In the season premiere of The Dutton Ranch, we see Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) forced to relocate after their Montana ranch Yellowstone burns down. In this latest spinoff from Taylor Sheridan’s universe, Montana fades into the distant lands of Rio Paloma, Texas – yet troubles follow. Sheridan has a knack for creating a seemingly endless universe of gritty American dramas, and in this series, Beth and Rip quickly make friends and equally quickly make enemies – namely Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening), the matriarch and owner of the rival 10 Petal Ranch.
As the series moves across the country, the show’s landscape transforms with it. Dutton Ranch production designer Yvonne Boudreaux describes herself as “very Southern,” having been born in Louisiana and spent the last 22 years in Texas, married to a seventh-generation Texan. “Authenticity is everything,” she says of the locations chosen for the show. Before working on this series, she worked on Yellowstone and is determined to transfer the aesthetic from the other show while giving it a bit of a Texas makeover. “Beth and Rip’s color palette is sunrise,” she explains, “We took from the land, the colors, the vegetation, the agaves, those greens and the dust and dirt. It’s sandier.”
Like any good Sheridan show, gratuitous violence and clichéd wisdom are dispensed freely, the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine – in this case, the ranch misfortune – go down. And there’s something almost Shakespearean in the innocent, young love between Carter (Finn Little) and Oreana (Natalie Alyn Lind) from feuding families. The season finale, which wraps up just in time for America’s 250th anniversary, seems poised to have something to say about the political moment we’re in. Entering her office, Mariano (Raoul Max Trujillo) says to Beulah, “You built a kingdom in a country that hates kings.” This, of course, raises the question: does it?
The finale may leave viewers feeling uneasy, but the show has already been renewed for a second season. We can expect to see more of the vast acres of high grass and cattle, limestone walls, and the occasional silhouette of Dallas in the next season. To learn more about the real-life locations used in the series, Boudreaux guides us through the locales of the Lone Star, used to tell this South Texas story.