‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 12 Recap: “Counting Coup”

Moves are being made in the hours after Sarah Atwood was murdered by private sector corporate assassins. Rory Cochrane, the always fantastic character actor, is getting his best chunk of Yellowstone screen time as Detective Dillard, who would probably just laugh at Jamie Dutton’s outrageous denials of his obvious impropriety and completely toothless threats if he wasn’t also Montana’s attorney general. As it is, Dillard simply declares Jamie a suspect in the Atwood killing and prepares a search warrant for his premises. But while a frantic, freaking out Jamie desperately shreds incriminating paperwork, we have to talk about the bulk of Yellowstone episode 12, and its considerable emotional breadth. As Taylor Sheridan gallops his western epic to its end, he continues to kill off characters, and the latest one is a real heartbreaker. Jamie was seduced and manipulated by a maneater named Sarah Atwood. But it’s a horse known as “Maneater” who mauls Colby Mayfield (Denim Richards) when the easygoing Yellowstone cowboy defends a cornered Carter in the stables.  

Colby wasn’t the most vocal guy in the bunkhouse, but his romance with Teeter was a quiet series highlight. Which just makes it so much more terribly sad that this episode begins with them exchanging “I love you”’s over the phone. “He was a cowboy; suffering’s part of the job,” Teeter says through tears as the Texas crew heads back to Montana. “I just wish he could’ve suffered a little longer so I could say goodbye.” Yep, the Texas operation has concluded, because Rip Wheeler’s put the word out that most of the Yellowstone’s cattle and show horses are now up for sale. He’s got guys getting killed on the job, and he’s still dealing with the dark energy of John Dutton’s demise hovering like smoke over the ranch. But Rip’s also trying to save the nut of their business. “Uncle Sam wants his pound of flesh,” the ranch boss tells Lloyd. “And we don’t wanna give it to him in land.”

Sheridan also makes an appearance in this episode, in his capacity as Texas horse trainer Travis Wheatley, who pivots from busting Jimmy Hurdstrom’s balls for improperly tacking a horse to being the one who’s gotta break it to him that John Dutton died. “How?” is a question that gets asked. But once it happens, does it even matter? “Best thing you can do is outrun it,” Travis says as Jimmy gets emotional. As tragedies rapidly bring change to the Yellowstone universe, the series seems to be setting up the characters who will survive its final episodes to take stock of what else the world might have in store for them. 

You’ve got Colby dying, and Rip telling Beth that one day cowboying will probably kill him, too. You’ve got Carter shooting the maneater horse dead after it attacks. And you’ve got Kayce ruminating on death with his son Tate as they walk the Dutton family graveyard. As it ends, dying is Yellowstone’s overarching theme. But with the Atwood assassination, it’s surviving and outlasting for the ones he loves that’s on Kayce’s mind. “I can see it now,” he tells Mo Brings Plenty, in reference to his destiny, what he now knows he must do. His motivation will not be to protect the ranch. It will be to protect his family. And Mo accompanies him on a mission to Texas, where they target the guy whose company targeted John Dutton.

Seeing Kayce point a pistol at the little soccer-playing daughter of Grant Horton (Matt Gerald) is extremely off-putting. But when he ambushes the former CIA operator and current corporate wet work guy in his car, it’s to make the strong point that any blowback on Kayce’s family ends with the Atwood murder. “I’ve got 12 years in the Teams,” Kayce tells Horton from the backseat. “You think I don’t have friends?” With the help of his old SEAL buddy Cade, Kayce’s got a detailed file on Horton. And when he jacks him with the butt of his 9mm, it is to emphasize that he can get to him anywhere. “Where I come from, we call that counting coup. It means I took a piece of your soul. And I aim to keep it.”

Beth wasn’t exactly happy to learn about Kayce’s operation from Monica. Once the news about Atwood broke, and Kayce told her about Dillard’s sweating of Jamie, she was immediately worried that Jamie would sing like a canary in custody, and burn every one of her father’s and the Duttons’ secrets. (What dwells in the “Train Station” alone would be the end of them.) Now that Kayce has followed Plains Indian tradition and counted coup on Grant Horton, will Beth follow up with her own heavy-duty intimidation of Jamie? God knows she’s a master of it. When lies are ninety percent the truth, and she’s the best liar in the business, she knows she will construct whatever barriers she has to, in order that Jamie potentially becoming a stool pigeon to the law doesn’t blow back on what generations of Duttons built. 

Now, if anyone can do that without incurring more death, it’s Beth. But before Yellowstone is all said and done, there is no possible way we don’t see more destruction. And there are only two episodes left for all of that to happen.  

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.