Winning or Learning is the fourth episode of the fourth season of Yellowstone. The episode premiered on November 21, 2021.
Outline[]
Jamie receives some surprising news; Beth receives an offer; Jimmy settles in on the road; tensions boil over in the bunkhouse.
Summary[]
The fourth episode of Yellowstone Season 4 picks up with Jimmy, who has just left the Yellowstone to go on the horse-showing circuit with Travis before heading on to the 6666 ranch. As Travis and others perform tricks and show off their horses, Jimmy looks on with a sense of awe. While the trainers and circumstances haven't been kind to him, it's clear that Jimmy hasn't lost his ability to be happy, and the cold open suggests he may find this time away worthwhile. Jimmy has the receipt from some clearly impressive horse sales sent back to the Yellowstone and tries to write a letter to Mia to accompany them, but chickens out.
John takes Kayce out to a ridge, telling his son that this is where his father died and where he proposed to his wife and buried her ring when she died. In the shadow of this Dutton graveyard, John shows Kayce the man hired to kill the Duttons at the end of Season 3. John asks Kayce to talk with Jamie about the man's prison records in the hopes of ferreting out Jamie's possible involvement in the attack. Kayce also admits to his father that Monica and Tate aren't feeling safe and that he's not sure how to help them. His relationship may be on the line and Kayce worries that he may have already have lost his wife and child.
Meanwhile, Beth takes a meeting with Caroline, the CEO of Market Equities. Serving up her famous vulgarity and take-no-guff attitude, Beth tries to assert her control over the room, but Caroline is nonplussed. Instead she threatens Beth with an SEC investigation or offers to buy the land that Beth purchased for her family and Schwartz and Meyer. Beth turns the offer down saying that once her father's dead she'd be happy to sell but while he's alive she'll defend his dream. Caroline counters by offering Beth a job with Market Equities to make a destination town in Montana. Beth says she'll accept if Caroline hands over her controlling share of Schwartz and Meyer, assuming this is an offer Caroline could never accept.
Jamie, the new owner of his own ranch, seems to be building up his relationship with his biological father Garrett. He's asserting himself as Attorney General and things seem to be going his way. When Kayce arrives in his office, the tone immediately shifts adversarial. Jamie defends himself to Kayce, saying that he was responsible for the guard detail on John's hospital room while he convalesced and for avoiding investigation into the deaths at the ranch. Kayce accuses Jamie of not visiting or calling but tells him the family still love him and that John wants Jamie to personally investigate the man who called the hit on the Duttons. Jamie agrees to investigate, which should put an end to the speculation about Jamie's involvement in the attack, but the scene remains tense and neither brother seems to fully trust the other even while saying "I love you."
Meanwhile, tensions are rising among the wranglers as well. Lloyd tries to take charge of the group but Walker pushes back against his leadership. When John and Rip question Lloyd's decision to bring sick cattle in for doctoring, it seems like more and more of Lloyd's authority is lost.
Kayce goes to talk with Monica about the state of their family and relationship. Monica claims that she would have left the Dutton ranch if she truly hated Kayce, but that she and Tate aren't healing here. Kayce knows that Tate won't get better staying with the Duttons, where the attack happened, and suggests they go and stay on the reservation with Monica's grandfather and leave the ranch immediately. Monica is clearly enthusiastic about this idea and for the first time this season she smiles.
Back in the bunkhouse, Teeter cooks everyone dinner using the parts of the cow they don't normally sell. When Laramie offers some to Mia, Mia complains that they shouldn't be here on the ranch and should be out doing rodeo. It's clear that Jimmy's departure has left her upset. When Walker offers some dinner to Lloyd and is rebuffed, he calls out Lloyd's behavior and the two start throwing fists. Rip enters the bunkhouse and reminds Lloyd of the rule: there's no fighting on the ranch, and if you want to fight someone you go fight Rip. While he expresses regret at having to do this, he then throws Lloyd across the table, knocking him out.
Beth tells John about the Market Equities job offer, suggesting that she could use the position to gain the Dutton family more control. While she assures John that he never has to doubt her loyalty, John laments that all his children feel like they have to leave. Rip has a conversation with the boy that Beth brought onto the farm, suggesting that he's got no future outside of the farm and if he doesn't find a way to earn Beth's trust back, he doesn't have any future here either. The children of Yellowstone are clearly not all right.
Jimmy finally seems to make headway with the group of horse trainers. As they travel at night, Travis seems to open up to him, offering advice about everything from beard length to the value of rodeo-ing. While the tone isn't necessarily friendly, it's certainly more congenial than when the two set out on the trip. It's clear from Travis' advice, however, that his ultimate goal is to change Jimmy, which may be exactly what John wanted when he sent the kid out with the horse trainers in the first place. A clean-shaven Jimmy then arrives on the expansive 6666 Ranch, which Travis describes as stretching to the horizon in every direction.
Rip reveals to Beth that he doesn't have a driver's license or really any record of his birth, which means he also doesn't know is birthday. Beth becomes determined to pick a birthday for Rip so that they can celebrate him, and lands on September 28. It's a sweet moment that shows the couple's love and Rip's softer side, but it's juxtaposed next to images of Lloyd sporting a black eye that Rip likely gave him. The beaten wrangler puts his hat back on and heads back out cowboying, determined to not let the incident with Walker or his hurt pride break him. As a final note of intrigue, Jamie gets the prison records of the inmate who ordered the hit on the Duttons only to find out that his dad Garrett had been a cellmate and may be involved in the attack.
Cast[]
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Episode Deaths[]
NA
Music[]
- All I See Is You by Shane Smith & the Saints
- Lana by Bill Anschell
- The Low Road by Shooter Jennings
- Hands on the Wheel by Willie Nelson
Notes[]
Gallery[]
Promotional Videos[]
Promotional Images[]