I’m a ‘Yellowstone’ Fan, and I Always Skip These 8 Mid Episodes on Rewatch

Yellowstone has a lot of episodes — 53 to be precise — and they’re all about an hour or so long. Rewatching takes some time, but it’s easier once you’ve seen the show before. And though most of the episodes are somehow innovative and introduce new problems for the Duttons (and even between them), some are just lacking and feel like placeholders. This is normal in a long-running series, which is why it’s also OK to skip, fast-forward, or watch some episodes at a faster speed.

Out of those 53, I only actually skip around eight while rewatching. To me, they feel like emotionally exhausting loops if they’re not obvious spin-off promos, and they simply don’t move the main story forward. These are the episodes of Yellowstone I always skip on a rewatch.

8. “Coming Home”

Season 1, Episode 5

The show still finds its rhythm in the first season, but Episode 5 feels skippable, mostly because it just treads water and looks for ways to make the characters closer to us while still telling us little about them overall. Kayce (Luke Grimes) wishes to leave Montana with his family, so his father, John (Kevin Costner), cozies up to Kayce’s son to prevent them from leaving. Beth (Kelly Reilly) is brooding and getting drunk, Jamie (Wes Bentley) is maneuvering the law, and so on. Vulture even called the episode “dismal” in their review, and truly, the episode is structurally scattered and light on plot.

The most interesting part about this episode, though it’s not deeply driven, is Rip (Cole Hauser) waiting outside a prison to recruit a new cowboy for the ranch. The cowboy just accepts, and we don’t really get much more than that. Was this insight into how Yellowstone hires workers? While this interesting part isn’t reiterated later, all the events with the Duttons are, so soap beats dominate the episode. If you skip it, you won’t really miss much at all.

7. “All for Nothing”

Season 3, Episode 6

Season 3, Episode 6, “All for Nothing,” is another one full of emotional wheel spinning. It has a pretty frustrating pace, and I remember the frustration of watching the show once a week and experiencing this mid-season. The complex psychology of the story was somehow just glossed over, covered in a frustrating and flattening manner. This is quite surprising, considering the root of the drama between Beth and Jamie finally gets revealed, and it’s one of the show’s most controversial moments.

If you skip this episode, know that Beth tells John about Jamie’s role in her teen abortion/hysterectomy, causing family tensions to spike. That’s it. There’s a complex story about Native American women being murdered, prompting Kayce’s wife, Monica (Kelsey Asbille), to engage in the search for justice. However, instead of giving this story some more nuance and life, it just feels like giving Monica something to do to not be a wasted character.

6. “No Kindness for the Coward”

Season 4, Episode 8

Season 4, Episode 8, “No Kindness for the Coward,” contains a spin-off promo for 1883, and leans heavily into the Jimmy (Jefferson White) and 6666 material; it’s screaming “here’s what I have going” rather than giving us palpable Dutton progress. The episode was generally received with mixed emotions — some people loved it, while others (like me) found it reaching for something other than the narrative it was meant to develop. A lot of it is filler, though it’s nice to see Jamie finally step up his game a bit, even if the setup is minor.

The 1883 promo dump takes up about ten minutes of the episode’s beginning; that’s OK, but then we transition to Jimmy and the 6666 storyline. Then we get some inclination that John getting backed for governor over Jamie really hurts Jamie, but no one cares about Jamie, especially not Taylor Sheridan, so here’s Monica being pregnant. This bait-and-switch is unimpressive, so I just watch a recap and move on.

5. “No Such Thing as Fair”

Season 4, Episode 9

If I want to like Beth, I just skip Season 4, Episode 9, “No Such Thing as Fair.” She frames Summer Higgins (Piper Perabo), an activist and John’s new girlfriend, to be charged for the assault of her arresting officer. OK, Summer is ultimately unimportant, but can Beth just mind her own business for once? This episode also continues with the Jimmy and the 6666 storyline, with the special appearance of Taylor Sheridan as the 6666’s owner, Travis Wheatley. The display was labeled as “brand expansion” for Sheridan, as he’s used to hogging important episode airtime to show us his horse-riding skills.

In some ways, if you observe this episode as a ranch life display, it’s actually kind of nice. You get to see the lifestyle at the Texan 6666 ranch and enjoy the real cowboy stuff; however, it’s not really Yellowstone, which is all about the Duttons. Jamie still broods over his gubernatorial run, his biological dad comes into the picture a little more, and John and Beth have a fight. Very common stuff that doesn’t go anywhere, all while taking up airtime for the season’s penultimate episode. “No Such Thing as Fair” is a pretty great title for the episode, too, since it’s not fair that we have to skip it to get to the bottom of a storyline.

