And I mean “doesn’t help” in two ways: in both the reality of the show itself, and in the experience of watching it. It doesn’t help that by the end of this episode Jamie’s on the outs with his family again. But then Willa quotes a price of half a billion dollars for the Duttons’ holdings, and Jamie gulps. He notes that if their ski resort plan goes the way these things usually do, then all the high-paying jobs will be filled with folks from out of state, while all the low-wage local workers won’t be able to afford housing. Sure, Jamie huffs and puffs about the flaw in Providence Hospitality Group’s pitch for more jobs in Montana. But she quickly finds out that he may be more amenable to their plans than any other Dutton. (“Shoulda been” simple, Roarke sighs, to which Willa says, “‘Should’ is a useless word … almost as useless as ‘hope.’”) She complains directly to Jamie Dutton that it’s a conflict of interest for him to be serving as attorney general in an office that can approve or disapprove of seizing his family’s land. Hayes visits Montana this week, somewhat irritated that the Duttons have been blocking her deal. Standing in the way of this goal? Those wicked real-estate developers, backed by Roarke Morris’s Market Equities and its CEO Willa Hayes, played by Karen Pittman. They commiserate about what’s always been expected of them - “We’re supposed to learn to be white and live in cities.” - and they vow to use all the resources they have to “build lives they can’t take away.” But even this failure fires up the chief, who tells Monica that he needs her to use her connections and position at the university to help with a council he’s forming, and to raise awareness about his plans to protect their land. It’s a true community operation, and indicative of the kind of strength and compassion Kayce can bring to this job.Īlas, the search doesn’t come to a good end. (“We ain’t enforcing no laws today,” he says.) Second, he gets Monica to bring along everyone she can contact on the rez. First, he calls in every available livestock agent, and tells them to leave their weapons behind. Chief Rainwater asks Kayce for help with the search, and Kayce does two smart and sensitive things. “All for Nothing” begins with a family on the reservation realizing their eldest daughter Sila is missing. Kayce also has a dramatic role to play in this episode’s main subplot. Kayce nods at that, but warns, “You’re gonna hate the way I do it.” ( Everybody sing: “Sweet home Alabama/ Play that dead band’s song …”) Still, the old coot does keep refusing to keep his buffalo from roaming close to the Yellowstone ranch, saying that according to the law it’s the Duttons’ and the livestock agents’ job to keep them out. It’s Kayce who finally gets the cranky, Dutton-hating, buffalo-herding bastard to produce the papers he refused to show in the previous episode: the ones that show his cattle don’t have brucellosis. (Which raises the question: Why did the show’s creator/writer Taylor Sheridan keep Kayce away from the job in the first place? Did we need three episodes with Jamie as commish? But I digress …)

Let’s start with Kayce, who’s been coming back into the storyline in a major way ever since he was named Livestock Commissioner. Because like most of this season so far, this week’s episode “All for Nothing” is a pretty mixed bag, with the same characters as always (Kayce, Rip, Chief Rainwater, Roarke, and Beth) dominating the best scenes, and the same characters as always (John, Jamie, and Beth again) dominating the worst ones. Look, sometimes with Yellowstone you have to take your pleasures wherever you find them. For those of us who don’t have a lot of experience with riding the range or tending to cattle, likely our only previous encounter with the disease sometimes known as “undulant fever” comes from Zevon’s song “Play It All Night Long.” And now here are some real cowboys, tossing around the term “brucellosis” so casually that I keep waiting for these leathery ranch hands to slip into one of the song’s other memorable lines: “There ain’t much to country living/ Sweat, piss, jizz, and blood.” “The cattle all have brucellosis/ We’ll get through somehow.” -Warren Zevonįor Warren Zevon fans like myself, these past two weeks of Yellowstone have been pretty damned delightful, because not once but twice someone has asked a shifty old buffalo-herder whether or not his stock has brucellosis.

Yellowstone season 3 episodes