Summary
Beth, Rip, and Carter are starting to settle into Texas in “Earn Another Day”, which only means getting further embroiled in the local problems.
The first episode of Dutton Ranch was in such a hurry to get Beth and Rip to Texas that it didn’t bother to explain how they got there. I already alluded to a bit more explanation about that, and here it is in Episode 2, “Earn Another Day”, which opens eight days after the fire that destroyed the Dillon ranch. As it turns out, it was Walker, of all people, who told Rip about an opportunity in Texas. That’s how they came to buy a ranch famed for the quality of its beef from a lovely widow. Azul came as a sweetener on the deal. Nobody mentioned that they’d probably have a rival mega-ranch to deal with, but here we are.
Running the ranch means doing ranch business, such as attending auctions for a bull, which also means crossing paths with Beulah. Since she and Beth are both still smarting from their first encounter, Rip pays over the odds for the bull to prove a point. It’s a petty thing, but it’s symptomatic of a larger problem. Remember, Beulah’s son, Rob-Will, killed a cowboy named Wes on what is now Beth and Rip’s property. At the end of the premiere, Rip found that body. So, when Joaquin and Rob-Will go looking for it, they’re distressed to discover it isn’t there. It isn’t until the very end of the episode that we learn Rip has been keeping the corpse on ice so that he can sneak out in the middle of the night and secretly dump it.
Wes’s death is causing massive problems for the 10 Petal ranch. His widow, Whitney, is sniffing around, asking some awkward questions, and she’s refusing to take Joaquin’s empty platitudes for an answer. In the absence of a foreman, the bunkhouse is in complete disarray. Joaquin tries the morally repugnant method of implying that Wes ran away with another woman, but Whitney knows better, so she files a missing person report with Sheriff Wade. By the time Joaquin comes around with a cash bribe, it’s too little too late. Whitney’s on the warpath, and she’s clearly going to cause big issues for 10 Petal. I worry about her safety.
In the meantime, it’s business as usual for Rip. Despite the state change, he’s still recruiting new wranglers in the same way — by parking up outside the local prison and accosting anyone who leaves wearing a cowboy hat. In this case, it’s Zachariah Moss, who seems grateful for the opportunity, though the fact he’s personally acquainted with Azul — and seemingly was with his late father, too — probably helped. You can totally tell this guy is going to become Dutton Ranch‘s moral centre, since he’s already staring contemplatively at the horizon and it’s only Episode 2.
Anyway, we might as well talk about Carter. He gets comparatively less to do in this episode, since he doesn’t assault anyone, but he does spend a bit more time with Oreana, who encourages him to bunk off school on the reasonable grounds that he’s never going to use algebra, but in Texas, he might use the gunslinging skills he shows off when they shoot bottles together. I mentioned it in the previous recap, but Carter and Oreana are clearly into each other, and she’s also clearly going to be trouble. Both things become even more obvious in “Earn Another Day”, especially given the big reveal that Oreana is Beulah’s wayward daughter. That doesn’t bode well.
The Dutton Ranch dynamic I’m beginning to enjoy the most is the one between Beth and Everett. When I saw Ed Harris’s name on the billing, I was convinced he was going to be a bad guy, but I’m so pleased he’s not. Everett is slipping into that surrogate father role, replacing the late John Dutton in some ways, but he’s also useful in circumventing Beulah’s monopolisation of the local ranching industry. He introduces Beth to a rival slaughterhouse, and he’s clearly going to be coming in useful in other ways, since Beth bothers to introduce him to Rip.
For now, it isn’t totally clear how all of this is going to come together, although it’s obvious that Wes’s murder is going to be the primary driver of the plot. Beulah knows that Wes was dumped on Beth and Rip’s property, so the fact that his body is missing now implicates them, but Rip has also kept the whole thing a secret from Beth, so that could quite easily blow up in his face too. With Carter sleeping with the enemy — or trying to, anyway — and Whitney getting the law involved, that’s a very combustible setup that should yield some interesting fireworks as the season goes on. I, for one, am looking forward to it.
