‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 11 Recap: Three Fifty-Three

Yellowstone

Three Fifty-Three

Season 5

Section 11

Editor’s assessment

4 stars

****

Photo: Paramount

See, credit where it’s due: Yellowstone still able to put out a pretty good episode! “Three Fifty-Three” is leaps and bounds above the first two of this last half-season, and actually managed to consistently hold my attention for the entire hour. It makes you wonder why more of the show can’t be like this.

I hate to say it, but part of the reason this episode works so well is that it ditches the Texas crew (as well as the other ranch hands) entirely and tells a story that’s laser-focused on the characters that really matter at this point: Beth, Kayce, Jamie and Sarah Atwood. Rip, Monica, and Tate all appear in the slightly unnecessary opening ten-minute flashback, but even they are absent from the rest.

As promised, Jamie is already hard at work undoing his late father’s legacy. That requires the cooperation of Steven Rawlings, the lieutenant governor who steps up to replace John at the top. The two cement their partnership during a meeting that turns into a planning session where both men agree on a plan: Override the revoked Market Equities lease and take control of the land through eminent domain, a strategy Jamie once opposed. As Lynelle Perry points out, this is clearly an abuse of state authority, no matter how much Jamie insists that this development will be huge for Montana’s economy. Soon Bozeman could become the new Jackson Hole, she warns him.

Much of this is quite ironic given the massive (and polarizing) the real influx of tourists that Yellowstone have brought to Montana. And look, I don’t know much about eminent domain or conservation easements, so I can’t judge the realism of this kind of political maneuvering. But what matters here is that Jamie’s plan is moving forward successfully. It’s only unfortunate for John’s old assistant Clara, who makes the principled decision to reject Rawlings’ chief of staff opportunity after witnessing the corruption. But at least she gains the trust of Lynelle, who might have a job for her.

From here, the narrative shifts to Kayce, who effectively gets her father’s cause of death changed to “undetermined” after paying a visit to the coroner’s office. It’s kind of ridiculous how stubbornly the coroner clings to her original belief that it was a suicide, especially considering how many signs of foul play they find just by looking at the body again for a minute. They quickly find numerous signs of struggle, including bruises along his neckline and forehead, scrapes on the tops of his toes, and other marks and indentations on his legs. And Kayce’s description of his military training to deal with sleeping targets seems to confirm a likely reality: A team of three men entered John’s house, knocked him out, and planted the evidence to make his murder look like a suicide. We saw that earlier in this very episode.

Detective Dillard opens up the investigation and, at Kayce’s urging, holds a press conference about it. It seems creepy that John would drive to the livestock office for his service gun and bring it back to the governor’s mansion, though Jamie insists to Rawlings that this is circumstantial at best. The speech that follows is even more consequential than the press conference: Rawlings addresses the assembly as the new governor, boldly pointing out John’s illegal actions and announcing the reinstatement of the lease and the invocation of eminent domain. The timing may be sketchy, but it goes well with the assembly. The only twist, really, is the Governor’s declaration that Jamie will recuse himself from any investigation into his father’s death, something that could jeopardize any chance of him controlling Dutton land.

Jamie is spiraling, and it’s not just because of this latest news. Kayce finally visits his office to confront him about John’s murder and throws him on the desk. I’ve been waiting for these two to reunite for a while — the show has often played down its sibling relationship for some reason — and now it’s a particularly raw time, with Kayce fresh from staring at her father’s corpse. And I like that Jamie manages to temporarily convince his brother of his possible innocence, to really flex his acting muscles for once and commit to a lie. “I could never do that to you,” he says, and you can imagine how much it will hurt when Kayce realizes that he did.

Things look bleak for the ranch, and for once we get to see Beth really grapple with the likelihood of a worst-case scenario. With John dead, she can finally see the man clearly and realize how few options he left his family. Chief Rainwater comes to visit and lays out the bleak road ahead by dealing with the Department of the Interior, but offers his services in any way he can. There was a time when Rainwater desperately wanted this land for himself and his tribe, but it seems more likely every day that neither the tribe nor the Duttons will own it in the end.

An open offer to be used is exactly the kind of opportunity Beth would normally take, and Rainwater floats some ideas about partnerships that could extend their partial stay on Earth. But she doesn’t see much of a way forward now either. It’s striking to see Beth in this state as she ponders how the fantasy world of the ranch destroyed her father and so many others. There is nothing to preserve this place, only prolong its collapse.

With only three episodes to go into Yellowstoneit’s refreshing to get some real thoughts on what it would be like to lose a place that many people call home — and to see Beth near rock bottom, hopeless and grieving and full of rage. But the biggest drama to raise the stakes happens in the final sequence after Sarah buys a burner phone but fails to get in touch with the contract killing company.

Sarah’s confrontation with Jamie would be the highlight of a normal episode, the definitive moment when something shifts between them and things can never really be the same. She tries to calm him down, assuring him that no one can connect him to the assassination, that the Governor has no real power to return Jamie. But her attitude annoys him, especially the idea that she selflessly took all the risk for Jamie while he only faces accessories afterwards, so he punches her in the face. As expected, she hits right back and storms out. No one pretends that only one of these people manipulated the other; both are deeply selfish and greedy, and Jamie got as much out of their arrangement as Sarah did.

Except that arrangement ultimately gets her killed. Jamie calls Sarah almost immediately after she leaves to apologize and they make up. But moments after saying “You have nothing to fear”, Sarah is gunned down at a stoplight in broad daylight. It’s a pretty shocking moment, especially since this show doesn’t kill people to often these days. But even outside of that ending, “Three Fifty-Three” provides some solid evidence of that Yellowstone still have some gas left in the tank. Let’s see if we can keep it going in the last three.

• The flashback at the beginning at least connects the previous episode’s flashback (Beth and Rip’s date in Amarillo) to the present timeline, when we see Beth and Kayce each sense something deeply wrong when their father dies. Again, though, I would have preferred that we just saw all of this in the premiere instead.

• I actually can’t believe there was another “get a room” scene with Tate being disgusted by his parents’ kiss. I feel like I’m going punk at this point.

• Kayce gently knocks out one of the technicians for a moment just to illustrate what he learned in the military. “What the hell?” “Excuse me.”

• Beth snarling “you leave him to me” made me laugh. She seemed genuinely concerned that her one brother would deprive her of the opportunity to kill her other brother.

• Mo stops by and imparts some wisdom to Kayce about how it will ultimately feel like fate to choose between his family and the ranch. But I wish these two could have one conversation where Kayce is the one asking about Mo. “But what about you, man? How have you been?”

• Congratulations to Kevin Costner’s body double, who is getting a surprising amount of work this season.

• “We don’t take cash.” “Oh, it’s not my problem. You’ll figure it out.” You will be missed in a way, Sarah.