10 Essential Yellowstone Episodes, Ranked: The Moments That Made the Duttons Legends

Before Yellowstone premiered on the Paramount Network in 2018, the closest we got to a great neo-Western was the meth-infused manic that was Breaking Bad. As great as that show is, and it technically is classified as a neo-Western, Breaking Bad didn’t really feel like a true “Western.” We needed a show that spoke to the spirit of the Old West, and creators Taylor Sheridan and John Linson answered the call with Yellowstone.

The drama told the story of the Dutton family, which owned a large piece of land for ranching near Yellowstone National Park. Throughout the series, we watch as the Dutton clan struggle to retain control of their land from those who want to snatch it up and develop it. This dynamic made for great television, and, today, Yellowstone has seemingly replaced Breaking Bad as the premiere neo-Western series. If you’re just getting into this show for the first time, here are the essential episodes you should watch to better understand the cutthroat world of ranching in Montana.

10“Daybreak”

Season 1, Episode 1

Of course, you should start at the beginning, where you meet John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and his family, which isn’t what you’d expect when you think of a ranch family. You have Jamie (Wes Bentley), John’s middle son and lawyer who is more interested in his own career than the ranch. Then, you have Kayce (Luke Grimes), John’s youngest son and a former Navy SEAL. And then, you’ll meet Beth (Kelly Reilly), John’s only daughter and a bottle rocket of chaos.

“Daybreak” throws you head first into the world of Yellowstone, the majestic views, and the struggle to keep the land from those who want to either buy it, or steal it from them. It’s a cutthroat world in Yellowstone, and right from the start, you won’t be able to turn away from the chaos that unfolds.

9“Half the Money”

Season 4, Episode 1

The Season 4 opener, “Half the Money,” was the perfect way to kick off this season. At the end of Season 3, the Dutton clan is being targeted for assassination, with John being shot and left on a remote road. Rip (Cole Hauser) finds John still breathing, and the rest of the episode focuses on finding those who launched the attack.

While the first three seasons had its share of tense moments, Season 4 marked a slight change in the dynamics of Yellowstone. We’re now deep in the storyline of the Duttons battling against their most fierce adversary, Market Equities, who want to snatch the Yellowstone Dutton ranch from them to build a huge resort. While Season 3 saw how a large conglomerate planned to get the land, the kickoff to Season 4 shows just how ruthless this company can be at getting what it wants. “Half the Money” gave us a chilling feeling that the Duttons were in serious trouble here, and from this point forward, the foot was on the gas pedal, and it didn’t let up.

8“All for Nothing”

Season 3, Episode 6

In a lot of ways, “All for Nothing” was a truly gut-wrenching episode. Here, we find out why Beth has so much disdain for her brother, Jamie, who didn’t tell Beth that the abortion clinic they went to also sterilized her, without her permission, when they were teenagers. Beth kept this from her father until this episode, and when he found out, the family didn’t look at Jamie the same way again.

It was here that the Dutton’s fragile alliance began to crack, with Beth’s anger toward Jamie boiling over, and with John knowing what he did, he had an even more disgusted attitude toward his middle child. While it’s fun watching Beth go “full Beth,” watching her be vulnerable and showcase her feelings was nothing short of mesmerizing. It is a tragic episode that changes the Dutton family forever, and changes the way we saw Jamie.

7“One Hundred Years Is Nothing”

Season 5, Episode 1

We open Season 5 with an all-out war between the Duttons and Market Equities, and the Duttons score a huge advantage when John is elected and sworn in as the Governor of Montana. This spelled disaster for Market Equities, which meant that the Duttons, who controlled most of the state government, had the power to kill off the Paradise Valley venture and cost the company millions.

This was also the episode in which we got a forbidding feeling that something truly horrific was going to happen to John, especially with Market Equities staring down the barrel of a disastrous financial loss. Here, we see Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) “unleashed” to seduce and influence Jamie, who is now the Attorney General, to keep the Paradise Valley development alive. It was the perfect kickoff to a season that had truly shocking moments, and one very, very satisfying ending.

6“Under a Blanket of Red”

Season 4, Episode 5

Beth Dutton may be an agent of chaos, but one thing that people tended to look over was the fact that her chaos was calculated. She is very intelligent, and you just had the sense that if John had listened to her advice more, then he would have been in a better position to protect the ranch. In “Under a Blanket of Red,” which was the midpoint of Season 4, Beth hatches a genius plan that would give her leverage to protect the ranch. It was a masterclass in planning, and it’s a shame it didn’t work.

