![]() ![]() But that doesn’t really describe what Yellowstone’s been up to, at least to this point. In fact, Sheridan’s done this very well in the movies he’s written. There’s nothing wrong with racing ahead with a story and assuming the audience can keep up and fill in the necessary blanks. But this conception of the Yellowstone Ranch as a semi-criminal organization staffed by ex-cons with Y’s burned into their chests is something that’s been more implied than explained. He’s worked long enough at the ranch to have seen things that could get the Duttons in trouble with the law, so as far as John and Rip are concerned he’s too much of a liability to set loose into the wider world. Fred’s murder is sort of explained, at least. Week after week, each Yellowstone chapter interrupts its chin-stroking musings on what it means to be strong with sudden, often barely motivated eruptions of violence. But so far, a lot of what Sheridan seems to want to say must be still in his notebook, because it’s sure not on the screen. Four episodes in, this show’s already following about a half-dozen intertwined storylines, related to another half-dozen major themes: family legacies, the changing West, the infinite varieties of American corruption, et cetera. Look, no one can accuse Yellowstone writer-director Taylor Sheridan of lacking ambition. The bullet to Fred’s head is the “Long Black Train” of the title. Then another of the Yellowstone ranchers takes Fred out into the middle of nowhere and shoots him dead. “We die here.”) Then John tells Rip to replace Fred with another two-bit crook like Jimmy, whom Rip should also brand, because it’s always been John’s belief that the Y is “not something you earn, it’s something you live up to.” First, Rip reassures (?) Jimmy that because he’s been branded with the “Y,” he’ll always be more important to Yellowstone than the unscarred Freds of the world, who “come and go.” (“Not us,” Rip says. That’s when the episode takes a strange turn. And after Jimmy stumbles on a stray calf and gets duly praised by his bosses, a meathead named Fred decides the kid needs to be taken down a peg, so he beats Jimmy up - and promptly gets fired by John’s right-hand man, Rip Wheeler. We see him struggling to stay on his horse, and getting bullied by his older colleagues. Instead, most of this hour (or, more accurately, 42 minutes without commercials) follows the novice cowhand Jimmy Hurdstrom. Grandpa dives into the swift current to save him, in a rescue scene that - as is too often the case with Yellowstone - feels like it was tacked on to make sure that something exciting happens this episode. Unfortunately, while John is stubbornly encouraging Tate to be more manly (rather than asking for help with everything), the boy falls into a creek. Thomas Rainwater’s people do examine the bones found in one of Kayce Dutton’s many, many graves, but while Rainwater lets Kayce’s wife Monica know that he thinks all of these corpses are connected “like a spiderweb,” his independent investigation hasn’t really developed anything like the force of law yet.Īs for the usual Dutton dysfunction? The only lengthy interaction any two family members have comes when John spends the day taking care of his grandson Tate, left in his care by Kayce so that the boy won’t have to witness the emotional aftermath of his aunt’s suicide. ![]() Perhaps you’re interested in the crime spree that’s been spreading across the Yellowstone Ranch and the Broken Rock Reservation? Sorry, there’s not much of that in this episode either. The closest this hour comes to a commentary on power-brokering in the modern American West pops up in just one short scene, wherein John Dutton rebuffs an old colleague who asks him to consider stepping away from his commissioner post in the wake of his recent personal problems. There’s no sign of the politically climbing Jamie Dutton, or the activist Senator Huntington. If you tune into this show each week because you’re interested in the complexities of Montana politics, too bad. “The Long Black Train” is easily the ranch-iest Yellowstone episode yet. I could really only think of two things this episode had going for it: It was shorter than usual, and it’s always nice to see rugged dudes on horseback. I thought about Kael’s dad as I watched “The Long Black Train,” which is the first real Yellowstone dud thus far. The film critic Pauline Kael once said that her father Isaac watched westerns nearly every night, because of the comforting familiarity in the rhythm of their stories and the repetition of their settings. ![]()
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