'Yellowstone' Season 3 Episode 6 Review: Duttons' chances are low, will the ranch belong to Native Americans?
Spoilers for 'Yellowstone' Season 3 Episode 6 'All For Nothing'
Six episodes into Season 3 of 'Yellowstone' and we're surprised (not pleasantly at that) by the slow, calculated pace that the show has been moving at. That the Yellowstone ranch and the Dutton family is at threat from multiple people who won't back down for anything is amply clear. But in that regard alone, Episode 6 is more sobering than dramatic.
A young girl goes missing at the reservation. She can be found nowhere and the police doesn't have enough manpower to send a search party into the wilderness. Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) and the police know this story a bit too well. This is not news on the reservation where women and young girls go missing all the time. And when on the rare occasion they do come back, they don't return as their own selves.
Episode 6 address violence against Native American women in a sobering, hard-hitting narrative. According to a study for the US Department of Justice by sociologists at the University of Delaware and the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, some US counties composed primarily of Native American lands, murder rates of Native American women are up to 10 times higher than the national average for all races. Reports also point out the glaring number of missing persons. As of 2016, there were 5,712 cases of missing Native American women reported to the National Crime Information Center. It must also be noted that these recorded numbers hardly reflect the numbers on the ground since many cases go unreported or ignored.
When the body of the missing girl is found in the middle of nowhere, it isn't directly revealed what happened. But the unfortunate possibilities are endless and when left to the imagination, they only worsen. This leads to a crisis in Monica Dutton's (Kelsey Asbille) conscious. As she sits in the bathtub at home, she realizes just how good she has it and can't help but lament. In a conversation she has with Rainwater later on, she is eager to help the cause. He tells her that all she can do is spread the word because all he is doing is taking their land back from those who snatched/ wish to snatch it.
With six episodes in, it doesn't look like we have as deadly and brutal a battle as last year with the Beck brothers. This season, it looks like the Duttons are involved in what is more of a power struggle than a violent land grab.
Roarke Morris (Josh Holloway) takes a step closer to the ranch for his airport plane. He brings in Willa Hays (Karen Pittman), who makes her intentions clear by offering Jamie the better end of the deal — $500M for the share of the land. She later tells Roarke how she noticed a desire in Jamie's eyes, maybe he will come to their side. And now, we don't find it impossible that he will.
Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) had already given Jamie an earful about his actions and his idea of good and bad. When she reveals to John Dutton (Kevin Costner) the truth about her and Jamie's relationship, the abortion gone wrong leading up to a hysterectomy, he wants to beat him black and blue. Tensions between the Dutton family are now more than ever and in the next few episodes, we expect betrayals and whatnots.
At the end of the episode, when John is finally confronted with the reality of his future and the legacy he has left behind, he comes to the realization that it is indeed all for nothing. All his efforts and struggles related to saving the Dutton ranch now seem to be all in vain when the only person who is set to take over from him is Tate Dutton (Brecken Merrill). How now will the Dutton family survive? How will they keep this land as their own? And so, it's all for nothing.
It must be, however, noted that Tate is actually half Native American. Which rings true Rainwater's predictions - that the land will return to his people.
'Yellowstone' airs on Sundays at 9 pm ET/ PT on Paramount Network.