However, most will remember this episode as where Jamie meets his son in the most awkward way: picking up his ex-girlfriend on the side of the road. It’s one thing to be introduced to a child you didn’t know you had. It’s another to meet your child by picking up his mom on the side of the road. It was an awkward affair, and it made us look at Jamie with even more disdain. Not only did he sterilize Beth without her permission, he’s a deadbeat dad also. Shameful.

5“A Thundering”

Season 2, Episode 1

Before the Season 2 premiere, Kayce Dutton wasn’t interested in working for the ranch, as he was dedicated to his family, wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille) and Tate (Brecken Merrill). However, now that he’s back on the Yellowstone Dutton ranch, we get to see the youngest Dutton slowly get sucked into the battle of the ranchland.

I felt like we didn’t get to see much of Kayce in Season 1, and John, Beth, Jamie, and Rip got most of the spotlight here. So, this episode is essential in that it finally established Kayce’s storyline and how he ties in to all of this. Also, we see Chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) pitch his new plan on gaining control of the ranch; however, their battle with the reservation would be tame in comparison to what was to come.

4“The Unraveling” (Parts 1 & 2)

Season 1, Episodes 8 and 9

I have to admit something: I’m not a huge fan of split episodes. While I understand that they have to do this because of time constraints, you can’t help but wonder how better an episode would be if it was kept aired together. Having said that, the Season 1 finale, “The Unraveling,” gets a pass from me thanks to the storyline that builds into a spectacularly climatic ending that cemented Yellowstone‘s place as one of the best shows on TV.

Here, John discovers who his true allies are, and we see the first cracks in the treacherous Dutton alliance when John threatens to cut Jamie off due to him putting his political aspirations over the ranch, and Jamie retaliates by agreeing to a newspaper interview about him. Before Jamie grew into his villain era, we truly felt bad for Jamie as we saw how John and Beth constantly mistreated him, and we were actually rooting for Jamie when he decided to agree to the interview. We also get to see the full extent of the plot against the Dutton ranch and John’s life, and it’s here we see just how bad outsiders want a piece of the Dutton’s huge ranch.

3“The World Is Purple”

Season 3, Episode 10

You really felt the weight of the Season 3 finale “The World Is Purple,” where Jamie confronts his biological father (Yes, Jamie was adopted into the Dutton clan). He begins to realize truths that will lead him on a path to permanently put a wedge between him and his adopted family.

You really felt the emotion coming from Jamie’s conversation with his father, and this was pretty much the start of Jamie’s tragic villain arc. We also see the war that breaks out over control of the ranch, with Angela Blue Thunder (Q’orianka Kilcher) taking over the plans to take over the ranch from Rainwater, and launching an outright vicious attack on the Duttons that had you fearing one of the main characters wouldn’t make it out alive.

2“A Knife and No Coin”

Season 5, Episode 8

If you read my episode review of Netflix’s Wednesday, you know that one of my pet peeves with modern TV is the insistence of “splitting seasons,” which I feel kills the momentum of a season, especially one with a short episode count. In Wednesday, this essentially created two shows in one, with the first half of Season 2 much stronger than the second half. While Yellowstone also split up its final season, the showrunners did a fantastic job in keeping the season coherent with a very strong and very tragic storyline that still has people talking.

This is perfectly evident in the Season 5 midpoint, “A Knife and No Coin,” where we see how absolutely ruthless Sarah Atwood is, and Beth realizes just how ruthless her father was in how far he would go to protect the ranch. We see how ruthless Jamie became when he let his anger against his father get the best of him when he asked Sarah about hiring a hitman to kill him. As you can see, the theme of this episode was “ruthless,” and it got a lot more brutal in the second half of Season 5. To help you understand how this show ended, “A Knife and No Coin” is simply essential.

1“Life Is a Promise”

Season 5, Episode 14

Here’s a statement I will forever defend. “Life Is a Promise” was one of the best series finales ever. It was such a satisfying ending to the story of the Duttons, and tied up all the storylines that led us to this point. Here, we see the family trying to move on after John Dutton was assassinated, and we see Beth’s rage in full action as she seeks revenge for her father’s death by killing Jamie.

We also see a satisfying end to the Yellowstone Dutton ranch, and how the family and cowboys moved on after this tumultuous event in the ranch’s history. Of course, the series finale would be an essential episode, but, man, was this a banger of an ending to the best neo-Western on TV. Long live Yellowstone!