‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 3 Recap: “Tall Drink of Water”

“The wolves you released ain’t even supposed to be here! You brought ‘em in from fuckin’ Canada!” It’s a riotous scene at a meeting between angry ranchers and a table full of officials that includes Montana Livestock Commissioner John Dutton, who’s in his nattily bandana’d Josh Lucas form in the flashback that begins Yellowstone Season 5 Episode 3 (“Tall Drink of Water”). Dutton has just come from his ranch and the carcass of a dead calf, where he measured the size of the attackers’ tracks against the spread of his hand. The dispersed wolves really have been cutting at the margins of the area’s livestock herds, and not only will the government guy not recognize the evidence, he makes a critical error in the respect department. “You don’t know me well enough to call me ‘John,’” growls Dutton in the past.

In the present, even though he’s now in charge of Montana’s government, Dutton is still fighting with it. Beth interrupts his brooding as she leaves the ranch house for a meeting in Salt Lake, saying they share everything. Remember when Beth told him about her first threesome? He doesn’t. But moving right along, Beth also says that John should find somebody to love while he still has the time. And in her sleek, smoked-out Bentley, she cries a few quiet, personal tears for her departed mother. 

Hey, it’s Lloyd’s birthday! There’s lots of ball busting in the bunkhouse – after all, age is just a number for a salty senior ranch hand – and Walker (Ryan Bingham) and Laramie (Hassie Harrison) emerge sheepishly from the shower. There’s also a great moment between Rip and Carter as the latter feeds an adorable baby calf. Carter better saddle up, because “if I’m gonna make a cowboy out of ya, you’re going out every day.” But Rip’s morning takes a less familial, but equally bull busting turn when two Fish & Wildlife officers show up asking hard questions about federally protected wolves, a certain rash of errant radio collars, and GPS pings on the Dutton Ranch land. Rip’s dismissals about poachers and alfalfa hay are feeling pretty flimsy.

It’s been four days since Baby John’s death, and Kayce and Monica are meeting with Chief Rainwater and Mo (Mo Brings Plenty), who tell them their son had a horse spirit. But death is also a private thing. “It’s perhaps the one thing we do alone,” Rainwater says. “No matter how many are around us.” Grieving needs its privacy, too, and Mo restrains Kayce as Monica hacks off her long braid and collapses, wailing. “You gotta let her do it. It’s our way. Let her grieve.”

As John continues to ruminate over how best to perform a job he doesn’t want, how best to serve both his state and his family unselfishly, Kayce arrives to say he can’t serve two outcomes, either. He turns in his Livestock Commissioner badge, his dad’s old job and to which he was appointed. “I choose her,” Kayce says of Monica. “I choose her and I choose my son.” 

As for Beth, she’s chosen combat. At Schwartz & Meyer in Salt Lake, she pitches Rob Baldus (Aaron Lazar) on purchasing her $300 million dollar controlling interest in the firm, but he’s looking for a rattlesnake in the deal. Yes, Market Equities is coming for her with multiple lawsuits. But also yes, ME is Rob’s biggest competitor. Doesn’t he want to fuck ‘em over, just a little? Isn’t that tantalizing? Rob signs the deal. Beth is the rattlesnake, and the purchase and accompanying conservation easement on the land puts her fangs squarely in the throat of Market Equities.

At ME, Caroline Warner repeats her demand for Ellis to ruin Beth and the Duttons. The fancy lawsuit he just delivered to Jamie is weakened by the Schwartz & Meyer deal, but that doesn’t mean Sarah Atwood will be weakened. Remember, she has fangs, too. “There are no rules for Sarah,” Caroline says sagely. “Turn her loose.” 

Speaking of Jamie, the scene of first encounter with Atwood is Yellowstone at its most magisterial. Having been served with the ME lawsuit, the attorney general goes in strong, scoffing at its aggressive language and grandstanding about delaying action environmental studies. Ellis huffs and puffs and acts like the aggrieved loser, and all the while, Atwood says nothing. She’s observing her quarry. “You’re better than I expected,” she tells Jamie, and tosses a business card. With all of the government red tape, and with no sales tax in Montana, “how the fuck is the state gonna make any money?” Atwood has already breached Jamie’s nerve center, with its mass of twisted loyalties and fractured ambitions. They’ve booked a dinner for Yellowsone’s next episode; it’ll be the site of Atwood’s real play.    

After the reptilian savagery of her big money, tough tactics deal in Salt Lake, Beth is ready to run through a wall. Crashing Lloyd’s birthday party in the bunkhouse, she goads the whole crew into a trip to town and the Crystal Bar. Rip winces. This will get ugly somehow. At the bar, Abby (Lainey Wilson) is performing, and she and Ryan soon pair off to dance. Beth slaps down her corporate card, and a round of whiskey shots and Coors Banquets appears. The Dutton ranch crew is good timin’ and honky tonkin’ until a tipsy out-of-towner named Hailey (Ashley Platz) flirts with Rip, who points out his wife. And two seconds later, Beth is slamming a shot glass into the side of Hailey’s face. A rip-roaring bar fight ensues. Beth punches Hailey again. And she only smiles impishly after she’s loaded into the back of the sheriff’s vehicle. With Hailey still bleeding nearby, Rip can’t believe Ramsey (Rob Kirkland) is really gonna book Beth for aggravated assault. “It’s your problem now,” he says. Happy birthday, Lloyd! 

Hooked Rocking Y’s:

• Ah yes, the Crystal Bar, which we most recently visited in episode one of Yellowstone’s fifth season as the site of Young Beth and a faltering Young Rip’s date into town. We knew something was gonna go down before Beth even pushed everyone out of the door back at the bunkhouse. It was only a matter of which direction the crazy was gonna come from. And walking through the Crystal, Rip laments to a veteran and well-mustached friend from the M Bar Ranch that there were once the butts of real cowboy on every barstool at the Crystal. But as we see in “Tall Drink of Water,” these days the bar also includes drunk, flirty tourists from San Bernardino.

 

• Honestly, Beth was primed for a fight the moment the deal was signed back in that Salt Lake conference room. The Crystal Bar and someone hitting on Married Rip was just the outlet for her fury. Lucky for us, we at least got to hear some great music before Beth, Rip, and the Bunkhouse Boys were forced to bust up the place. That was Lainey Wilson, of course, performing as Abby, and since we last saw her character, Wilson has brought home some serious hardware. Wilson won Female Vocalist of the Year honors at this year’s Country Music Awards, as well as New Artist of the Year. 
• Once Abby catches Dutton ranch hand Ryan’s eye and is ready for a set break, she tosses it to Isaac Hoskins, a singer-songwriter and native Oklahoman who here plays himself. It’s a brief but memorable guest shot – in classic bar fight fashion, Hoskins keeps playing an acoustic version of his song “Off the Wagon” as fists fly and pool cues are splintered –  but appearing in one of America’s most popular television shows isn’t a bad way to promote your new record, and that’s exactly what Hoskins has: Bender, his latest full-length, was just issued this month.

  Never a dull moment at the Crystal!

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges