Yellowstone season 2, episode 3 recap: The Reek of Desperation
Politics makes strange bedfellows as Chief Rainwater (R-Gil Birmingham) makes Jamie (L-Wes Bentley) an offer to help his campaign for attorney general in Paramount Network’s hit drama series “Yellowstone.” Episode 3 – “The Reek of Desperation” premieres on Wednesday, July 10 at 10 p.m., ET/PT on Paramount Network.
That night, Jamie and Christina are making dinner and discussing the situation with Rainwater. Jamie’s hesitant. It’s one thing to defy his father and run for office, it’s another to run against him with the financial-backing of his enemy. Jamie doesn’t know what to do. but Christina informs him that he needs money. Besides when he’s in office, he’ll have to compromise about all sorts of things.
Jamie goes for a walk and finds himself at Beth’s office. He asks her to forget about how they feel about each other and remember they’re family. Beth tells him they owe him nothing. He asks for her guidance anyway. She wants to know what he did to mess with their father now. Jamie objects that he didn’t, he just ran for the office he was told to run for. And Beth chose someone to run against him.
Beth is smug, but Jamie tells her he has a donor who’ll fund his campaign. She jokes that it’s probably a Russian. He tells her it’s Rainwater. Beth gets down to brass tacks: Jamie’s not a politician. The best politicians are narcissists, Jamie’s not. Jamie doesn’t really know who he is and he’s looking for the world to tell him. They can smell his desperation and will tear him into pieces if he keeps running — and their father with him. She instructs Jamie to think about everyone but himself and do what’s best for them.
The next morning, Christina wakes up to find Jamie asleep on the couch. He says he won’t take Rainwater’s money.
Christina tells him they’ll find the money somewhere else. Jamie says it’s not just the money, he doesn’t want to play dirty. Christina reminds him he’s played dirty his whole career, but Jamie thinks the current situation is different. Before he just reacted to situations, he didn’t initiate anything like he’d have to do with the campaign.
If he wants to beat John’s candidate he has to attack John because there’s nothing about the candidate to attack. Christina agrees. But Jamie won’t do it. Christina’s shocked. It’s the first hint of opposition and he’s quitting? She tells him to get out of her apartment.
Jamie takes it as an ultimatum: if he doesn’t run he can’t have her. Christina corrects him. If he doesn’t run it’s not like he’ll open a law office in town, he’ll go back home to his terrible family. And she’s not willing to be a part of that.
That night at dinner, John tries to bond with Kayce and Beth. They’re confused and aren’t forthcoming about their feelings. Then Jamie walks in. He informs them that he withdrew from the race. John welcomes him back and he sits down to dinner.
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Beth starts to laugh hysterically and John walks out. As the episode comes to an end, John goes outside to watch Rip set up sprinklers. He’s thinking about his wife. He still misses her.
Well, all the Duttons are back at Yellowstone. We’ll see how that goes next week.
For a reminder of what happened in the previous episode of Yellowstone, take a look at our recap. And stream the third episode of season two on Paramount Network.