TV Review: YELLOWSTONE: Season 2, Episode 7: Resurrection Day [Paramount Network]

Yellowstone Resurrection Day Review

Paramount Network‘s Yellowstone: Season 2, Episode 7: Resurrection Day is the unofficial beginning of the new Yellowstone TV series. The vestiges of the first, far superior version of Yellowstone (the entirety of Season One) were all but swept away in Blood the Boy.

Beth, Malcolm, & the Lack of Preparation

Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Malcolm Beck (Neal McDonough)’s meeting in Resurrection Day is tense and illuminating. Beth and Malcolm see through each other and in many ways are mirror images of each other.

Malcolm brings up something during their conversation that no other character has brought up until this point and time in Yellowstone – The Dutton Power Company, providing power to the new casino at a stiff price, a price that the casino will have to pay.

Beth doesn’t deny Malcolm’s keen insight, she keeps a poker face, which means Malcolm hit the tacit nail right on the head. Beth hasn’t even brought up the power company with her father yet. It’s a delicate subject that needs to be broached at precisely the right moment. This is how, I surmise, the Duttons will be able to afford the new tax rate for the ranch when the casino opens.

A curiosity happens after Malcolm openly threatens Beth. Beth doesn’t: a.) arm herself (she comes from a gun family and grew up ensconced in gun culture) and b.) implement some type of security at her residence and place of work.

Like Beth, Malcolm can back-up his words with actions. In that way, Malcolm and Beth are similar. Beth senses this which is why her lack of preparation is so perplexing. On Animal Kingdom, if Smurf thinks something untoward might happen or perceives a possible threat, her 9 mm automatically goes into her purse or the small of her back. Beth, on the other hand, receives an unveiled threat from a man-of-violence and does nothing except mention it to her father?

Why she doesn’t taken any preventive steps is obvious – writers John Coveny, Ian McCulloch, and Taylor Sheridan want Beth wide open for the beating she will later endure in Resurrection Day. That is why the precautions that real-life Beth Dutton (or a normal person) would have taken are absent after she is threatened. Beth and her reactions are intentionally dumbed-down just enough to let the wolves through the gates.

Beth’s Attack

At the outset of the attack, Malcolm Beck made a tactical error – he sent wolves to deal with a lion. The multiple traumas that Beth has endured have hardened her far beyond normal physical pain or emotional turmoil.

The viewer feels pity for the two masked assailants as they enter Beth’s lair and she quietly slips the letter opener underneath her office table – the lion is about to strike and the masked pawns are completely unaware and are caught completely off-guard.

Preceding the attack, the perpetrators obviously didn’t read Lan Tzu: “There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.” The thugs find that out during their combat with Beth Dutton and then some.

As the acts of aggression escalate and Beth’s fortitude is unwavering, spitting blood and prevarications at her living and dying attackers, the remaining hooligan grows increasing violent (shooting Jason), angry (throwing Beth onto the table), and perplexed (i.e. what is it going to take with this woman?).

It isn’t just Beth’s personality that enable her to be so brave in the face of adversity. Beth knows why the thugs are there, thanks to the Lead Goon’s loose lips, thus she knows the parameters of their mandate.

The Lead Thug (Domenick Lombardozzi) tells Beth, in not so many words, that they aren’t there to kill her. They’re there to scare her. From that moment on, Beth has the upper-hand.

That upper-hand keeps Beth from being raped. The Lead Thug is like Ethan Roark / The Yellow Bastard in Sin City – he can’t get an erection unless his victim is screaming, crying, afraid, and wreathing in terror. Beth Dutton emotes none of these things, not until Rip Wheeler arrives.

Before he does, Reilly delivers some of her best acting-to-date in the series (e.g. “Blow it off!”). She bottles up all of her bursting emotions, internalizes them, and hides them while only exuding her tough persona, armor which the Lead Thug can’t crack.

The Absence of Logic Before the Attack

Though Beth eventually has the figurative upper-hand during her assault, she is an idiot from its outset (not her fault. Her I.Q. is lowered in Resurrection Day to facilitate the assault). The police are most-likely five minutes away. Maybe three since Beth’s town is so small. Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) is twenty-to-forty minutes away, while speeding, at Yellowstone Ranch (judging by the open land between the town and the ranch seen in previous episodes).

Since they are far closer, why doesn’t Beth covertly text 911 (available in some areas of Montana) her emergency instead of Rip? To yet again facilitate the eventual attack she endures is the only rational explanation.

A smart person like Beth could and would have texted 911, alerting them that she is potentially in danger. Beth has no idea what is walking through the doors of her office. The hitmen could have been there to: a.) kill her,  b.) brand her, c.) cut off a body part, or d.) rape her. She doesn’t know. She also doesn’t know where Rip is when she texts him (maybe he is drunk and asleep). Not notifying the police via 911 is the most fool-hardy decision the viewer has ever seen Beth Dutton make. An intelligent person like Beth would have erred on the side of caution and texted 911.

There is the Sheriff Donnie Haskell-owned-by-the-Becks argument to consider – would the Becks have been preemptive, thought three moves ahead, and told Sheriff Haskell to ignore any calls from Beth’s location that night? Is that why Beth bypassed the police in favor of Rip Wheeler? Because she thought the Becks owned the police in town? Doubtful. Why? Yellowstone has been significantly dumbed-down since Season One. The aforementioned type of thinking is beyond the characterization of the Beck Brothers.

The “I Love You” Moments

Both of the “I Love You” moments in Resurrection Day are set up to perfection. The unspoken roof top “I Love You” moment is beautifully staged and touching (prompted by Beth’s eloquence), with Rip revealing his sentimental side and what he has done with all of his savings while the “I Love You” moment in Beth’s office is a necessary declaration, with Beth at the lowest point in her life (outside of the day her mother died). It is only in the arms of someone that loves her that Beth takes off her trusty and battered armor and lets down her defenses.

Kayce Dutton Not Seeking Revenge After His Sister’s Attack

Former U.S. Navy S.E.A.L. Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) not immediately seeking revenge for his sister after coming to her office and seeing her condition is unbelievable.

In Season One, when he perceived a wrong might be occurring, Kayce ran a van off the road, engaged in combat with, and killed the rapists of a Native-american girl. He did so on the spot. He killed Lee Dutton’s killer on the spot. He badly beat up a thief at a gas station that was trying to rob him on the spot. All of these past events established that Kayce is pugnacious and reacts violently and decisively when pushed.

In Resurrection Day, Kayce sees her sister has been savagely beaten and almost raped, her assistant killed, and Kayce’s response is to hang dead bodies outside the mastermind’s house?

Why isn’t Kayce incensed by what has been done to his only sister? Why isn’t he angry? Where is Kayce from Season One?

Kayce is military, his target is wide open, and undefended. For some reason beyond comprehension, Malcolm Beck has no bodyguards in and around his property (after orchestrating a hit on the daughter of the most powerful and cutthroat rancher in Montana – this is how badly this section of the episode is written). Malcolm Beck is home alone, possibly asleep when Kayce comes to hang the dead bodies at night, and Kayce doesn’t enter his home and kill Malcolm? He doesn’t then drive to Teal Beck (Terry Serpico)’s house and kill him as well?

I can suspend disbelief with the best of them but this convergence of events makes no sense.

This goes against Kayce’s established character.

This mellow, rolling-with-the-punches, lack of action, docile Kayce Dutton is the antithesis of the same character from Season One.

Real-life Kayce or Kayce from Season One would have killed Malcolm (and his brother) and been done with him. Oh, that’s right. Malcolm Beck and his brother have to be saved for the Season Finale and/or for Season Three.

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