Dutton Ranch’s Penultimate Episode Lacks Punch — Review

Critic’s Rating: 3.2 / 5.0

3.2

The penultimate episode feels like the proper time to call it, no? 

We had no idea what to expect with Dutton Ranch, but this is not it.

The show got off to a great start all those weeks ago, but it has slowly morphed into a repetitive, soapy drama.

It keeps circling the same points without escalation or payoff, and most of what has been happening this season has become predictable.

The irony is that the show remains entertaining, at least more than most other shows, but it’s not satisfying on a creative and emotional level.

Dutton Ranch Season 1 Episode 8, “Whiskey Limits,” is a prime example of this lack of focus.

Save for the cold open that sees Beulah airlifted to the hospital, everything else settles into a slow, soapy rhythm, and after Dutton Ranch Season 1 Episode 7, the whiplash is real.

The previous episode was intense and covered so much, even though some character changes, like Oreana’s cruelty, came from left field.

In this hour, the show walks back some of its creative decisions or tries to explain them away, and it simply doesn’t make sense. 

Or maybe Beulah’s heart attack had cognitive side effects the doctor is yet to see — because in what universe would anyone entrust their family legacy to a murderous junkie just because there’s a blood relation?

While the show has been trying to become the Dutton and Jackson show, it has slowly defanged Beulah.

In the early episodes, she looked cartoonishly villainous, but now she’s harmless both intellectually and physically.

The romance B-plot with Everett becomes a liability this hour simply because I don’t care.

And not just because it feels odd to have characters their age pining after each other like teenagers, but because it dulls the show.

In what world is it smart to stick Ed Harris to this kind of storyline? I still carry some trauma from his performance in Westworld because the show gave him something to work with.

In Dutton Ranch, I almost always forget that he’s part of the cast.

The whole 10-P thing lacks the kind of intrigue that the show is gunning for because, as I said before, it’s predictable.

Even when Pretty Cowboy reveals the shady tactics the ranch has been using to keep itself afloat, it doesn’t have the same impact.

It harkens back to Dutton Ranch Season 1 Episode 4, when the show refrained from showing the culling, and it didn’t land as intended.

Having Austin literally explain 10-P’s shadiness robs the development of any weight. It requires us to do the heavy lifting of working up ire even when the show has not earned it.

Carter’s Angst Morphs

The circling of themes continues with Carter, who is bent on adding another dumb cowboy to the world when there are too many of them.

The arc is mashed together with his feelings about being adopted, and the results are mixed. For the most part, he comes off as an asshole.

Beth and Rip have been nothing but nice to him.

It’s easy to understand the guilt of being treated so well when you’ve accepted suffering as the natural trajectory for your life. It feels like a dream that’ll be rudely awakened. I’m not adopted, so I don’t have the first-hand experience Carter or other adoptees have, and I agree that their feelings are valid.

It is one of the storylines that Dutton Ranch should have delved deeper into, rather than focusing on him losing his virginity for seven episodes.

This family that Beth, Rip, and Carter have formed is not like every other family, and exploring their issues would have made Dutton Ranch feel like a show about the Duttons.

If families formed by blood ties face problems, chosen families’ problems are even bigger because they have to choose each other every day.

But that doesn’t get enough weight since it’s primary to Carter’s desire to become a cowboy. 

The show fails to articulate his underlying motivations, reducing his trauma to a basic aversion to emotional challenges. Instead of facing the friction of a chosen family, Carter naturally defaults to running away because it’s easier.

This is, of course, the setup to herding him towards law enforcement, something I had seen coming from afar.

I’m willing to grant that Carter is not lazy or stupid; he just hasn’t found a purpose worth suffering for.

Maybe law enforcement is that thing, or he will decide it is not. Still, we need to move on from this angst as soon as possible. As he said, he’s grown, and he needs to start acting like it.

And while we missed some of the years between Montana and Texas, Finn Little still has it.

Little and Kelly Reilly had some of the best scenes in Yellowstone because they are two actors who can match each other’s brand of intensity.

Their scene beside the truck brought back Yellowstone memories, when these two stubborn characters ironically connect because of their stubbornness.

That interaction was the best part of an otherwise substandard episode.

Gut Check

“Whiskey Limits” did not explore anything new. It was the same old arcs, padded with predictable outcomes and developments.

Intrusive Thoughts

• Oh, to be rich! If Beulah were poor, her family would be singing a different tune right now.

Now’s when you chime in, Dutton Ranch fanatics. What is Joaquin planning? Will his father help?

And what’s with the constant references to Azul and his family? Are they planning on delivering a fatal blow to them to fire up the feud that is almost dead now?

Let’s keep the conversation going — it’s the only way the good stuff survives.

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