Watching Rip Wheeler wriggle in a dress shirt is almost amusing. Tugging at a collar and muttering that he feels “f—ing ridiculous” in front of a ranch party is Cole Hauser, the man who spent five seasons of Yellowstone looking like he was born on a horse. It’s a brief scene, perhaps thirty seconds on screen, but it conveys something truthful about Rip’s situation in Dutton Ranch: he’s a man out of his element, attempting to establish himself in strange territory. both literally and figuratively.
The short explanation for Rip’s replacement at 10-Petal Ranch is straightforward: Beth arrived with a better offer and a bottle of pricey Scotch. However, nothing on this show is ever really that easy.
The Dutton herd was completely wiped out by a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, putting Rip and Beth in a situation they had never been in before: reliant on a rival. Beulah Jackson, the astute and vigilant owner of the nearby 10-Petal ranch portrayed by Annette Bening, hired Rip despite his lack of cattle and leverage. It was sufficient that he was well-known for managing the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. It takes decades to gain this level of credibility.
However, nobody anticipated that Rip’s first day would go as planned. The current ranch workers were shaken by his arrival, and Chet, who had been filling in as foreman, did not take the loss well. By the end of that first day, Chet had been fired, was making threats, and had already gotten back in touch with someone he probably shouldn’t have. It was disorganized. Ranch politics will always be. Then Beth entered Beulah’s room.
She entered with a confession that the herd had completely vanished, but she quickly changed course and made an offer. Beth pledged to turn the 10-Petal brand into something genuine over the course of three years in exchange for twenty percent of the profits, with a clean exit for Beulah in five. “Nobody will fight harder for you,” she said bluntly. I usually get what I want. It’s difficult not to believe her. There’s a feeling that Beth isn’t projecting confidence when Kelly Reilly delivers those lines; she just doesn’t think about the other option.
Why, then, did Beulah accept? She confessed: “Rip and Beth have secrets, and I’ve learned people with secrets can be useful — corruptible, even.” That’s a cold calculation from a leverage expert. Beulah is not gullible. She’s picking Beth because she sees someone she might be able to use, in addition to her business instincts. It remains to be seen if she is correct about that.
Rip’s reaction to this change is more intriguing than it first appears. He’s not gone. He remains at 10-Petal. However, the foreman position has subtly shifted from him to Beth, and that change—Beth moving forward and Rip moving back—feels like something the show has been discussing since the start of the spinoff. They were both fighters for John Dutton’s vision back in Yellowstone. That burden is now lifted. When Beth and Rip are no longer fighting for someone else’s dream, the question Reilly herself posed in public is the right one: who are they?
In all of this, Carter is also subtly bearing his own burden. He has been working on ranches, skipping school, witnessing a man be shot and killed outside a jaguar’s cage, and actively keeping Beth and Rip out of it. He is maturing quickly—possibly too quickly. One of the show’s more endearing moments is when the three of them ride horses to a party while wearing dress clothes. Carter refers to it as “f—ing cowboy” with what sounds like sincere pride. It probably won’t last.
Although Dutton Ranch is still figuring things out, one of the more intriguing choices the writers made was to move Rip and center Beth in the 10-Petal deal. It’s not quite a demotion. It resembles a redistribution more. And that kind of change tends to be more significant than it first appears in a show about who owns land, money, and legacy.
