this big gather. Rowdy
starts to perhaps besmirch Beth's honor, and Rip takes offense
at it.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, it sets this this dynamic up in which we
become aware that Rip will kill and be killed for Beth.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah. And we've observed, you know, throughout this season and
throughout five seasons of the Yellowstone, this idea of, you know,
how cowboys settle conflicts, how cowboys settle arguments. Right, you know,
we've watched Rip settle arguments. We've watched him sort of
mediate you know, quote unquote mediate other fistfights. This one
gets out of control and escalates in a sort of
(03:22):
frightening way that results in I don't think deliberately, I
don't think that Rip is deliberately doing quite such a
critical wound to Rowdy. But Rowdy Rowdy gets messed up
pretty bad. And it's interesting. It's this moment, with this
this sort of cowboy code of honor. Rowdy says to Rip, hey,
you know, go get help, tell him, I just fell
off my horse. You know, like you and I both
(03:44):
know that we were settling an argument the cowboy way here.
You know this isn't your fault. You go get him
and tell him I fell off my horse. There's no
reason that you should sort of have to accept responsibility
for what's happened here.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
So I think it gives us this moment where we
as an audience connect with Rowdy in a way that
makes us really like him, to sort of set up
the devastation of what comes later. And you hit on
another thing, Jeff, that was so smart, which was of course,
that Rip didn't intentionally set out in any way to
(04:17):
create this much harm. And the theme that it establishes
for me is that what Rip doesn't know is his
own strength, and what we see him become over the
years is somebody who is so strong and is very
aware of that strength, but at this juncture in time,
he is somebody who's not aware of it.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and he's somebody who sort of over time gets
himself under control. We've seen him kill before, you know,
the first time we're introduced to Rip, it's when he's
killing his father, his own father who has killed his mother.
So the first time we see Rip, he's engaged in
this emotional brutal violence. This is another time that you know,
(04:56):
emotions ride high and this fight escalates wildly and Ripped
sort of once again is not fully in control of himself,
and it is it really shows that the Rip that
we know in the present timeline. You know, Cole Hauser
has through years of hard work and through years of
sort of discipline, he is now in control of the
(05:20):
monster that he's capable of being right.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So when he lets it out in his adult life,
it is it is a conscious choice to do so.
Cole Hasard is such an amazing job of embodying Rip,
of course, but his body language going into a moment
where he is about to inflict harm, his walk becomes
so deliberate. It is one of the more distinct and
(05:46):
terrifying walks I have ever seen ever portrayed by anybody.
It's he really embodies that incredibly.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, yeah, my man's got some presence, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Let's dive back into that moment where Ripped doesn't tell
the lie, Rip doesn't say Rowdy fell off his horse,
but and says what he instead tells John the truth.
What do you think John's feelings were about that?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I think he respects it. It's obviously the more difficult
decision to make. It also sets up a relationship that
echoes for decades, because you know, this season of Yellowstone,
just a few episodes ago, we saw it Rip come
clean with John and say, hey, sir, sorry, we killed
some of the park wolves on the ranch. You know,
another one of these moments where Rip could have lied
(06:29):
to John, he could have sort of made his life easier,
he could have tried to duck accountability. But he once again,
you know, he can't lie to John. That's his sort
of highest loyalty. It seems like.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Totally and it feels like though John has respect for
this honesty, it is a burden that John then has
to carry, you know, he has to carry.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It also makes him come, yes, exact, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Like it's like he's got to now, he's got to
do something about it. He yeah, he's complicit.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, it's a kind of it's a kind of it
foists this responsibility then on John. But John has accepted
the responsibility of young Rip.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
It's a really beautiful like in the same way that
Rip accepts the responsibility of Carter and has to own
up to it. When John Dutton's horse is killed as
a result of Carter's carelessness in season five, you know,
John Dutton took responsibility for a young Rip and took
responsibility for the consequences of bringing this kid onto the ranch.
(07:27):
So we really are seeing this kind of cycle of
fathers and sons. You know, even if they're not biological
fathers and sons, the responsibility that is shared between these
kind of mentors and mentees. It's really neat to see
this young Rip and young John Dutton then mirrored in
Rip and Carter, mirrored in Casey's relationship with Tate. Yeah,
(07:49):
it's a fascinating sort of cycle to continue exploring.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And Taylor also sets up here in a timeline sequence
with the loyalty that is essential to the ranch when
he says, he says to Rip, I if I do this, essentially,
if I do this, if I help you, then you
have to be loyal to this ranch until the day
you die. It's a sort of precursor to what we
as the audience now leads to branding.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, since the beginning of Yellowstone, we've seen these kind
of what have sometimes seemed like extreme commitments. You know,
we've said, wow, geez, you sign up, show up with
your first day of work, and they say, hey, you're
going to be here till you die. But in this
case we sort of understand that often those those commitments,
those loyalties are born in blood, you know, so John
(08:38):
is accepting responsibility for the death of Rowdy and in
exchange for that, Rip is pledging his loyalty to the
ranch for life.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And then moving into the next scene, We've got We've
got Jamie and Sarah. This is one of my favorite scenes.
