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Taylor Sheridan’s wildly popular Yellowstone series made such an impact on critics and audiences when it launched in 2018, that by the time the show was finishing up in its fifth-and-final season in 2024, it was a meteoric event.
However, attempts to further draw from the deep well of Yellowstone’s success have largely fallen flat – with two prequel series and a more recent continuation in the form of police procedural Marshals failing to bring back the magic of the core series’ appeal.
Thankfully, Paramount’s latest effort, the Yellowstone spin-off Dutton Ranch, has largely managed to thread the needle and deliver something akin to the original series at its best, while also delivering something new for those who’ve followed the franchise through thick and thin. It’s a slow affair – sometimes agonisingly so, according to critics – that revels in wide shots of open country and detailing the everyday difficulties in starting again from scratch in a small town where nobody knows your name: even when your name is Dutton.
Here, we’ll break down what critics liked and didn’t like from the first half of the season, and see how well it compares to the rest of the Yellowstone franchise.
“Dutton Ranch may not have been the first Yellowstone spin-off to make it to air, but it’s by far the best one yet,” said Collider. If you’ve been looking for your next fix of the Sheridanverse, Dutton Ranch may be just the fresh start you’re after.
Family Comes First on Dutton Ranch
The core of Yellowstone has always been the Dutton family, and while we’re largely only following three returning characters from the broader series – Kelly Reilly’s Beth Dutton, Cole Hauser’s Rip Wheeler, and Finn Little’s Carter – they return with a fresh coat of paint.
Beth Dutton (played here by Kelly Reilly), in particular, seems to have made the transition to leading lady with ease, but has seemingly mellowed out along the way. The Wrap noted that while “she’s much more hands-on than she’s ever been before… her edge, the kind of off-the-rails explosiveness we’ve come to know from her character, is replaced with unexpected patience and steely confidence.”
“This really is Reilly’s show… and she rises to the challenge with ease…so watchable is Beth that it’s almost enough to make up for the fact that her co-lead barely registers at all,” said The Hollywood Reporter.
Rip remains as stoic as ever – for better or worse – and spends much of the season working around the titular ranch while Beth tackles the more interesting interpersonal struggles around town, leaving Hauser little material to work with. Rip’s never been known as a particularly deep character, and serves his role as the loyal and sincere anchor that keeps the ship from running aground well, but a bit more characterisation wouldn’t go astray.
The show’s new faces are largely handled well, however, with Ed Harris stepping in as veteran-turned-veterinarian Everett McKinney and Annette Bening playing the role of the series’ main antagonist: a Gucci-wearing rancher whose expansion plans are foiled by the Duttons’ land purchase. While Harris’ “quiet decency” delivers the series a welcome touch of gravitas, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Bening isn’t so convincing as the ruthless Beulah Jackson.
RogerEbert.com agreed, noting that while it takes a while to see Bening as a matriarch who “rules with an iron fist”, her performance is solid: “The quality of the writing and the acting is such that it takes only one or two scenes to become familiar with a wide range of characters – some world-weary but warmhearted, some with evil intentions oozing from their pores, others a bit more…complicated.”
Does ‘Dutton Ranch’ Live Up to the ‘Yellowstone’ Legacy?
While Marshals suffered for being too different from the core concepts of Yellowstone – taking the character of Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) out of the kind of slow-burn storytelling he got his start in and placing him firmly in a week-to-week procedural format – Dutton Ranch manages to straddle the line between staying true to Sheridan’s style while also delivering some new ideas.
This series falls back in-line with how Yellowstone functioned: a slow-burn story being told over the course of seasonal arcs, rather than singular episodes. And in this way, Dutton Ranch nails the execution while taking the franchise away from Montana and into the landscape of Texas.
Roger Ebert notes that the show “hits the ground running and sets up a half-dozen storylines with long-term potential, while creating a whole new branch of the Yellowstone tree… this is a satisfying mix of intrigue, action, and modern Western soap opera, set against the backdrop of the breathtaking yet unforgiving South Texas plains.”
