Dutton Ranch Reviews Are In — And It’s Already Beating Yellowstone

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Beth Dutton is back. And this time, she’s in Texas.

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Dutton Ranch, the newest spinoff from Taylor Sheridan’s ever-expanding Yellowstone universe, premiered Friday on Paramount+ — and the early word from critics is that Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser have delivered something worth getting excited about. The show currently holds an 86% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, which puts it ahead of the original Yellowstone‘s 83% average across five seasons. Not bad for a spinoff that started from scratch — literally.

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The series picks up in the aftermath of a wildfire that tears through Dutton land in Montana. Beth and her husband Rip (Hauser) watch their lives burn in the rearview mirror of a pickup truck, then do what Duttons do: they rebuild. Within a month, they’ve relocated to Rio Paloma, South Texas, where the family name carries zero weight and Beth has to practically beg a slaughterhouse to process her few head of cattle. It’s a humbling reset for one of TV’s most ferocious characters — and apparently, it works.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=19I5a1tRt98%3Ffeature%3Doembed
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What Critics Are Saying

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Richard Roeper at RogerEbert.com wrote that the show “sets up a half-dozen storylines with long-term potential,” which is exactly what you want to hear from a franchise that lives and dies by its slow burns. Angie Han at The Hollywood Reporter called it “a tangle of storylines that land ever slightly more often than not.” Michel Ghanem at TheWrap described it as “more polished” with a “promising cast,” while Rebecca Nicholson at the Financial Times simply called it “full-bodied, soapy TV fun.” J. Kelly Nestruck at The Globe and Mail noted “some swell performances.”

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Not everyone is fully on board. John Anderson at the Wall Street Journal landed the sharpest jab, writing that “there’s no one to like on Dutton Ranch” — though fans of the franchise might consider that a feature, not a bug. Beth Dutton has never exactly been easy to love. That’s the whole point.

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When the first five reviews dropped, the show briefly held a perfect 100% score. It’s since settled at 86%, which still puts it in genuinely strong company within the Yellowstone universe. For context: 1923, the Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren prequel, leads the franchise at 94%, while 1883 — the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill origin story — sits at 89%. Dutton Ranch is comfortably ahead of the flagship series that started it all.

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A New World, a Familiar Obsession

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What makes the spinoff feel like a true continuation rather than a cash grab is how faithfully it carries the franchise’s central preoccupation: land. Not just owning it, but being owned by it. “The sky doesn’t stop here,” Beth marvels at one point, staring out over Texas hill country — and it reads less like a line of dialogue than a thesis statement for the entire Sheridan enterprise.

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The show reunites Reilly and Hauser with Yellowstone fan favorite Finn Little, while adding a formidable new supporting cast. Annette Bening plays Beulah Jackson, the powerful owner of a rival Texas ranch who makes it clear the Duttons aren’t welcome. Ed Harris brings his particular brand of weathered gravitas to Everett McKinney, described as a kindhearted veteran who’s supposedly put his violent past behind him. Australian actor Jai Courtney and country singer Morgan Wade round out the ensemble.

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The official synopsis sets the stakes plainly: “Rip Wheeler and Beth Dutton gamble everything on a new life in South Texas, but the promise of building a future far from the ghosts of Yellowstone quickly collides with brutal new realities and a rival ranch that will stop at nothing to protect its empire.”

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Sheridan even works in a Teddy Roosevelt reference — because of course he does. The Dutton universe has always been less about cowboys and more about a very specific theory of America: that the land is finite, that someone is always trying to take yours, and that the only answer is to hold on harder. Shady criminals, secret pasts, vigilante justice — it’s all here. But so is that sweeping, almost pornographic sense of space that made the original series appointment television for millions of people who’d never set foot on a ranch in their lives.

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The first two episodes of Dutton Ranch are streaming now on Paramount+, with the series also airing on the Paramount Network at 8 p.m. ET/PT. New episodes drop weekly through July 3rd.

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Beth Dutton in Texas. Critics are in. The land is calling.

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“category”: “TV