This is a scene where Jamie opens up to Sarah
about how he was never supposed to to become this
and by this he means a lawyer, the soup guy,
that he was raised to be a cowboy, he was
meant to be a cowboy, that his father submitted his
(09:11):
application for him.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You're totally right, John needed a different kind of soldier.
John had plenty of cowboys, and with Jamie he said, Okay,
I need a different kind of soldier, and he sent
his kid off to Harvard Law to become a lawyer.
And it's wild because all season we've seen John, Rip, Casey,
the rest of the family expressing the spiritually satisfying, cathartic
(09:35):
joy of participating in this way of life. They're out
on the ranch early mornings, watching the sunrise on horseback,
kind of savoring the best of what this life has
to offer, celebrating the best of what this life has
to offer, and Jamie has not had a minute of that.
Every time they're out there gathering cows at dawn, you know,
(09:58):
really in touch with the roots of this culture and
this tradition and this way of life. Jamie is in
a boardroom, he's in a shitty hotel, he's somewhere else
sort of fighting a battle on a completely different front.
He has been utterly denied the benefits of this way
(10:19):
of life, and at the same time, he's been asked
to give his entire being to protecting this way of life.
He's been told, Hey, spend your entire life protecting the ranch,
protecting our western tradition, protecting our family's heritage. But you
don't ever get to enjoy it yourself. You don't get
(10:41):
to spend time with us, you don't get to be
on the ranch living the lifestyle that you are fighting
to protect. And we're seeing the weight of that responsibility
just absolutely rip him apart.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, it's so smart what you've said. And it's like
everybody else gets to have some kind of job for John,
but also gets to be their child or somebody that
he cares about and is tender to. And in a way,
Jamie just has the job part and doesn't really have
(11:13):
the son part. It feels doubly screwed up because he's
the one who's adopted. You'd think John would have gone
out of his way to make him feel more included.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, this season, we watch John and Casey have all
these beautiful moments of togetherness. We watch John be a
father to Casey, be a grandfather to Take, be a
sort of father figure to Carter, be a father in
law to Monica. We see John in part wisdom to
(11:44):
all of these people around him, wisdom and kindness and love.
We don't get a single I'm counting on one hand
over here the tender moments between John and Jamie, and
I can count him on one finger the finger and
even go up, you know, in.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
A weird way. The best thing that Jamie could do
is start to work for the ranch as a ranch hand,
kill somebody to save the ranch, go to the train
station with that body, and then get branded, and he'd
be treated a lot better, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And he's tried a lot of this stuff. Season two,
he worked on the ranch for a little bit as
after the murder of Sarah Nuyan, who he killed somebody
to protect the ranch. You would think Jamie's done everything
in his power to belong here, to sort of get
a little bit of his dad's love, and he's been
denied it at every turn, which is brutal. So we're
(12:40):
going to get right back into it. We're gonna jump
back into more of this episode after this quick break.
So crucial to the action of the last few episodes
has been gathering cattle to brand them, right, gathering these
(13:03):
cowclf pairs and branding them. This time, as the cowboys
ride out to go gather more, there is a startling
and alarming discovery, which is these stillborn bison calves, which
these cowboys who are also effectively veterinary scientists. These guys
are also just incredibly smart. They know how to interpret
these signs. These cowboys know that stillborn bison calves means brucellosis,
(13:28):
and it's very, very important that that disease not be
transmitted from those bison to the Yellowstones cows because if
it's transferred to the herd, it's going to run through
the herd, it's going to do an incredible amount of damage,
and the Department of Wildlife basically is going to dictate
that the entire herd be put down to avoid that
disease spreading further. So the only option they have, effectively
(13:52):
is to figure out another place to bring these cows
where they're going to be safe from these bisons, safe
from the possible transmits of brucellosis. So immediately John Dutton
starts getting on the phone and figuring out where the
f are we going to put one of the biggest
herds in the state. Where are we going to put
(14:13):
all of these cows, which is a big logistical nightmare
and also implies you can't just send the cows. You're
going to have to send a lot of cowboys with them.
