It’s been about a year and a half since we bid farewell to Yellowstone. John Dutton’s murder was avenged with Jamie's death, and Kayce’s doing his thing over on CBS’s Marshals. As for Beth and her husband Rip, we’re about to see what hijinks they’re up to in Texas when Dutton Ranch hits the 2026 TV schedule. Reviews are in for the latest Yellowstone spinoff, so after viewing the first four episodes, do critics think this feels like a continuation of the hit Taylor Sheridan epic, or does it stand on its own?
Dutton Ranch is centered around Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) who relocate to Texas with their adopted son Carter. According to CinemaBlend’s own Riley Utley, the series perfectly blends what we loved about Yellowstone with new challenges for Beth and Rip. She says:
Dutton Ranch maintains everything I love about Yellowstone, while also flipping everything on its head. By putting Beth and Rip in a totally new place of power, Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser have the opportunity to play their characters in ways we’ve never seen before. However, they also make sure to bring elements that we know and love from the flagship series. That, mixed with the new characters played by Annette Bening, Ed Harris and more, makes Dutton Ranch a show that is sure to please fans of Yellowstone while also welcoming them into a totally new era.
Nick Schager of the Daily Beast agrees Dutton Ranch is a win, following its predecessor’s formula exactly, except that it’s smart enough to side-step the “culture-war claptrap.” The critic says the result is the best and most satisfying Yellowstone entry since Yellowstone itself. He writes:
Given the tremendous success of Marshalls [sic] and The Madison (a stand-alone Sheridan affair that began life as a Yellowstone-adjacent saga), it’s hardly shocking that the series stays the course. What is unexpected, though, is how well that works. No-frills, muscular, and just the right amount of cheesy, Sheridan’s latest modern-day Western confirms that, when he quits with the red-state vs. blue-state preaching and sticks to hard-bitten basics, he still knows how to spin a Yellowstone yarn.
Lauren Samer of Page Six says Yellowstone fans will be happy to get more of the same with Dutton Ranch. The writing is clumsy, the plotlines are full of melodrama, but that’s probably just fine for an audience who wants to see cowboys kick ass and take names, Samer says, writing:
It’s not the most enticing show – it’s a crime-soaked cowboy soap opera with clunky writing – but that’s what Yellowstone was too, so it is a great sequel series. It delivers exactly what’s advertised: more of brassy Beth Dutton and her husband, Rip Wheeler, supporting each other, issuing threats and committing felonies in between mundane chores on their ranch.
Ben Travers of IndieWire gives the new series a C in his Dutton Ranch review, saying that Beth and Rip still have the ferocity we loved in the original series, but Annette Bening and Ed Harris — the latest big Hollywood names to join the Yellowstone universe — may steal the show. In Travers’ words:
Despite an uneven structure, Dutton Ranch largely knows how to harness its inherent advantages. Bening gets to sink her teeth into a whiskey-swirling Southern villainess (while filling John Dutton’s shoes as the powerful-yet-compromised old-school boss), and Harris puts on the charm as the generous grandpa-type. Hauser and Reilly are doing their respective things, and even though the Texas landscape is a drier brown than Montana’s majestic greenery, the vicarious dirt-under-your-fingers experience endures.
Ben Rosenstock of AV Club also gives Dutton Ranch a C, saying it’s the same Duttons, different ranch. Beth’s character is admittedly tempered down a bit, Rosenstock says, but nobody was really asking for more Carter. The critic concludes:
When it comes down to it, what are we really getting from following this family at this stage in their lives? The answer is more of the characters we ostensibly love in a world we ostensibly love, and to some viewers, that will be enough to justify tuning in. For all the ways Dutton Ranch differs from the show that preceded it, it’s ultimately just more Yellowstone, warts and all.
It sounds like there have been some changes made to propel Beth and Rip’s spinoff, but a lot of Dutton Ranch is very similar to Yellowstone, and that’s probably what a lot of fans are hoping for. With 14 critics weighing in so far, Rotten Tomatoes scores the spinoff sequel at 86% ahead of its premiere.
The first two episodes will be available to stream with a Paramount+ subscription at 3:01 a.m. ET Friday, May 15, while they will air back-to-back at 8 p.m. ET the same day on Paramount Network.
