John is sitting in a room looking nervous when Beth enters, tears of joy streaming down her face. Joy ain't what John's feeling.

John gets a concession call from his competitor in the gubenatorial race. The guy wants John to think of all of Montana when making the big decisions.

John won the race with 53% of the vote. All of John's supported watch the other guy's concession speech. His east coast tactics were his downfall.

It's John's turn for a speech. The audience chants "four years starts now" as they wait. Jamie stays behind in the prep room while Lynelle and Beth walk with John. Suddenly, Jamie arrives, asking if he can introduce John as the governor and Lynelle as Montana's new senator.

Jamie cites the family being here longer than the state itself.

John wants to focus on what Montana will look like in 100 years, not a retreat or a toy. He speaks to the people, supporting the ranchers, not the wolves or the trees, them.

Beth and Jamie eye each other as the festivities continue, and Beth's gaze is a threat.

Caroline Warner throws glasses across the room, swearing about that family. But her cohort recognizes Jamie as an unhappy guy. Caroline wants to call in Sarah Atwood. She's done playing with these fuckin' hillbillies.

Back in the day, Beth wanders up on Rip putting a post in the ground. She's snarky and speaking down to him about his ambition to be top hand one day. She's leaving for college tomorrow and asks him on a date before she leaves.

Rip scrubs his hat before his date and gets teased a bit by the guys. Beth lets him play "man," tossing him the keys. They hit a bar. Rip hasn't been anywhere, and he sure hasn't had a martini. Beth uses her breasts as her ID, and the bartender says Rip's got his hands full. She says she could be a victim of men's leering gaze or she could be a beneficiary, and she chooses the latter.

Rip doesn't know how to behave with Beth and decides they should leave. Beth tells him to go. He slaps the keys on the counter and heads out the door. Outside, the Yellowstone hands arrive. They give him their truck and head inside.

When they return, Beth is with them. She's staking a claim in one of the hands, kissing him within distance of Rip, opening the backseat door and dragging the guy inside.

Beth wakes. A nightmare. Rip is surprised she's up early. Rip wonders when John will be back. Four years, maybe eight. She apologizes for what she did in the past. A blanket apology to cover the past. Everything before right now. She says she was fucking awful to him, but if it's any consolation, she was worse on herself.

He says her head is almost as big as her heart, but he's the only one who knows she has that big heart. Still, she continues. She has robbed them and it still robs them. She says they needed what it took. Rip disagrees, and he wants her to find someone new to fight so she doesn't sit around the house and beat the shit out of herself. He wants her goal today to be to find a way to let herself happy, find something that makes her happy. She promises.

There's a whole production going on out there as the Yellowstone prepares for a big party. Rip gives shoot-to-kill orders for many species as they're calving today.

It's John's first staff meeting, and he's uncomfortable as hell. Lynelle reminds him that he's got no friends in this building and has to bring his own. She says she could have controlled Jamie, but it will be harder with John. John says he's easily bribed, and she says she'll be spending a lot of time in a coat closet.

She wants him to think of the power he has not running for a second term. He can do whatever he wants without that barrier. But he's got a friend in Washington, and he'll need one.

Milk River Valley, US/Canadian border/

Men in fatigues are stealing horses when a helicopter arrives. They work to move the herd while Kayce and his possee try to stop them. it's going to take a lot of work.

They meet at the river with people in front of and behind them. They say to get across the river so they don't go to jail in America. Kayce wrangles them back to the US, but one guy breaks for it, so Kayce lassos him. The Canadian dude yells that he was over on their side and they have no authority on their side. The Canadians do the right thing, ushering the herd back across the river.

Kayce laughs at the Canadians and their laws, leading him to call them sheep.

John calls his swearing in ceremony as shitshow. Beth arrives. They're ready.

John takes Beth's hand as he walks to the podium. Jamie and Lynelle bring up the rear.

It's not an easy ceremony. John falters early. With a kind word from Beth, he gets it done. John's the 26th Governor of the great state of Montana. He says this was never his plan. He wanted to protect the land for his family, and since they voted for him, they feel the same. His first order is to cancel the project. His second is to double property taxes for nonresidents.

He'll also add a 6% state sales tax for all goods sold to non-residents and vehicle fees for nonresidents. The message is they are not a plaything of the rich, a place to escape the garbage of their own states. This is their home, and if the out-of-towners want to move here, maybe they'll start treating it like their home, too.

Beth won't make Jamie a whiskey, so John gives him his drink and asks Beth to make him another. Jamie wants John to reconsider scrapping the airport plans. Jamie and Beth argue. John says he's made a mess of the family and the sacrifice it took them to get their home. Jamie is going to sacrifice his amibition weak heart and do what John tells him for the next four years.

They will measure every decision against what is best for the ranch. And then John reminds the driver that this is all confidential. The driver says that if he had the Yellowstone, he'd so the same thing.

Rip arrives to a ruckus in the bunkhouse, believing them when they say Jake wants to wear a dress, when it really came from people shocked that Teeter had not one but multiple dresses.

They're in heaven when they discover it's an open bar.

John took over the ranch when he was 34 and hadn't spent a day away until this year. The Yellowstone hands and the Bar M group are taking turns lassoing each other. Beth strikes up a conversation with a girl about the guys. When Beth joins Rip, Ryan lassos the girl for a dance.

Rip is still worried about the future. If John Dutton was the only man who could even consider the job as their own savior, then thre's no hope. He compares John to Nero, saying he's gonna lose this place.

Kayce is still with the stolen horses. He checks in on a very pregnant Monica. She's got cramps, but she's three weeks early. He'll send an ambulance to meet her on the side of the road.

She's racing toward the road when the cramps get a lot worse, and she starts to swerve.

She's going a little fast and there is a truck coming in the other direction. He's dipping into his funyons bag or soemthing. She swerves to miss a buffalo and there's a huge crash.

It's daylight and John is in the barn. He's wearing black. Carter says hello, and John can't believe how long it's been. Carter says he misses their rides. John tells him to quit eatin' the fertilizer. Carter is a living reminder of how little time John has, and he warns Carter not to grow a beard of he's fired.

Jamie delivers the bad news. They've got to go to Billings. Tate is banged up, and Kayce is on the bed with Monica. She must have lost the baby because Tate said he had a brother. For an hour, anyway. His name was John.