So this immediately sets up this kind of heartbreaking situation,
which is that functionally half of the bunk cows is
going to have to leave the state for god knows
(14:35):
how long to move the cows and then babysit them
wherever they wind up.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And of course we find out that the cows are
going to be moving down to Texas, So really the
cows are moving closer to you, Jeff. That's I feel
like we're like inching closer to Jimmy as these cows
the audience is like with the cows on their way
(15:02):
to Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, exactly, find Texas. So it sets up this fascinating situation,
and we've talked about this all season, that John's resources
are being spread ever more thin. John himself has been
torn away from the ranch and basically dropped into Helena
with all of these political responsibilities. Beth is jet setting
(15:23):
around trying to sort of help her father manage his
political responsibilities and also do double duty and take care
of the ranch, figure out how to keep the ranch
from collapsing financially. And now Rip is going to have
to go to Texas with the herd. Right, so, all
of a sudden, John Dutton's soldiers are spread so thin,
(15:46):
Casey is going to be, you know, left on the ranch,
left responsible functionally for the day to day operations of
the ranch, along with Lloyd, along with Ethan Lee Colby.
And when Rip is given the sort of choice of
who he's going to bring with him on this big
drive down to Texas, he says, I want Teeter.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Thank you, great choice.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
We're doing a draft here, he says, I want Teeter.
I want Walker because Walker's from Texas, he knows where
we're headed. And I want Ryan. And right there you're
talking about three people who are suddenly in long distance relationships,
not to mention Rip himself, who's having to leave behind Beth,
who is obviously his sort of center of gravity. And
(16:32):
Ryan says, Ryan says, I just love this line. He says,
cowboying is how I sing. If the Grand Old Opry
is your super Bowl, moving five thousand head to land
we don't know, and keeping that herd together, getting it
through winter, new disease, new predators, that's ours. So Ryan says,
this is our super Bowl. This responsibility, this duty is
(16:54):
some It's not something we're afraid of. It's something we
look forward to and embrace.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I love when Ryan says that to Abby, and it
pushes forward a mentality of cowboy that is mirrored in
the nineteen twenty three episode when we get to that,
which is that the cattle will always come first being
a cowboy, and ranching will always come first. And I
(17:24):
will leave it at that, because Helen Mirren in twenty
three expands on that idea with dialogue that is better
than anything I could say. So we have we now
know a bunch of people are how to detect us,
and then we jump to Jamie Ellis and Sarah and
(17:46):
Ellis and Sarah are enraged because John Dutton has put
the ranch into a land trust, and Sarah basically is like,
how could you let your father do that and sort
of shames him. Baraides him, but then gives him the
(18:07):
key to the castle after and says that sounds like
an impeachable offense. It's an ominous but also exciting moment
as a viewer to sort of get a taste of
what is to come. And in the next scene, the
scene opens with another one of those moments, which is
Beth calling the four Six's Ranch, And that was an
(18:31):
incredibly exciting thing for me to read as an actor,
because all during that season, I'm aware that you, Jefferson Wright,
are at the four Six's Ranch, and that we don't
see you, and that I don't get to see you.
And then I find out that I get to go
to Texas, and then I see Beth call the four
Six's Ranch, and again my dream is that those cows
(18:53):
make it all the way to the four Six's Ranch,
which is I think exactly what it looks like.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, it's one of these cool things where there's this
you know, this mythology of the Dutton ranch. And then
there's also this mythology of the Four Sixes, this like
real life mythology, you know. The Four Sixes is a massive,
historically sort of precious cattle ranch in West Texas. We
were introduced to it in season four of Yellowstone. The
(19:19):
myth of that ranch started to sort of build and cook.
We've only seen it from Jimmy's kind of Ansei view,
and then it's a really exciting moment when Beth calls,
you know, Beth calls up the supply house of the
Four Sixes and we start to sort of see it
from the eagles eye view, from Beth's view.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
In a weird way, the brucellosis ends up becoming a
potential financial blessing that the Duttons wouldn't have stumbled upon
any other way, because Beth says in the scene with John,
you know, and of course throughout the entire show, that
they never turn a profit, that they just scrape by
to keep this ranch going.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
And there's different models for how it can work. Beth
has proposed and tried to sort of enact different models
to make the Yellowstone Ranch solvent over the last five seasons.
And this is the seed of this new idea for
this different sort of financial model, and she learns, you know, functionally,
how does the four sixes do it? Well? They sell
their beef direct to consumer. Instead of selling their beef
(20:24):
for a dollar fifty a pound to a meat packer,
they're selling you know, surloin for thirty dollars a pound
direct to a customer. And Beth hears that, and I
feel like that that's this huge moment for her. She's
a genius. She's an economic genius. That proposition all of
a sudden really lights up, really lights her up with possibility,
(20:44):
and she starts to sort of cook on this kind
of whole new model.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Of course, what this means is that Taylor is a
genius as well in terms of being able to identify
that meat packers are the are conglomerates that are holding
the rancher and the consumer hostage. As the consumer pays
more money for beef, the rancher gets less money for beef,
(21:11):
and nobody wins except for massive industry.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, this is a sort of a huge crisis facing
all people who work in agriculture around the country. Right, So,
I'm from Iowa. In Iowa, it's corn, soybeans, and pork.
