“Yellowstone” Recap: Season 4 Episode 9

By Jennifer Pernicano

on Dec 28, 2021

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The end of Season 4 is fast approaching, so fans of Yellowstone only have one more week to see how this chapter of the show will end. Like every week, so much happened in Episode 9, so we will break it all down for you.

The episode begins with Beth extremely upset with Rip for “letting” her father go into the diner last episode to save all those people who were held at gunpoint for just the change in their wallets. Rip explains to her that he can’t tell John Dutton what to do. John Dutton will do what he wants and Rip can either be beside him, or watch him do it from afar. As we all know, he chose the former. Rip also says he went into that diner, too, and asked why she isn’t as worried about him.

She replies, ‘I never worry about you. I know nothing’s happening to you.”

Next, John goes for his morning ride, and asks Carter to join him so he can teach him how to ride a horse. Carter cusses a few too many times and John says they’re going to “ride the foul right out of [his] mouth.”

John and Carter sit in a field called Buffalo Valley, and John explains to him why it was named that and some of the background with his land. Carter doesn’t feel that what happened in the past was fair.

“Fait means one side got exactly what they wanted in a way the other side can’t complain about. There’s no such thing as fair,” John tells him.

When John returns to the lodge for his morning coffee, Beth is there and throws a coffee cup at him. She explains to him that she is upset that he ran into the diner to go after criminals he has no vendetta against, but won’t go after the person who almost killed him, or gave her the scars on her back. She shows her dad her back, who can’t even look at her. Beth still thinks it was Jamie who ordered the hit against them, but John finally tells her about Riggins, the man in prison who orchestrated everything. What they don’t know is that Jamie’s biological father, Garrett Randall is the one who hired him to do it.

Beth asks him what he is going to do about it and he basically says he isn’t going to do anything because the man is already in prison for life, if he isn’t dead already. He asks Beth if he should waste the rest of his life going after Riggins. “No Daddy, that’s what my life is for,” she responds before leaving the ranch in a rush.

John gets a call from Summer Higgins in jail, who tells him they want to put her away for life for assaulting a peace officer. He pays a visit to interim Sheriff Bill Ramsey, who will likely be permanent Sheriff moving forward, to see if there is anything he can do to help Summer off the hook. Instead, the two men have a mini-showdown where Ramsey tells him that Sheriff Haskell (RIP) was a “gambling addict and alcoholic who only served the highest bidder,” and that the rules will be enforced moving forward.

John meets with Summer and her public defender who says she can probably gets the charges down to serving 20-30 years instead of life. Summer freaks out, saying John would have been the last person she slept with for three decades. Summer tells him she never should have listened to his daughter. He had no clue that Beth told Summer to protest the airport and to “take one for the team.”

John promises Summer he will get her out of jail, and we later find out the judge owes him a favor.

Over at Jamie’s he is upset that John is being painted a hero after going into the diner last episode. Christina assures him this won’t hurt Jamie and that they need to introduce his biological father to the public. Finally, Jamie tells Christina that Garrett did 30 years in prison for murder. Christina asks who he killed, to see if she could spin it. “My mother,” he tells her.

Christina tells Jamie that he needs to distance himself from Garrett immediately and Garrett agrees, although Jamie doesn’t want to. Later, Garrett is sitting at a diner when John walks in.

Like we mentioned earlier, John has no clue that it was actually Garrett who ordered the attacks on him, so this makes this interaction for viewers even more tense. John gives him his Salisbury steak (the best in Montana) and tells Garrett, “You never know when your last meal will be.”

Over at Kayce’s, he is trying to figure out why he keeps seeing wolves and Thomas Rainwater and Mo are going to help him. They take him to a remote area of the reservation, strip him down, and he will be there for four days and four nights with no food or water. Kayce says, “I’ll die,” and Mo explains, “You must stand on a cliff of death to understand your purpose in life.”

Down in Texas, Jimmy and Emily are dreading not seeing each other for a week while Jimmy is helping the Four Sixes with transporting horses for a rodeo. He more or less tells Emily he loves her.

At the rodeo, he learns that he is going back to the Yellowstone soon and he doesn’t look too happy about it.

Back at the Four Sixes, he tells Emily the news and she tearfully says goodbye to him. He says he doesn’t want to go, but he owes John Dutton big time, which she understands.

Later, he goes back to her place to talk and really say goodbye, and he asks her to wait for him and she says she will.

Back at the Yellowstone, Beth, Rip, and Carter are sitting down for dinner at their smaller table and John comes in and tells Beth they are eating in the formal dining room. Rip understands a fight is about to go down so he and Carter go to the bunkhouse to see what they are eating for supper. Beth gets ready to go head-to-head with her father and wants him to treat her like one of his sons.

He makes her sit down and tell her how angry he is that she used Summer as a pawn. She defends herself by saying, she does what she needs to do to save the ranch, and if people go down for it, so be it. He tells her, “We don’t kill sheep. We kill wolves.”

“You’ve really disappointed me, honey,” he said. “And I never thought I’d say that about you.”

She didn’t either and it hits her like she had just been shot. He also says that maybe she shouldn’t fight his fights anymore and should move out. “But this is my home,” she pleas.

“Might be time to find another one,” he replied.

Heartbroken, Beth goes to the bunk house to find Rip and Carter enjoying themselves as Carter is winning just about every game of poker against the ranch hands.

Walker sees her and asks why she is so sad. She explains that she just lost everything. She asks him to play her a sad song so she could cry to it. Rip sees them and closes the bunk house door so Beth could cry in peace (we think!).

With just one episode left, we still have so many questions about what will happen. If it’s anything like the Season 3 finale, we will have even more next week! Watch a “Behind The Story’ video about Episode 9 below.

 

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About the Author

Jennifer Pernicano

Hi! I'm Jen, a Southern California-based country music fan. One of my favorite things to do is go to a country concert and experience the art of storytelling in person. There truly is nothing else like it!

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