Review: 'Yellowstone - Season 4' Continues the Wild Ride
If you haven't been watching the "Yellowstone" series, it begs this question -- Why the hell not? This western drama starring Kevin Costner about ranchers, Native Americans and land developers all trying to claim some of the most breathtakingly beautiful real estate in the nation is so salacious you can't help but get drawn in. With the Season 4 just released on Blu-ray and featuring over 4 hours of bonus content, now is the time to find out what you've been missing. Plus, this season takes us back in time to the origins of the Yellowstone Ranch, introducing us to the major characters in the new prequel spin-off "1883," starring Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Written by Taylor Sheridan ("Hell or High Water"), "Yellowstone" is a good old fashion western set in modern times, and each new episode fairly oozes with machinations and machismo, with romance and redemption. For instance, this is the series where one cowboy disinters his long dead mother's corpse, so that he can take the wedding ring off her finger and give it to his lady love. And this is the series where a rancher enacts revenge by throwing a rampant rattlesnake into his enemy's face. People may talk on cell phones, but the epic melodrama takes on Victorian proportions.
At the end of Season 3, Yellowstone Ranch looked like a war zone. Kayce (Luke Grimes), his family and the ranch hands had all been visited by men with machine guns, Beth's office had been decimated by a bomb, and John Dutton (Costner) had been gunned down on the side of the road. Season 4 picks up right where the last season left off, with homes and lives in rubble, with Beth (Kelly Reilly) walking through the streets like she in "Night of the Living Dead," and with John Dutton -- still by the side of the road -- struggling to stay alive.
Now there's just one plan for the Dutton family; find out who did this to them and kill them all.
But who hired the incompetent assassins that attacked the largest livestock ranch in Montana? It's a mystery. Chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Bermingham), head of the Broken Rock Indian Reservation and Casino, wants to take back the land that Dutton's family stole from his people in the 1800s, but he and Dutton have become reluctant neighbors now. They're more likely to work together than apart.
Could it be the one Dutton whose life was unscathed by the attack, Jamie (Wes Bentley), an attorney and aspiring politician? He wants to sell off a good chunk of the ranch to land developers, and no one is truly certain where his loyalties lie.
The most likely suspect is Market Equities, a conglomerate hellbent on grabbing as much land as they can get their hands on through whatever means necessary. Nothing is too low for these guys.
This season features car chases and stand offs, wild west shoot outs and wild animal attacks -- not to mention astounding horsemanship, barrel racing, bronco riding and awe inspiring landscape photography. And this 4-disc Blu-ray collection features all 10 episodes of the fourth season, plus behind-the-scenes glimpses into each episode, stories from the Bunkhouse and four never-before-seen featurettes. So saddle-up for Season 4, now available, because it's gonna be quite a ride.