It gets harder and harder every year for family farmers
to sell at the prices that these massive corporate sort
(21:36):
of big agribusiness institutions set. Right, they can afford to
sell at a much lower price. They can functionally set
the price of corn, soybeans, and pork when they're working
with these these massive, massive quantities that allow them to
make a sort of smaller margin of profit per sale,
whereas small farms. Family farms can't afford to do that. Right,
(21:58):
So this is the same question facing cattle industry, the
beef industry, and Sarah Atwood. Sarah Attwood sort of makes
a point earlier in the season. She says, Oh, yeah,
American beef is done. It's Brazil like, like real beef manufacturing,
big beef in ten years is going the way that,
you know, the way that American manufacturing went to China
(22:20):
over the last ten years. Big beef is going to Brazil.
American cattle ranchers are not going to be able to
keep up with the prices being set by these massive
corporate interests in Brazil and internationally. And so this is
you know, it's the steady march of you know, shifting
(22:41):
economic headwinds that John Dutton is trying to resist in
a million ways, and they're trying to sort of figure
out how to defeat this incredibly strong headwind that is
making it harder and harder for farmers to stay.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Afloat moving into lighter territory. Let's talk about the fair.
This was a massive scene, Jeff Sadly, again, you weren't there.
It took a while to shoot. I can tell you
for the audience. Here's a fun fact. We shot that
fair sequence in Montana and in Texas, and this is
(23:16):
just a testament to movie magic and the hard work
of our crew. Somehow Texas looked like Montana. I didn't
think they were going to get away with it, but
they did. But this is an amazing scene where we
sort of have all of the key relationships in the
show in one place. We see all of the dynamics.
(23:36):
The theme, of course is romance, and there are goodbyes
and then there are sort of steps forward, certainly with
John and Summer at the end of the episode.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, it's really sweet. You know, we've set up, as
you mentioned, this kind of departure, this exodus. Everybody's going
to have to leave, and that I think brings into
stark relief what they're leaving behind. So all these characters
are confronting these relationships, they're perhaps you know, realizing how
they feel because suddenly they're leaving, I think is something
(24:12):
we've all experienced. So all these characters are sort of
having this opportunity to articulate their feelings and sort of
express their feelings and plan for their future or lack thereof.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And we find out that the cowboys who are leaving
will be gone for about a year. And of course
the scene between Ryan and Abby with that beautiful quote
that you referenced, And when I was watching the episode,
of course part of me wondered based on how I
was clutching the pink bear, because I was really clutching
the pink bear because it was about thirty degrees outside
(24:46):
and it was the only way it could stay warm.
But watching it, I thought, is Teter more sad to
leave Colby or is she more sad to leave behind
the bear? And I frankly couldn't tell it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Is Yeah, what an amazing sort of moment. None of
these people are particularly verbally expressive. This is perhaps sort
of the nature of cowboys, you know, me and Jen.
Our whole thing is talking. In real life. We love talking.
That's why we're here doing a podcast. Talking comes very
naturally to us, and you can decide for yourself whether
we're any good at it. But these characters on the
(25:21):
show aren't necessarily talkers. They're doers, you know, they're people,
they're working people. They speak. They speak the language of horses,
they speak the language of these cows that they're responsible for.
They are literate in this entire other language. But they're
not necessarily the most eloquent when it comes to expressing
(25:42):
their feelings their rich inner lives. And it doesn't mean
they don't have rich inner lives, it's just that their
words aren't usually the way that they express them.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I feel like we can't wrap up this episode totally
without just hitting on the moment between John and Summer,
which obviously ends in what we can only assume is
a kiss behind John Dutton's hat, which if I was
a kid, I would have been like, they're making out.
But Summer gives John sort of a gem in terms
(26:15):
of reaching people and getting them to understand, because she
talks about how she may never agree with him about
certain things, but she understands why, and that the big
mistake that people make in some places, and the opportunity
that John has is to get people who don't agree
with him to at least understand why. And in the
(26:39):
same way that Sarah has given Jamie some powerful gems,
I feel like Summer imparts one to John here.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Obviously an incredible episode. We could talk about it forever,
and we may have just talked about it forever. I'm
looking at my watch and it says that we just
talked about that episode literally forever. So we're going to
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about my new favorite TV show nineteen
twenty three. Okay, this is a huge week for Yellowstone
(27:20):
fans because not only is there a new episode, yeostone,
but we also had the absolute honor of watching the
premiere episode of a new entry in the extended Yellowstone Universe,
the prequel nineteen twenty three. This is my new favorite show.
(27:40):
I am obsessed with this first episode. I just want
to have a little disclaimer here. Jen and I we
work on Yellowstone. We have a sort of insider knowledge
of Yellowstone. We read those scripts, We spend a lot
of time percolating on it. We're going to talk about
nineteen twenty three because we're both huge fans of this show.
