Dutton Ranch (2026): holidays with the beeflings

Taylor Sheridan‘s universe of long-running production dramas continues to grow. Their heroes are cowboys, oilmen, criminals – the most ordinary Americans with shaky morals and non-obvious principles. This is Sylvester Stallone’s character, who served a couple of decades “for himself and for that guy,” leaning back and moving to Oklahoma to do things that Italians seem to be doing in American cinema. The crime comedy “The King of Tulsa” plays on the same field as “Lillehammer” released years earlier – a kind and funny repeat offender teaches Brooklyn manners to hillbillies. The situation in the “Mayor of Kingstown” is worse: the last city-forming enterprise remains a prison, where small and medium-sized “entrepreneurs” from the high road live. The McLusky family, who “look out” for the city, including the character of Jeremy Renner, is trying to maintain a balance of power between outright criminality and what is hidden behind the badges and letters of the law.

Tired of the Texas sun, the founder of the M-Tex oil company from the TV series “Landman”, portrayed by “Bad Santa” Billy Bob Thornton, is forced to use a cocktail of warm irony, cool cynicism and icy sarcasm, clarifying relations with drillers, the Mexican cartel and his own wife. The Yellowstone saga, which gave Sheridan carte blanche for all these exercises, stands out in this series. Here, Kevin Costner, who has finally matured, embodies the patriarch and one of the last feudal lords, John Dutton. Cowboys, like wandering knights of the Middle Ages, swear allegiance to him and receive a red-hot brand Y on their chest.

Indians are trying to bite off pieces of the Dutton land, or rich people from megacities who desperately want to build a luxury resort or luxury bungalows in the pristine expanses of Montana. But you also need to walk the cows. However, “Duke” John rules with an iron fist, keeping the leader of the reservation at arm’s length, and sending the arrogant Yankees on their way with ringing kick-ass. The show “Yellowstone” became the biggest success of the Paramount Network streaming service, and the management of the HBO channel, whose epic “Game of Thrones” demonstrated a feeble ending, suddenly remembered how they refused Sheridan when he brought the script, and began to bite the elbows of mid-level managers.

However, Kevin Costner suddenly came to his senses that he was the director of the iconic westerns Dancing with Wolves and Open Range, and in the middle of season 5 he made a demarche, leaving Yellowstone to film his own cinema with blackjack and whores called Horizons. John Dutton’s story had to be clumsily wrapped up, and the remaining episodes turned into a collection of witty but sad jokes in the end. Undeterred, Taylor took a trip into the depths of the history of the Dutton clan, telling about their exploration of the frontier in the near-historical “1883” and “1923” (Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, both descendants of Russian immigrants, shine in the latter). But it was much more natural to continue the story about John’s children, and on March 1, 2026, the first collection of tales about Casey Dutton, who joined the federal marshals, was released. That’s what it’s called – “Marshals”. And for dessert, a nine-episode “Dutton Ranch” was prepared. The main entertainer (showrunner) this time was not Taylor, but his trusted buddy and best mate Chad Fien.

Beth Dutton, Rip Wheeler and their adopted son Carter are moving from Montana to Texas. Here they acquire a new ranch, albeit one-twentieth the size of the past, but with a breeding herd of black Angus. Beth contacts the largest cattle breeder in these parts, Beulah Jackson, who has a nearby slaughterhouse, but the dialogue between the two strong women goes awry. Carter, having gone to a party of high school students, stands up for a charming blonde, knocking out a rude coxcomb, for which he gets into jail. Rob Will Jackson, Beulah’s son, a drug dealer and a maggot, kills an employee of his ranch and awkwardly buries the corpse on the Dutton ranch. Rip finds the dead man that night and hides him. It seems that events are taking on fifty shades of cow-pies…

This season, Beth (Kelly Reilly, crazy in her Celtic beauty) exudes menace, but it’s the threat of a defensive predator. She is no longer the princess of Yellowstone, opening doors with a look of possessed blue eyes, she is nobody in Texas, and life needs to start over when grief, fatigue and tenderness seem to be asking for a quiet corner. She begs the local veterinarian, Dr. McKinney (Ed Harris has already tried on a stetson in The West World), not to euthanize an injured mare, paying for the treatment of the cost of a new horse. She’s trying to take maternal care of foster Carter. She is Rip’s loyal friend and only love.

But when Beth meets Beulah, the lightning between them feels almost physical. Annette Bening as Beulah Jackson is also gorgeous. In the role of the ranch owner, she is John Dutton in a skirt (the expression is figurative, she always wears pantsuits). A cobra with a rattle on its tail. With two cubs. The first, also adopted, Joaquin (Juan Pablo Raba, TV series “Narcos”) is smart, competent, keeps the financial ship of the ranch afloat. The second, native Rob Will (the brutal image of Jai Courtney, for which we love) represents all the worst that is known about the “golden” boys, only much more dangerous. Carter (Finn Little, “Those Who Wish Me Dead”) is a young idiot who doesn’t know what to do with his abundance of enthusiasm and hormones. He looks at the world with offended calf’s eyes. Annoying, but that’s how it should be. Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) is always softening up next to Beth, this magic between them is visible even without rose-tinted glasses. And he’s condescending and even affectionate towards the blockhead Carter. It’s for the family. To others, Wheeler is an unquestioning, laconic cowboy foreman, and to some, a cold-blooded killer.

It may seem to some that the Dutton Ranch has lost its intensity in comparison with Yellowstone, but this is not the case at all. The figures are already set up, the appliances are laid out, the soup of passions is bubbling on the stove, the microwave is about to explode with rage and ambition… All this jazz is going to happen next season.