Americans love Taylor Sheridan shows because his salt-of-the-earth characters are “straight shooters.” They tell it like it is, they speak in a muscular kind of poetry, and they don’t bullshit. In other words, Americans love Sheridan shows because, by and large, his characters are gigantic assholes whose needs always seem to supersede everyone else’s. It’s the American way, when you think about it. It’s also why America has been so successful, why so many people hate Americans, and why it can be so grimly entertaining to watch Sheridan’s work: his shows let audiences live vicariously through people who embrace their worst selves—or, depending on where you live, watch a slightly heightened version of themselves in action.
That brings us to “Dutton Ranch,” Sheridan’s latest “Yellowstone” spin-off and a direct continuation built out of the literal ashes of the hit series, which imploded after its star, Kevin Costner, butted heads with Sheridan, was written out, and left the flagship drama to limp toward a rushed finale season that landed with a thunderous thud.
For those who didn’t finish that season, it ended in fiery retribution: Beth Dutton took down her adopted brother Jamie, who had their father killed, while the rest of the family scattered in the wake of all that internecine, tragic chaos.
So “Dutton Ranch” is a phoenix rising, literally and metaphorically. The series begins with the Yellowstone ranch burning down in a violent Montana wildfire, cementing Sheridan’s favorite theme of men and women forged by the land and forced to coexist with its violent whims. In the ruins of their old lives, Beth (Kelly Reilly), Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser), and their adopted son Carter (Finn Little) look for a new start after Rip hears about a cheap ranch for sale in Texas, giving them a place to relocate what’s left of their decimated herd.
But life in the fictional South Texas town of Rio Paloma is just as complicated as it was in Montana, and just as bound by the rules of ego and territorial pissing. When Beth tries to work with the town’s only slaughterhouse operation, run by saucy ranching heiress Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening), the two scions immediately lock horns. That gives Beth a fresh excuse to form a new grudge and make a new enemy, which remains one of her most reliable talents.
Bigger problems are already brewing at the Jackson ranch before the Duttons arrive. Rob-Will Jackson (Courtney Jai) is an impetuous hot pistol who has fallen off the wagon and kills one of his bunkhouse mates in a heated, paranoid dispute. The black sheep of the family, Rob-Will, has long forced Beulah and her adopted son and right-hand man/fixer, Joaquin Reyes (Juan Pablo Raba), to clean up his messes. But Beulah refuses to give up on her wayward son, much to the frustration of nearly everyone around her.
Oh, and did we mention there’s a body buried on the land the Duttons have purchased? The plot thickens in familiar “Yellowstone” fashion, with multiple threads of conflict—some resolved quickly, others left to fester like wounds that need either care or amputation. And the Duttons, especially the unpredictable Beth, have a way of turning every minor dust-up conflict into a full-blown war. Or at least one that’s obviously begun to brew and simmer.
Beth and Beulah begin building a rivalry while Beth courts competing slaughterhouses and steakhouses. Rip has to deal with foot-and-mouth disease, because it wouldn’t be a “Yellowstone” spin-off without an act of God or nature throwing a wrench into the plan. Carter gets a sassy girlfriend, Oreana (Natalie Alyn Lind), who happens to be Beulah’s granddaughter. Additional friends and foes soon emerge, including Everett McKinney (Ed Harris), the local horse veterinarian whom Beth befriends, and Zachariah (Marc Menchaca), a cowboy fresh from prison whom Rip hires at the request of his lone ranch hand, Azul Ramos (J. R. Villarreal). The series was created by showrunner Chad Feehan, who wrote the pilot and one other episode before being dismissed ahead of the season’s debut (make of that what you will).
But “Dutton Ranch” is essentially the same “Yellowstone” format viewers already know: escalating conflicts, territorial disputes, buried bodies, bad blood, livestock crises, and hardheaded people making every problem worse because backing down would feel like death. It is not so much a reinvention as a relocation. Swap Montana for Texas, bring Beth and Rip along for the ride, introduce a few new enemies, and let the old “Yellowstone” machinery grind away.
That is Sheridan’s worldview in a nutshell, even when he isn’t writing or directing the show himself: don’t tread on me, stay out of my lane, and if you cross the line, expect consequences. The libertarian streak remains baked into the show’s bones, because the Duttons still treat compromise like surrender and civility like a scam—it’s the modern-day American delusion and why we face the cultural crisis we face. But mercifully, “Dutton Ranch” keeps some of Sheridan’s more recent anti-liberal grievance politics—the kind that has grown louder in “Landman” and “The Madison”—mostly to itself. The show may still be reactionary in temperament, but it is less eager to stop the drama cold for culture-war score-settling.
To be clear, Sheridan does not write or direct “Dutton Ranch,” though the show still plays like “Yellowstone” greatest hits with a new zip code. It occasionally finds traces of humanity in its characters’ personal struggles, especially as Beth, Rip, and Carter fight to survive on a 7,000-acre ranch amid stiff competition, hard times, and the pressure to turn Carter into the man his adopted parents believe he should become. But the overall shape is so familiar as to be redundant. So, yes, it’s watchable. But it’s also a rehash.
Beth still can’t play nice. It’s her way or the highway. “Dutton Ranch” is a show about power struggles big and small, but unlike “Yellowstone,” most of them are local and territorial, built around big fish circling one another in a smaller pond. At one point, Beulah tries to make amends with Beth, sincerely or not, by saying she wants to be “friendly competition.” Beth hisses back with a laugh that suggests, “Yeah, right.”
That’s “Yellowstone,” and now “Dutton Ranch,” in miniature. There are only winners and losers in Sheridan’s calculus. The Duttons hate losing so much that they’ll burn everything down and walk away with nothing if it means their sworn enemy gets nowhere near the finish line. “Dutton Ranch” may leave some of the franchise’s loudest grievance politics at the gate, but it cannot outrun the larger problem: this is still a show about people who mistake stubbornness for principle, hostility for strength, and coiled rattlesnake sovereignty for pride. [C]