We are just like you watching this show alongside you.
(28:04):
We don't have any insider information. We're excited about it,
but just forgive us because some of you are going
to know a little bit more about this than some
of us.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Jeff, this is though I'm a fan of obviously everything
that exists in the Taylor Verse, I have to agree
that I think this is my absolute favorite. This is
the show that I'm going to be a super fan
about that I'm going to be sad on days that
I miss episodes when they air. I've been looking forward
(28:36):
to this ever since the casting announcement.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
This one is wild. Everybody wants to work on these
projects because Taylor's a genius and it brings in these
incredible collaborators. Not only actors like Harrison Ford obviously some
of the biggest movie stars in the world, but Taylor
also has an incredible eye for young talent. Taylor is
incredible at recognizing actors who haven't had opportunities like this
(29:05):
and giving them their first opportunities. So this cast is
chock full to some of my favorite actors. Not only
Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, You've also got Brian Garrett,
You've got James Badge Dale, you got Robert Patrick, you
got some of the best, you got Jerome Flynn, you
got some of the best character actors in the world.
And then also these young actors that it's so exciting
to sort of discover alongside audiences the way that Taylor
(29:27):
did with Isabelle May in eighteen eighty three. You know,
it's such a gift to have young actors that were
learning about for the first time alongside some of the
biggest and best movie stars of the world. So this
is a jam packed first episode. I just want to
take a second at the jump. Big fans of the
Yellowstone Universe, like myself, are going to be curious heading
(29:48):
into this what the relationship is between these characters and
the characters of eighteen eighty three, and this episode offers
us a great roadmap for that. So we learn in
this opening narration what happened in those intervening years. So basically,
Tim McGraw James Dutton dies in eighteen ninety three after
(30:09):
the action of eighteen eighty three. We saw it in
a flashback in Yellowstone season four, his wife Margaret Dutton
faith Hill sends for help. She writes to his brother
Jacob Dutton asking for help. Jacob shows up in eighteen
ninety four tragically after just barely after Margaret Dutton has
frozen to death. Jacob and his wife Kara functionally adopt
(30:34):
John Dutton and Spencer Dutton, the two kids of James
and Margaret. John is the character the young boy played
by Audie Rick that we saw in the Action of
eighteen eighty three, and he's the only character that overlaps
between these two shows. That's John Dutton. He's played by
James Badgdale. In nineteen twenty three. He has a son,
(30:57):
Jack Dutton, who is getting married. So Harrison Ford and
Helen Mirin, Jacob Dutton and Kara Dutton have functionally adopted
John Dutton and Spencer Dutton, who's in Africa hunting lions.
John Dutton has a son, Jack Dutton, who's getting married.
(31:19):
What do we think did we get it? You out
there listen to be honest, you folks listening to this
are in basically the same position we're in, So please
fact check me. Please send me a message on Instagram
if I've gotten this wrong. I drew a diagram I used.
I got a lot of help from Bria Brissey, who
is the expert Yellowstone historian who runs the Yellowstone Instagram account.
(31:42):
I called her panicking, asking her for guidance about this,
and that's what I just said out loud for about
eight and a half minutes. That's as clear as I
could get it.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Jeff, it was perfect, Jeff, do you remember what Elsa
says in the vio at the top, Like while you
were going through that, I flashed on this piece that
Elsa says, my parents had three children and only one
of them will live to see theirs grow, which sets
up people we care about are gonna die.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It still feels a little confusing, and maybe on purpose
in terms of who's who, and maybe that function is
to be like who's safe who's not?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yea, so one of them have already done. Her parents
had three children, one of them is her, she's dead.
The two remaining children are Spencer Dutton and John Dutton.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So we will spend the rest of our time wondering
about them.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I've learned by now by watching everything Taylor Sheritan.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Is every everybody dies.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Just worry about everybody. Just worry about everybody all the time.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Everyone's dead. I love that as Taylor's expanded the world
in terms of shows that correspond to it, the world's
gotten bigger. So Yellowstone is set on one ranch of Montana.
