TV Review: YELLOWSTONE: Season 2, Episode 6: Blood the Boy [Paramount Network]

Yellowstone Blood the Boy Review

Paramount Network‘s Yellowstone: Season 2, Episode 6: Blood the Boy is the end of one of the last bleak, intriguing, and lingering plot-lines from Season One that has survived up until this point in this revamped TV series.

When this episode of Yellowstone came to a close, so did the potential for this series to be one of best narratives to grace the airwaves in the last two years, right up there with: Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Black Sails, and Breaking Bad.

Though the mystique and patina of the cowboy lifestyle is deepened in Blood the Boy with rodeo horse racing, the phenomenon of “buckle bunnies”, and bronc riding, Season Two of Yellowstone has successfully downgraded this TV series from having an exceptional narrative and well-realized characters into an ordinary television drama set at a large ranch in Montana.

The Reporter Problem

In the real world with layers of redundancies like The Cloud and backups, simply killing the journalist behind an unpublished news article will not stop that news story from being published.

Sarah Nguyen (Michaela Conlin) is such a journalist.

A journalist like Nguyen will have: a.) told the editor she is writing for all about the John Dutton news story (Nguyen said last season “My editor wants the story” so her editor knows about the story), b.) played the recording of the Jamie Dutton interview for the editor (and uploaded it to the newspaper’s server), c.) sent a draft of the completed story to her editor, d.) notified the lawyers at her paper of Jamie’s reticence and possible lawsuit from John Dutton (she indicated the former in Touching Your Enemy), and being notified, the lawyers would have requested Nguyen’s interview notes, a transcript of the recorded interview, and listened to the recording of the interview.

In short, killing Sarah Nguyen does not stop the news story she is working on about John Dutton from being published. The news story is at the quote stage (Nguyen wants a quote from John Dutton about the contents of the news story). At this point, a fully written, printable draft of the story has been completed (à la Spotlight and Almost Famous).

If in the following episodes of Yellowstone, writers Brett Conrad and Taylor Sheridan indicate that Sarah Nguyen’s news story about John Dutton died with her, not only will it be a convenient and terribly-written plot point cope-out (like the magical colon cancer that turned into an ulcer between seasons), it will be a complete real-world fantasy, one that could never take one furtive, anguishing breath in the modern newspaper industry.

The Unbelievable Boating Accident Solution

Jamie  Dutton (Wes Bentley) killing Nguyen is predictable but how it is handled afterward is more than anything else humorous (odd since this is a serious television drama comprised of hard men and women).

The buffoonery in question:

1.) How does it look like a boating accident when Sarah Nguyen has strangulation marks around her neck?

2.) How does drowning in the water cause finger bruising around a person’s throat?

3.) Jamie Dutton hit Nguyen’s head against her car before he strangled her to death. She will have a head contusion under her helmet. How will that fresh head bump/bruise have gotten there if she was wearing a helmet when she died?

A real-world medical examiner would discover all this during Nguyen’s autopsy, they would then notify police detectives, and the detectives would start a homicide investigation.

None of that will happen, not after the cancer / ulcer fiasco at the beginning of this season of Yellowstone. This is how Yellowstone‘s writers have chosen to get rid of pesky story-lines they no longer want from Season One. They utilize an idiotic sequence of events, or at least the most readily available, and hope no one is paying attention (a strange notion since a television show requires one to watch and digest what they are seeing on-screen).

If this is how Conrad and Sheridan choose to end the Jamie Dutton / John Dutton / Sarah Nguyen news story story-line, I will lose what remaining respect I have for the writers of this TV series.

The Willful Longevity Bullet Through the Foot

What is writer/creator Taylor Sheridan thinking? He’s sabotaging his sublime narrative, dynamiting it, turning almost every aspect of it into something ordinary. Instead of “sabotaging”, I should say “sabotaged” because Blood the Boy completes Sheridan’s deleterious work.

I have never seen this before on a television show in my life (besides the last two seasons of Game of Thrones). I have never seen a writer undermine his own narrative.

The continuation of John Dutton (Kevin Costner)’s story arc and growth, presented in Season One, has been wiped out.

Rip Wheeler and John’s relationship maturing from employee/employer to one of friendship after John’s cancer diagnose (with John indicating that Rip could call him “John”) has been wiped out.

Jamie Dutton’s growth presented in Season One, coming out from under his father’s shadow and becoming his own man, has been wiped out.

When John says in Blood the Boy that instead of killing the journalist, Jamie should have jumped in the river himself (implying that Jamie should have killed himself rather than the reporter), John’s sheathing anger and disappointment with Jamie is finally revealed. It is a dark statement, one that takes a few moments to settle into the psyche of Jamie and the viewer. Jamie’s sister has nothing but contempt for him and now his father openly says Jamie should have committed suicide.

The Jamie Dutton from Season One of Yellowstone, not the re-written, watered-down Jamie from Season Two, would never have been in this position. The previous incarnation would have already been making a name and a separate life for himself outside of his father’s abusive household. Season Two Jamie is a blubbering mess desperate to hold onto his father’s good favor, his place in his family, and his inheritance. What has been done to Jamie’s character and his character arc between seasons has been a shame to behold.

This wake of story-telling wreckage has been created all for the sake of series longevity and I can’t believe it. Season Two of Yellowstone is not worth this level of story-telling damage because what has replaced the Season One story-lines isn’t as good – ordinary has replaced riveting and unique.

The only characters left on the show that are growing are Kayce Dutton, to a small extent (he wants to change), and hapless Jimmy Herstrom (Jefferson White).

Jimmy the Rodeo Rider

Jimmy’s underdog storyline is one of the few storylines to stay intact from Season One and has been bolstered by his friendship with Avery, who disappears in this episode, and a quest for additional cash.

That quest for cash in Blood the Boy leads Jimmy to finally discover something horse-related that he is good at. Everyone is surprised that Jimmy is a natural at riding a bucking horse (the viewer, Jimmy, and Lloyd Pierce). The mentor / mentee relationship that develops between Jimmy and Lloyd Pierce (Forrie J. Smith) is casual yet real, spurred by an allegiance to The Brand. When Lloyd gets choked up when Jimmy receives the first place bronc riding buckle, the viewer knows why even-though Jimmy doesn’t. Lloyd is proud of him to the point of getting emotional.

Walker’s Ticket on The Train

The person who didn’t get emotional about his loyalty to The Branded is Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) when he is about to murder Walker (Ryan Bingham). Rip has been waiting to stamp Walker’s ticket for the Midnight Train since Walker’s aversion to under-the-table work became known. The look on Rip’s face when Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) intercedes at the last moment is priceless. Rip can’t object without revealing the ruse to everyone within earshot, including Walker. It is a tense, well-scripted, and well-acted moment in the episode. I wonder, however, if Walker would have been killed if the dark tone from Season One of Yellowstone had been retained in Season Two.

The Beck Brothers’ Game

The Beck brothers are the only new addition to the show that are consistently entertaining (slapstick Dan Jenkins has been relegated to the sidelines, watching events happen but being powerless to do anything about them).

Like Beth Dutton, the Beck brothers wear their aggression on their sleeves, exposing some of its girth verbally when provoked (or to amuse themselves).

One of the highlights of Blood the Boy is Chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham)’s confident smile during and after the Beck brothers’ threats. Unlike John Dutton, Chief Rainwater seems ready for the Becks and their tactics. He knew the realities of building a casino (including its criminal aspects) in Montana before the project was officially announced. Rainwater likes that he has gotten under the skin of his newly disclosed enemy and presents as being ready for the upcoming fight (and its varied costs).

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