‘Yellowstone’ Season 5, Episode 12 Finally Lets Kayce Off the Leash

“Counting Coup” is partly a dumb episode of Yellowstone and partly a great one. Based on how the back half of Season 5 has proceeded so far, that might be as good as we’re going to get. Episode 12 finally lets Kayce off the leash, which I’m happy about, but it also contrives a way to kill off Colby that is so random and silly that I couldn’t help but laugh. There are also multiple scenes of people being told their loved ones are dead, one of them with a really weird meta flourish, followed by aggressively sentimental wide shots of them mourning against the natural beauty of the landscape. It’s all a bit much, frankly.

Credit where it’s due – even the silly stuff is well-handled. The performances remain good and the cast is doing their utmost to sell these episodes that have clearly been patched together on the fly. Beth even has a speech to Carter that is reminiscent of that random scene in Episode 4 of this season when John comforted Monica about the death of her newborn son and it was just beautifully written out of nowhere. But there’s still a worrying amount of dumb stuff here.

Let’s get into it.

Colby’s Death

I’ve watched enough TV that the early call between Colby and Teeter sounded some alarm bells for me. But I logically assumed that Colby would be imperiled by the murder-for-hire firm that is covering their tracks after assassinating Sarah. I didn’t think for a moment that he would be kicked to death by a random crazy horse.

I think there has been errant dialogue about this horse before. Carter is mucking out the stables when he notices it has upended its tub of drinking water, and despite the fact he’s not supposed to go into the stable alone, he does anyway and the horse turns on him. Colby comes to the rescue and as Carter escapes, the horse kicks him to death.

Now, this is framed explicitly like a horror movie, which made me laugh, but I was just buying into the sentimentality of it all when Rip called Ryan to let him know and he had a “Bad to the Bone” ringtone! Why would they include that? It completely undermines what is otherwise quite a sweet scene of him telling Teeter, and both of them mourning slightly apart as the sun sets behind them.

Either way, Colby’s dead, which seems a shame, but it’s clear Taylor Sheridan is running out of ideas for what to do with half the cast. Speaking of Sheridan…

Buyer’s Market

Since the Dutton ranch is in financial dire straits, Rip is trying to sell all of its animals to make a profit so they don’t have to parcel off the land. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know anything about cowboy economics, but you wouldn’t think they’d even scratch the surface of how much the land is worth. But, details. Either way, Rip has to call Travis down in Texas for help moving the horses, and he has to briefly justify why he’s doing it, which means telling him that John Dutton is dead.

Travis is played by Taylor Sheridan, so there’s a meta quality to this sequence that I hated. Travis being all like “it doesn’t make much difference how he died” when he has to break the news to Jimmy – I just don’t have time for that kind of cutesy nonsense. We know what happened! And so do you, Taylor!

Jen Landon in Yellowstone | Image via Paramount

Kayce Unleashed

The final order of business is the good stuff. Following Sarah’s assassination Jamie is still worried about his connection to her being exposed, which it is immediately, but there’s a hilarious bit where Dillard wants to grab her things from his room and Jamie starts trying to throw his weight around as the attorney general. Dillard wasn’t even considering him as part of the crime, but given Jamie’s nonsensically obvious behavior, he’s now top of the pile of suspects.

This is bad news for the Duttons, since if Jamie is arrested he’ll tarnish the family name by revealing every secret John ever held. Beth can’t have that and is adamant about dealing with Jamie herself, but there’s another problem in the meantime – if the murder-for-hire company is cleaning house, any one of them could be next on the agenda.

Thanks to his old military contacts, Kayce has already figured out that Grant Horton is behind his father’s assassination. He has also figured out what his vision quest means, though he keeps the particulars to himself. He just calls Mo for a favor, and the favor turns out to be a ride.

Kayce tracks Grant from his daughter’s soccer game, hops in the backseat with her, and points a silenced pistol right at her face. This is a side of Kayce we’ve rarely seen; not only is he not remotely worried about scaring the little girl, but he threatens to kill her multiple times and directly taunts her more than once. Luke Grimes is really convincing here. Kayce means business!

What he wants, and I think Grant takes it on board, is the company to leave the Dutton family well alone. If they don’t, there’ll be consequences, and none of them will be nice. It’s a simple enough message, but it’s delivered with the kind of intensity that the back half of Yellowstone Season 5 has been sorely lacking. If Episode 12 accomplishes nothing else, it at least accomplishes that.

But what next?