Spending some time at the ranch is always rewarding. As we learned last week during the first round of branding, with springtime in Montana comes gathering, when all the cattle that have been out to pasture are brought together through the industrious work of the cowboys operating as a team. “Watch ‘Em Ride Away”, Episode 5 of yellowstoneThe fifth season of begins in the past when young John Dutton and his cowboys gather outside the barn at dawn. And as he gives his orders, Young ignores Beth Rowdy to wish Young Rip care and safety instead. In these areas and at Dutton Ranch, gathering is a springtime rite. But it’s also tough business and not without its dangers.
In the present, Rip tells Beth that he’s only concerned with today and tomorrow. He has neither the time nor the capacity to think about yesterday. It’s a dry year in Montana and there’s already a fire on Mt. Everyone in the valley is understaffed for branding season, and the foreman’s plan for the gathering calls for two crews of cowboys, one pushing the beef and the other brandishing the hot pokers. (Lloyd lets out a cheer when he hears about the plan. “Yee-haw, cowboy shit!”) There will also be hired hands at the gathering, but John doesn’t want any of them near the most important work. Trustworthy cowboys only. But while life as governor complicates life on the ranch, it also presents Dutton with an opportunity. “No one knows what the hell we’re doing anymore,” he tells Rip of their work. “It’s time to remind them.” And John tasks Clara with inviting news crews and politicians to Dutton Ranch so they can better understand this life. As much as John doesn’t like the mechanics of his new job, his intrepid assistant never fails to show how adept she is at hers.
Summer’s here too, of course – the jailbird environmentalist stays at home, er, ranch arrest. And as much as she learns about the greater powers of ranching and the cowboy’s unique challenges, Summer still represents everything Beth hates about those who would take the Duttons’ lands for themselves and rob the family of their path of life. Wolves, bison and the plight of the great sage grouse – for John it all manifests itself as a political problem. For Beth, it’s as easy as clenching a fist.
Kayce, Monica and Tate have come to the ranch with their horses in tow in anticipation of the gathering. Baby John’s death is still painful. But Monica encourages Kayce to keep at work and understand that his role in this world can be both professional and personal. Your job didn’t take him away from us, she tells Kayce. “He died because God needed him.”
There is a Dutton partner who is conspicuously absent from the ranch. (Kayce is “my only son,” John had muttered to Clara.) In the attorney general’s office, Sarah Atwood visits Jamie, and the trial attorney and corporate shark engage in a philosophical battle over the lingering stink of market stocks and the land lawsuit at the airport. Jamie is divided about their recent physical encounter – his uptight nature doesn’t allow him to view her as anything but unprofessional. But it also allows a visible half-smile. Sarah catches it. “If you thought last night was unprofessional…” and she begins to unbutton her dress right in the AG’s office. These two are playing a game with still-unexplained outcomes and consequences.
The mutual resentment between Beth and Summer also lingers and is in the process of separating. In the great tradition of game of Thrones and house of the dragon Danger at the dinner table, she ignores John’s orders to play nice in the Dutton family dining room, instead throwing challenge after challenge across the expanse of mahogany. John scowls, Rip gives it a wary look, and Kayce and Monica openly laugh at all the cockiness, while Beth and Summer bark about animals with four-chambered stomachs about the nature of vegetarianism. And poor Gator (Gabriel Guilbeau) is on hand, trying to serve his traditional assortment of roast venison at a table where a vegan and a predator are chasing each other. Let’s take it outside.
Is there an Emmy for Best Cowboy Fight? Because Kelly Reilly and Piper Perabo should share the award. After luring her nemesis onto the front lawn, Beth opens the festivities with a fist to the face, followed by a hilarious headbutt. Summer then engages in a series of jiu-jitsu takedowns that Beth seems to dismiss as the province of warrior hippies, and soon Rip is forced to make the activist and his wife the ranch foreman. What’s that, a riot in the bunkhouse after too many Coors banquets? “Just stand here and swap ’em until one of you has had enough,” he tells the fighters, and they slap back and forth until enough blood is spilled. Ultimately, however, it is an advantage. (And the subtle humor in that scene is appreciated, especially after all of Beth’s fiery antics this season.) With an ounce of respect on both sides, the women return to the dinner table, spitting teeth on fine china and mixing blood in their mashed potatoes.
It’s assembly morning and the cowboys are getting ready. Showers, hats, cereal, chaps, coffee, guns, and the leftovers of last night’s whiskey and Louisiana hot sauce. Ryan, Teeter, Colby and the rest solemnly await Lloyd to lead them out, just as the people in the main house follow John Dutton’s lead. Horses are being saddled in the courtyard in the stillness of dawn. Clara is no stranger to cowboy shit — “I was born in Miles City,” she tells John — but she’ll dutifully carry the governor’s satellite phone in her saddlebag. Even Beth saddles up, her FOMO won’t let her be left behind in a drafty, nearly empty mansion as her husband, father, brother and the various cowboys set out on this tough backcountry journey. Old Emmett Walsh (Buck Taylor) has joined the group – “I’ll run your ass all the way to the top, Governor!” – and all in all it’s about 15 riders, lining up their horses to see each other gather.
“We ride along Mount Chisolm,” John tells his assembled team. “Move her down to Lewis Creek. Keep them in the meadow overnight. And if we’re lucky, we’ll get them all at once.” It’s pretty much the same speech he gave as a younger man at the beginning of the episode — John wouldn’t miss the annual get-together, no matter how distracted his new job might be is in the capital. And Monica cries as she watches them ride away. This is cowboy shit at its best. The job is tough and fraught with danger, and if the medevac chopper featured in next week’s previews is any indication, all those assembled may not survive. Clara had better make sure the sat phone is charged.
Hooked Rocking Y’s:
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It’s a proud Western tradition, two cowboys supporting each other while exchanging punches, and like Beth and Summer, it’s often done with a mixture of anger, a rite of passage, and a trembling respect. It all comes into play in this memorable battle between gunslinger Chuka (Rod Taylor) and US Army Sergeant Hansbach (Ernest Borgnine) in the 1967 western Chuka:
- And on the yellowstone On the music clock front, there are two excellent clues in Watch ‘Em Ride Away. Early on, as Summer tries to figure out why the cowboys are reacting so calmly to a forest fire on the ridge, the series deals with her penchant for wide vistas, with the camera playing “Intertwine” as the serene, twilight landscape climbing over a vast wooded mountainside over Senor May with Chloe Edmonstone and Seth Avett. And later, as the various Duttons and cowboys ride out to the meetup, they are joined by the singer-songwriter’s “Far From Home.” Aubrie seller.
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: @Glenganges