The show’s slower pace has drawn some criticism, though, with AV Club noting that Dutton Ranch “makes you twiddle your thumbs and wonder what exactly we’re doing here.”
“Creator and showrunner Chad Feehan was fired just last month after reportedly clashing with Reilly and Hauser, among others, but his writing sensibilities don’t seem far off from Sheridan – the two share a general disinterest in slamming on the gas pedal when it comes to plot one can’t help wishing the show would get to the point a bit faster.”
Whether that slower pace will be welcomed by fans looking for something familiar, or whether it’s enough to cause viewers to bounce off, remains to be seen.
What’s That About the ‘Dutton Ranch’ Showrunner Leaving?
While Sheridan reportedly had little to do with Marshals, he has had more of a firm hand here: so much so that, as mentioned earlier, creator and showrunner Chad Feehan “left” the production before the series had even aired due to behind-the-scenes tension.
According to Puck, Feehan clashed with the series’ twin stars – Reilly and Hauser – as well as “others” involved in the franchise’s production, and exited Dutton Ranch ahead of the first episode’s airing.
This leaves the series in a perplexing place: the showrunner has left, seemingly by Sheridan’s hand, yet the man behind the whole Yellowstone saga is in the process of slowly removing himself from Paramount altogether, thanks to a new deal with NBC Universal set to kick off in 2028.
While others have tried to pick up his other spin-offs, they’ve more often than not ended in failure – even beyond Feehan, Sheridan also reportedly fired Tulsa King showrunner Terence Winter in 2023, with Dave Erikson having taken over the most recent season, and a further spin-off called Frisco King has hit a creative wall after Erikson was unable to take it on, leading Sheridan to pick up the slack himself.
That puts Dutton Ranch in an odd position – it’s simultaneously the most faithful continuation of the Yellowstone formula, and by far the best received, but caused Sheridan to push out its showrunner. If a second season of Dutton Ranch is greenlit, Paramount will need to go back to the drawing board to figure out who can keep the show alive when Sheridan inevitably has to take his hands off the steering wheel – something that has been shown to result in a change in tone that largely leaves fans frustrated.
Should You Watch Dutton Ranch?
If you’ve been yearning for a continuation of the Dutton family saga, but were left cold by Marshals’ short-form storytelling or The Madison’s lack of nuance, Dutton Ranch should be right up your alley. It sticks to the same beats that has made Yellowstone a cultural mainstay to this day, while focusing on some of the strongest characters Sheridan has created.
If you’re a new viewer seeking to jump in on the Sheridanverse without dumping too much time into multiple shows, Dutton Ranch works well as an entry point – though you’ll certainly miss important character beats and references to the influential five-season run Yellowstone enjoyed.
And, finally, if you’re someone who was already pretty bored with what Yellowstone had on offer by the end of the series, you’re likely not going to get too much new here – beyond a new locale and some fresh faces, Dutton Ranch feels like more of what came before – for better or worse.
Dutton Ranch Key Details
- Title: Dutton Ranch (Originally announced as The Dutton Ranch)
- Franchise Position: The fifth television series in the Yellowstone universe (serving as a direct sequel/spin-off to the flagship show).
- Premiere Date: Friday, May 15, 2026
- Release Schedule: Debuted with a special two-episode premiere, followed by a weekly rollout every Friday.
- Platform/Network: Streaming on Paramount+ (US episodes also broadcast concurrently on the Paramount Network at 8 PM ET/PT).
- Episode Count: 9 episodes (Season 1 finale scheduled for July 3, 2026).
- Setting: Relocates the franchise anchor from the mountains of Montana to a 7,000-acre ranch in South Texas.
- Creator / First Season Showrunner: Chad Feehan (Note: Exited the production just weeks before the premiere due to creative clashes).
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