We are in Montana, we do not leave Montana, and
then we go to eighteen eighty three, and then we
start to cover a chunk of America. And then, as
(33:07):
you've said, by scene two of nineteen twenty three, we're
aware that we're going around the globe for this version,
and then the parallels of the wildness between the two
was incredibly exciting. So jumping into that first scene, right,
we've got some guy running and limping and terrified, running
(33:28):
away from someone, and the reveal is Helen Mirren And
in that second, like I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
I know that this is going to be epic, and
I feel like she blows me away by how she
transforms in every role that she does. But she took
on this sort of weight of a frontier woman in
(33:49):
a way that blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, it's a woman who has lived a life like
one of the sort of exciting things about this is
discovering these characters after an incredibly long and difficult and
life that has sort of traveled great distances. So even
in that opening narration, we hear Elsa Dutton from eighteen
eighty three sort of describing the family's journey that brought
(34:11):
them here and now, one of the very first things
she says is violence has always haunted this family. And
what could be a more potent expression of that than
this opening scene that makes that that brings Kara Dutton
sort of directly into that violence, thrusts her right into
it after a long and difficult life of vine.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
And then I mean, I feel like in westerns we
often see the duel right who pulls their gun faster,
But there's this great moment Kara Dutton Helen Mirren goes
to shoot the guy after he sort of appeals to
her gentleness or he uses God, but it feels like
he's trying to get the sympathy that he thinks a
(34:53):
woman is going to bestow on him. And she fires,
it doesn't go off, and then there's this great mad
dash to reload their guns. And I felt like I
hadn't seen that before, not in that way, it was
so exciting and it felt so fresh. Of course, she
gets the shot in and then again because we don't
(35:15):
have the scripts, I don't know if it was written
in or if it was a choice, But she then
screams right, and she's somebody who can make the brutal
choice without a thought, but it's not not painful for
her that it does cost something. I felt like that
(35:36):
entire scene was such brilliant storytelling and character revealed right
off the bet.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, it's so excited. I mean like it's also we
don't know where that falls in the timeline, so classic
Taylor Sheridan plot device is showing us events that will
occur later. Eighteen eighty three opens with this kind of
dreamy fugue showing us also being shot with an arrow.
We don't know when this sequence falls in the action
of the show show. We just know that the show
(36:02):
will carry us to this violence. Violence will haunt this family,
will sort of continue to pursue them.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Elsa says that thing that violence will has followed her family,
but then says for those of us you know who
don't who it hasn't followed or something that they will
go seek it, and then we which is sort of
it feels a bit like Taylor making a statement about
human nature, which I certainly agree with, is that we,
in some way we are hardwired for violence and aggression.
(36:30):
It's in our DNA, and it's about what we do
with that impulse and how we channel it into creative
ways in which we're not we're not harming.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah, and it's a fascinating you know, speaking of the
sort of second scene here as we cut to Africa,
I believe to Kenya, I'm not one hundred percent certain
about that. I don't know if it's it's clarified in
the episode, don't think it is. We find Spencer Dutton hunting,
and Spencer is this fascinating character who I can't help
but see as a sort of clear and distinct ancestor
(37:06):
of Casey Dutton. A man who went to war sort
of experienced profound loss and violence and trauma and war,
and then has spent the rest of his life trying
to escape it, perhaps but in doing so falling back
into it over and over again. A man who's so
haunted by what he was asked to do. You know,
(37:30):
we see these scenes of him throughout the episode. In
World War One, in trench warfare, you know, just scrambling,
fighting for his life, fighting to protect himself and his comrades.
And now we find him later after that sort of
still who knows what it is. You can't tell if
he's running from something or if he's running towards violence.
(37:50):
You can't tell if he's being haunted, you know, if
he's chasing violence or violence is chasing him. It's a
sort of fascinating relationship.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, And we talked a little bit earlier about the
sort of parallel moments over time that Taylor hits on
both in this episode and in the episode of Yellowstone
that aired this week. And when we see Spencer Dutton
shoot the lion, we know right away he's a hell
of a shot. And I just got to say, Brandon Sklennar,
I don't know if I'm saying his name correctly. He
(38:19):
is one of those actors that it just is like
I felt like he was a movie star that I
had seen before, movie storre, the massive presence. I will
watch anything he does. He turns me into the woman
in the Safari at the Safari dinner, like I'm just
so blown away by him. But on the one of
(38:39):
the parallels is is that we know he's an amazing shot,
and go back to the fair scene in Yellowstone and
we've got Tate just shooting at like one of the
carnival games and he's just naturally an amazing shot.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, it's a really fascinating You know that John Dutton
has talked about these sort of echoes, this kind of
ongoing battle, and it really is an amazing thing to
jump back into it and see literally those recurring images
throughout time. Speaking of John Dutton, let's get into let's
(39:18):
get into the main event. I hesitate to say the
main event because there's so many incredible events in this
first episode of nineteen twenty three, but let's get into it.
We got Harrison Ford playing Jacob Dutton. Incredible.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
He inhabits this world so beautifully. And the thing that
both he and Helen bring to this that I thought
was really fresh for me was in a way was
comedy that I didn't expect because they're both so bloody talented.
