The power-hungry attorney was last seen in the season three finale, but her presence in the opening episode of season five suggests that this season she is going to ramp up her efforts to destroy John.
Angela previously worked with Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) and the Broken Rock Indian Reservation to reclaim the land they see as rightly theirs but stepped away when Rainwater refused to break the law to do so.
“You had a chance to be rid of him, you did nothing, and he grew stronger. It’s the slave rules for you now and it’s all your fault,” she hisses at Rainwater while John is sworn in.
If the name Shane Smith & the Saints sounds faintly familiar to you, that’s because they have been namechecked on the series before.
The band from Texas, consisting of Bennet Brown, Chase Satterwhite, Dustin Schaefer, Zach Stover, and an ensemble of other musicians when touring and recording, was previously mentioned in season four, episode three.
Horse trader Travis Wheatley (Taylor Sheridan) tells his crew he’s going to play “Shane Smith and the fucking Saints” on the stereo for their journey back to the 6666 ranch.
The younger version of Lloyd is played by Forest Smith, who bears such a strong resemblance to Forrie J. Smith because he happens to be the son of the actor. He has appeared in the show briefly before in the season two episode “Touching Your Enemy,” but didn’t have a lot of screen time.
Unlike Shane Smith & the Saints, Wilson is not playing herself but a musician named Abby, who is seemingly new to town.
Beth is shown having a conversation with the newcomer while the bunkhouse boys show off their lassoing skills. While she tells Beth that she would never date a cowboy, the stolen glances and smiles she shares with Ryan (Ian Bohen) seem to suggest otherwise.
Abby also tells Beth that she’s going to take to the stage after the band is finished, but viewers don’t get to see her performance.
However, they shouldn’t worry, as it’s certainly not Wilson’s last scene in the show. Deadline announced earlier this year that the country star has been cast in a recurring role in season five, meaning she’ll be back for future episodes.
“What was the name of the emperor who played the fiddle while Rome was burning?” he asks Beth (Kelly Reilly) when she finds him not enjoying the party like everyone else but sitting on some grass nearby.
“Nero?” she answers, to which Rip responds: “This reminds me of that.”
As Beth contemplates what he means by this, Rip wastes no time in spelling it out for her: “He’s going to lose this place.”
The comparison is a fitting one given that Nero was the fifth emperor of Rome, who essentially wiped out the Julio-Claudian dynasty as a result of his ineffectual leadership.
Meanwhile, John — as viewers were reminded by Jamie earlier on in the episode — is a fifth-generation rancher whose family had always had a stake in Montana, even before it was recognized as a state.
Nero used the resources of the mighty Roman Empire for his own indulgences and, as the famous expression goes, “fiddled while Rome burned.”
We’ll have to see whether John does lose it all, but it does appear that, like Nero, he only seems to care about pushing for policies that benefit himself.
Kayce and Monica discovered they were expecting a second child at the end of season four, but their happiness doesn’t last long as, in the first episode of season five, Monica loses the baby after she attempts to drive herself and son Tate (Brecken Merrill) to the hospital.
They get into a car crash after Monica experiences contractions while at the wheel and accidentally collides with a truck while trying to swerve a cow that’s in the middle of the road. When John rushes to the hospital to be with them, Tate tells him the baby boy was going to be named after him.
In the second episode of season five, Monica quizzes Kayce once again on the premonition he had in season four, which made him utter the ominous words: “I saw the end of us.”
“When you said you saw the end of us, is this what you saw?” Monica asks, to which Kayce replies: “No, baby. I never saw this coming. This won’t be the end of us.”
Monica then asks, “What will?” and Kayce’s words suggest that it might be him who will end up causing the Dutton family’s downfall. “I have to choose the end of us. I will never choose that,” he says.
After being appointed John’s new chief of staff, Beth arranges one of his first meetings at a place she knows rather well, the Deerfield Club.
When Beth rocks up there early for a solo drink, she also experiences a situation she knows rather well — being hit on by a man who happens to find himself passing through Montana on business.
The scene harks back to the very first episode of “Yellowstone,” in which viewers get their first taste of Beth’s quick-witted nature and talent for scathing takedowns when she perfectly shatters the ego of a man who tries to hit on her.
This time around, however, Beth gives her victim the opportunity to save himself from the humiliation that’s about to rain down on him, telling him: “Buddy, this is your one chance to leave with your self-esteem intact.”
When he tells her to give him her best shot, Beth proceeds to peg him for what he really is and sends him running with his tail between his legs.
Perhaps the most pertinent flashback scene in the season five premiere double-bill shows a young John Dutton (Josh Lucas) carrying out revenge after he discovers that his livestock and other animals are dying because the government has allowed a deadly chemical to be sprayed close to his land.
John encounters a construction site where there are men getting ready to construct a cell phone tower. As the foreman, Dick Weller (Elijah Mahar), explains to him — after taking a punch to the face — there’s no way they can raze the area with a bulldozer as its so high up in the mountains, so their only option is to use chemical killer, which he argues is harmless.
John decides to walk away, but as we see in the next scene, he’s not the kind of man to accept what he’s been told is the status quo. When night falls, he, Rip, and other ranch hands destroy the construction site and equipment.
When confronted by the foreman, they knock him out cold and leave him to lie in the grass.
The next day, even more wildlife dies as a result of the poisonous spray, and the foreman sees just how unsafe the chemical really is as he has sores and boils all over his body.