4. “Watch ‘Em Ride Away”

Season 5, Episode 5

In Season 5, Episode 5, “Watch ‘Em Ride Away,” Beth continues to have a problem with Summer, which escalates into a cartoonish fight. This ridiculous episode sees the two women fistfighting on the lawn behind the Yellowstone ranch home, which is refereed by Beth’s husband, Rip, who just suggests the two trade punches. Beth and Summer here reconcile after beating each other up, and suddenly everything’s fine. In the final season, where things are meant to get wrapped up and move forward, we get the beef with Summer repeated. If this is the best way to establish a relationship on the ranch with the Duttons, fine, but at this point it gets a little repetitive.

I have to admit — the episode, for all its flaws, is refreshing because John returns to his roots. However, him returning to his roots, going camping with his cowboy friends, and tending to the needs of the ranch right after becoming governor of Montana is like Aragorn becoming a king and immediately taking two weeks off to frolic with the Hobbits. This episode personally felt like John just wanted to be the governor, so Jamie wouldn’t be, displaying immense father-of-the-century material. I don’t need to see this episode again because everyone is frustrating in it, despite its momentary return to ranching roots.

3. “Desire Is All You Need”

Season 5, Episode 9

Season 5, Episode 9, “Desire Is All You Need,” is the first episode after a nearly two-year-long hiatus. With Season 5, Episode 8, “A Knife and No Coin,” the show ended with a sort of half-season finale, so we were all super excited to see what the final part of the show holds. With rumors of Costner departing production, everything just felt a little bit uncomfortable, and we knew he was going to be written out one way or another. However, his being written out of the show off-screen and in an alleged death by suicide was like a slap to the face. Some people didn’t mind this, but I did, despite my disdain for John as a character.

The great John Dutton was declared dead at a very precise time, 3:53, and his death is only processed through flashbacks and character grieving. Obviously, the first watch of this episode is necessary because the story takes a massive leap. Upon rewatching, however, you notice the episode is very skippable and contains very little rewatch value. The season finale with Dutton’s funeral was much more powerful and worth carving out an hour for; this episode just feels like a sting, and there’s little pleasure in it, really.

2. “The Apocalypse of Change”

Season 5, Episode 10

Season 5 is the lowest-rated Yellowstone season overall, in particular the second part, after John dies. Continuing after the grief exposure is another pacing drift and a timeline confusion. The fallout of John’s death idles and more 6666 propaganda comes into play. It’s like we don’t know what to do without John, but dealing with John was hard enough. Without him, we just get the strenuous Beth/Jamie conflict, which also just doesn’t get anything new added to it but goes in circles instead.

Also, the weird timeline confusion at the beginning feels strange, since we’re seeing Beth six weeks before John’s death, completing her community service and meeting up with Rip; the timeline catches up with the now, and the episode ends with those six weeks before John’s death again. The thread gets lost, and putting these moments together may have been another spin-off promo for Beth and Rip, though we know that that appearance of 6666 vodka was a nod to Sheridan himself. It’s giving “when the plane is going down, put a mask on yourself first.”

1. “Give the World Away”

Season 5, Episode 13

I really did see it all after Season 5, Episode 13, “Give the World Away,” which, again, sees the appearance of Travis Wheatley and the 6666. The story literally hits the brakes in yet another penultimate episode so that Sheridan can take up airtime. On rewatch, almost none of this is necessary context for the finale beyond being background mood, though I do understand the need to indulge in more ranching depictions. Yet, this is the second to last episode of the entire show, and the fate of the Yellowstone ranch is hanging by a thread. In that case, I guess we should go to a Texas-based ranch to watch Sheridan play poker with Bella Hadid sitting by his side.

If you also choose to skip this episode, you’ll miss out on some extended Travis Wheatley scenes, the horse program, and Miss Hadid. Her inclusion in the show is probably due to her partner being a cowboy himself, which isn’t at all terrible; it just feels like we’re stalling the story a bit. The second part of Season 5 of Yellowstone feels like Sheridan contractually had to have a set number of episodes but was over it within the first one; adding some personal touches and filler to it was just his way of saying this was his brainchild and always will be.