(39:55):
Their ability to find humor or in these moments was
so was so refreshing. And then we've got Jacob. I
just listen to Harrison. Harrison takes us into what I'm
assuming is Bozeman, right, or is it Livingston? Maybe it's Livingston,
(40:16):
Like what town are we in? Right? Because the Dutton
Ranch is set in Paradise Valley. We know that we're
already in Paradise Valley at the Dutton Ranch because we
see the baby births, I think, or maybe not, maybe
the ranch move, but it feels like right right.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
I think, so, yeah, beginnings of a wrong.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
So I'm wondering if that was Livingston, which is a
beautiful town by the way, When I lived in Montana
years ago, that was my main town that I would
go to. And then we get to see some of
the colorful aspects of that time period, and I loved
that they just went for it. They're like, we're throwing
(40:56):
boxers in the street, We're throwing you know, prohibition. They
just threw it all in and it was so satisfying.
I knew exactly. It made me on a time travel
just for just briefly. I don't really want to be
there for most of that decade.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Well yeah, I mean, and it's a decade like characterized
by extremes, right, because it's both the roar in twenties,
it's both this excess, this sort of bacchinalien excess and
the you know, you know, prohibition and this kind of
response to it. Right, it's the it's this changing world
and then this effort to stop that change. You know,
(41:41):
it's a world that is pulling in two directions at once,
especially sort of in response to the profound global trauma
of World War One. Right Like, there's these this sort
of generation of men who return from World War One
having seen the world, the best and worst of it,
the most beautiful and ugliest aspects of the world, and
(42:03):
human nature kind of pulling in two directions at once. Yes,
this boxing match, this sort of excess, and then right
after that these sort of warriors on behalf of prohibition
and the plenty in suffering. You know, like Jacob's got
this sort of you know, he in some ways is succeeding.
He's got a lot to be happy about, but also
(42:23):
his herd is suffering. From the very beginning of this,
we learned that there is not enough grass. There is
sort of famine spreading here. The herd is really suffering,
and every surrounding herd, including these sheep farmers, these sheep herders,
they're all suffering immensely gosh.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
I think that takes us right to the beginnings of
Yellowstone Ranch where we see Jack Dutton, who's played by
Darren Mann and he's breaking a cult, which we've also
seen on Yellowstone, and that whole experience of seeing the
and it's baby version of see the round pen. Didn't
(43:04):
you have the roundpin? Didn't you like, oh, this hole,
that's our home.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I know when you saw the cowboys leaning up against
the round pin, I was like, Oh, that's amazing. Echoes
to the second episode of Yellowstone where we see Jimmy
getting his ass absolutely kicked by a bucking horse while
everybody sort of leans and watches. I also just have
to flag one of our little insider thing here. When
you work on Yellowstone, you really get to know the
stunt guys because they work very hard and they're always present.
(43:29):
I have my first Jordan War exciting. So some stunt
performers wind up getting tagged in over and over and
over again on Yellowstone because there's some stuff that only
a few guys in the world can do. There's only
a few guys who can fall off a horse over
and over again. The way that our stunt performers. Can
you know, we have a really incredibly talented stunt team.
So the first Jordan War exciting of nineteen twenty three
(43:50):
is that Jerome Flynn's character whose name is Banner, punches
him in the face as that sort of argument escalates
in the town hall or wherever it is. First guy
to get punched in the face. Boom, that's Jordan.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Wore I saw at the ranch. I see Case Ream
yeah standing, which for those of you who don't know,
Case Sream is Jake ream Son. Jake plays Jake on
Yellowstone obviously, and I was like, oh, it's my buddy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
It's so nice to see those familiar faces. We're also
introduced to the first time for the first time to
Brian Garretty's character Zaane. Brian clearly sort of authority figure,
a bit of a rip style figure who sort of
got a lot of responsibility on the ranch, who the
rest of the cowboys are looking to, perhaps the sort
of leader of the bunk house, it would seem. In
(44:44):
nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Three, moving into what is potentially the most painful sort
of segment storyline sequence of the show, but also my favorite,
is the world that is the American Indian Boarding School.
And when that first shot opened up and you see
sister Mary, who's played by Jennifer Eliot and like played
(45:07):
brilliantly and almost not fully of this earth. She looked
almost ghoulish standing there, and she proceeds to then you
know Quiz who we come to know is Tiona or Tiana,
and that is played by Amina Niv's pardon me for
(45:28):
any mispronunciations of any of this. And again, like talk
about in this scene alone, we have two more all
star performances. I feel like any one of these could
be nominated for an award. And then what becomes just
one of the more painful sequences that I've seen.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, I kind of I would say, like a sort
of fearless exploration of a brutally unjust chapter of American history.
Taylor likes to show us the West as we were
manticize it. He likes to show us these sweeping vistas,
you know, the joy that these cowboys have in doing
(46:08):
their work. And then he'll also show us the uncomfortable
stuff that we don't necessarily know about, you know the
dark side of that myth speaking of, you know, these
conflicts that echo back and forth in history. In this episode,
we're setting up this conflict that's brewing between Jacob Dutton
and these neighboring sheep herders and sheep farmers, leading to
(46:30):
a conflict that's not unlike the conflict that we first
saw in the pilot of Yellowstone, where these cows have
wandered off of John Dutton's land and onto this nearby reservation.
