We get some backstory for Beth in episode 3 of Yellowstone, while Jamie seeks a major opportunity and Kayce can’t catch a break. Let’s break it all down.
Young Duttons
In a flashback, a young Beth (Kylie Rogers) and Kayce (Rhys Alterman) ride with their mother, Evelyn (Gretchen Mol). Evelyn is critical of Beth as she struggles with her horse. Eventually, Beth’s horse bolts, causing Evelyn’s horse to rear, tossing Evelyn and then landing directly on her. Unable to move, she tells Beth to go get John, saying she caused it, so she can fix it.
At the ranch, a younger, mustachioed John (Josh Lucas) sees Kayce and Evelyn’s horses, but no riders. He sets off with his cowboys to find them. They find Beth, who has been thrown from her horse and hurt her arm. John asks where Evelyn and Kayce are, but Beth doesn’t know.
Night has fallen and Evelyn has died, leaving young Kayce by himself. He hears wolves around him, but thankfully John finds him.
An unhappy anniversary
Back in the present, Governor Perry (Wendy Moniz) is at the ranch, arguing why Jamie should run for attorney general. Or at least that is the prelude to her and John (Kevin Costner) having sex. Things get a little awkward when Perry puts on Evelyn’s old robe, which John immediately tells her to take off, but that doesn’t stop them from continuing with their plans.
The next morning, Jamie (Wes Bentley) is on the phone covering up the medical examiner’s fire Rip caused. He spots Beth (Kelly Reilly) grabbing a couple of bottles of champagne and getting into a trough completely naked. Wondering what she’s doing, she reminds him it’s the day Evelyn died. She is going to mourn in her own way.
It’s not until Rip (Cole Hauser) comes that Beth is convinced to get out of the trough. Still defiant, she doesn’t accept his coat to cover up.
Kayce gets into another tricky situation
Kayce (Luke Grimes) practices shooting with Tate (Brecken Merrill), but Tate isn’t having any fun. He’s worried Kayce is going back into the army and pleads for him not to go.
There’s no time to talk about that though, as Kayce spots a van oddly parked in the middle of a field. He knows people come to the reservation to commit crimes, which he is afraid this could be. He looks in the back of the van and sees someone taped up. Tate distracts Kayce, allowing a man to open the back door of the van with a gun. Thankfully, Kayce turns around in time and kills the man, but the van takes off. Kayce has Tate hide in a sewage drain and then goes off after them.
Unfortunately, in the drain is a rattlesnake, which quickly moves to try and bite Tate. He throws rocks and kicks at it until he is finally able to stomp it to death.
When the van crashes in a ditch, another man runs out. Kayce lassos him by the ankles, causing him to fall and hit his head on a rock, instantly killing him.
In the van, Kayce finds a young woman (Dakota Love), bloodied and duct taped. He cuts her loose. She asks if he killed the men who took her, which Kayce confirms. Kayce says they should call the police, but she doesn’t want to involve them, she just wants to go home.
At the girl’s home, Kayce speaks with her father (Geno Segers), who wants to take care of this themselves, saying the res is where things go to disappear. Kayce agrees to help, but he needs to take Tate home first.
Monica is concerned he won’t tell him what’s going on, asking what she did to lose his trust. He denies that’s the issue, just that he doesn’t have time to discuss it.
After they bury the bodies in the same field Kayce found them in, the father tells Kayce they are going to burn them as well, to prevent their souls from crossing over into the next life.
Chess moves
Ranchers are still angry their cattle are on the reservation. But John has a plan.
As Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) leaves the reservation to attend an event, he is immediately pulled over by Montana police and arrested. John visits him in jail, telling him he’s there until he returns the cattle he stole. Rainwater says this was never about the cattle, it’s just the start. He tells John he is going to buy back the valley, starting with the Yellowstone, tearing down all the fences and returning it to the way it was before white people stole the land. He says he is the past, finally catching up with John. But John says as long as he keeps the cattle, Rainwater is just a man on his way to prison.
John has another move up his sleeve, an alternative to Jamie running for attorney general — Beth. While she’s reluctant, she says she will do it for John. When politicians come to meet with Beth, Jamie watches from a distance.
Sibling rivalry
Jamie sits melancholy on the porch as Beth meets with the politicians. When she comes outside, Jamie calls her a cancer and brings her to the barn so they can finally have it out. Jamie is frustrated he doesn’t get the credit for what he does for the family. Beth tells him everything she does is for John, but everything Jamie does is for himself and that John doesn’t trust him.
She’s about to leave when Jamie crosses a line, saying Beth killed their mother. This sends her into a rage, hitting him and yelling at him to be a man. He punches her back, but she only laughs and says a real man would have walked away.
Later, as Jamie has a drink, John comes to talk with him. Jamie doesn’t need John’s permission to run for office, but he expects (and needs) John’s support. John gives it to him, but tells him if he ever hits Beth again he’ll put his head through a wall.
Dying slowly
Speaking with his lawyer at a bar, Dan (Danny Huston) is told no court will convict John for diverting the river. Frustrated, he spots Beth and goes over to hit on her. Beth knows who he is and that he’s looking for a bit of revenge, but allows the flirting to continue.
As Jimmy cleans up the barn, he finds John sitting in the stallion’s stable. John asks about Jimmy’s family. He says when his grandmother died, the rest of the family died. He admires how John kept his family together after Evelyn’s death. But John says her death killed his family too, it’s just taking longer to die.
John wakes the next morning to the sound of trucks returning the cattle. This means that Rainwater is released from jail, but he sure isn’t happy about it.
On the reservation, Robert’s wife (Morningstar Angeline) is still mourning his death, ultimately deciding to kill herself. After Kayce finds her, he sees her five children. He knows his actions are a big reason why these kids are now orphans.
But problems are just starting for Kayce. Surveyors work the field where he buried the bodies. As the episode closes, they are just feet away from the grave.
Yellowstone season 1 episodes air on CBS on Sundays and are available to stream on Peacock.