So we're setting up a sort of conflict around the
rights to graze at a time when grass is particularly
scarce and is gold. You know, right now, at this
(46:50):
moment in history, grass is gold. It's the only way
that these cattle, these cattle ranchers can keep their cows alive,
and it's the only way that these sheep herders, sheep
ranchers can keep their sh pep alive. So you've set
up a real powder keg of a situation here, and
you know, also a pretty a funny illustration. You know,
we were talking in EPIS season five, episode seven of Yellstone.
(47:13):
We were talking about the sort of life style of
being a rancher and how everything has to operate around
what the herd needs. There's a conflict, a similar conflict
set up in this episode in nineteen twenty three, Jack
Dutton is supposed to get married, his wedding has been set,
and all of a sudden he has to go on
a cattle drive instead of getting married, which is I
(47:38):
can't imagine that's a critical crisis in a personal life.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, I loved that, the naivete of his response of
why shouldn't the marriage be like the wedding? And then
I forget who says it, but they're like, yeah, I'd
like to see how that goes over. Of course, Karen
knows this is going to be disastrous, gets in her buggy,
goes over there, knowing that the it, knowing that it's
going to be bad. I believe Elizabeth tells Jack to
(48:05):
go sleep with a cow, which is one of my
favorite moments. And then Kara sits down with Elizabeth and
turns that around in a way that she sort of says,
the cows, you know, the cowt will always come first,
you know the ranch will always come first. You'll have
your first born, and you know basically you will come second.
(48:27):
But then she says, and you'll be free in a
way that most people could only imagine or could never imagine,
and as somebody on a personal level, is somebody who
relishes their freedom. I found that to be just such
a really wonderful way of framing that.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
So back to Spencer Nuts in Africa, we see him
sort of experiencing this dream, this kind of flashback within
a flashback within a prequel, that is, his sort of
nightmares of what happened to him in World War One,
the sort of tremendous difficulty that he experienced in World
(49:09):
War One, the sort of profound violence of trench warfare.
We see that that is haunting him still to this day,
much like Casey is haunted by the violence he saw
overseas as a soldier in Yellowstone.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah. I think it's a common theme that people who
experience PTSD from warfare and a myriad of other things,
even home becomes a very hard place to reestablish and
a place to it's almost impossible to re enter it.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, he says, this beautiful thing. He's woken up by
a steward on the train and the guy says, hey, man,
you've reached your destination, and he says, I have no destination.
I've reached my next stop. That's all this is. So, Yeah,
exactly like you just said, he doesn't know where hum is,
he doesn't know how to stop moving, and he's haunted
by violence. You know, as Elsa says in that opening narration,
(50:12):
this is a character who's haunted by violence everywhere he goes.
Speaking of violence, He's not the only Dutton in danger.
So this tense relationship between these sheep herders and the
Duttons they're cattle ranch, you know, has come to a head.
(50:33):
There's a massive cattle drive happening. John Dutton, Jacob Dutton,
and Jack Dutton are pushing cows, much like much like
the sort of gathering we did in Yellowstone season five.
They're pushing cows. They're driving them to a pasture where
there ought to be grass. Yet Jack Dutton crests a
hill and finds that grassy pasture covered in sheep. So
(50:57):
functionally that grass, that gold, that green gold, is being
stolen by these sheep herders. Jack sort of peers into
the middle distance trying to see what's going on. He
sees a man on horseback, and then he sees a
muzzle flash and we cut away. So that violence that
haunts the Duttons is haunting them across continents, across generations.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
We really leave the episode with two did they live
cliffhangers because Spencer in Africa. We don't know whether or
not Spencer lives or dies.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Yeah, very exciting. It is classic Taylor Sheridan to kill
a main character in the pilot. He's done that a
couple of times. He killed Lee Dutton in the pilot
a Yellowstone. It is a brutal move to get the
audience invested in a character and then rip them away
just like that. So I'll be really curious to see
(51:54):
who makes it to episode two. I personally can't wait
for episode two. I'm hoping too.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Make sure you subscribe to the Official Yellowstone Podcast and
tune in with us every Sunday at Apple Podcasts or
wherever you get your podcasts. See us soon.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
The Official Yellowstone Podcast is a production of one oh
one Studios and Paramount. This episode was produced by Scott Stone.
Brandon Goetchius is the head of Audio for one oh
one Studios. Steve Rasis is the executive vice president of
the Paramount Global Podcast Group. Special thanks to Megan Marcus,
Jeremy Westfall, Ainsley Rosito, Andrew Sarnow, Jason Red and Whitney
(52:33):
Baxter from Paramount, and of course, David Glasser, David Hukin
and Michelle Newman from one oh one Studios
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