Dutton Ranch star Marc Menchaca previously warned that the 10-Petal ranch was somehow involved in the deaths of Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip’s (Cole Hauser) cattle. The penultimate episode of Dutton Ranch Season 1 revealed their exact involvement, and it’s a doozy. One cowboy from Beulah Jackson’s (Annette Bening) bunkhouse was brave enough to be the whistleblower. Here, we break down the twist with the actor who plays him, rodeo star Sterlin English.
Warning: Dutton Ranch spoilers ahead!
Episode 8, streaming on Paramount+ as of Friday, June 26 (catch it tonight at 8/7c on Paramount Network), showed the aftermath of Beulah’s medical emergency at the end of Episode 7. She had a heart attack, but she survived. In the hospital, she forced her sons, Rob-Will (Jai Courtney) and Joaquin (Juan Pablo Raba), to make amends after she named Rob-Will the heir to the family ranch over Joaquin. The brothers played nice in front of her, but later scenes showed that Joaquin was putting on a front and scheming behind the scenes.
Now, he’s recruiting his father, Mariano, to help. The looming figure hasn’t been seen in the present day all season, but he seems poised to arrive in the Dutton Ranch Season 1 finale. He’s played by Raoul Max Trujillo, according to Dutton Ranch end credits in Episode 3.
A 10-Petal cowboy, Austin (English), reached his limit with the corruption at 10-Petal in Episode 8 and refused to keep the ranch’s secrets any longer after the murders of his good friend, Wes (Nakoa DeCoite), and Chet (Hart Denton), although English says Austin and Chet never got along even before their tension in Season 1. After gauging trust with Zac (Marc Menchaca), Austin revealed to Beth and Rip that Beulah runs a corrupt operation for the 10-Petal that involves sourcing cattle in Mexico, confirming that the 10-Petal ranch is responsible for the food-and-mouth disease outbreak that led to the execution of Beth and Rip’s entire herd of cattle. They’ve been working with the people who destroyed their future.
English tells TV Insider that the 10-Petal cowboys were slowly but surely putting the pieces together about the ranch’s corrupt practices.
“I feel like Austin was just figuring it out. I feel like the rest of the guys were just figuring it out, too,” he says. “As the season goes on, I feel like the higher ups — the foremen and a couple of the higher ups — know what’s going on, of course they do. But all the other cowboys, they’re just kind of cowboying at the start of the season, and then Austin just starts seeing a lot of stuff happening and putting pieces together and kind of gets a big picture of what’s actually going on.”
English and his costars didn’t learn about the twist until they got the script for Episode 8, but the cast suspected a big twist coming.
“We all had our theories,” he says. “That was kind of the running joke because we’d try to see what was going to happen. We’d try to call it before it happened, and then we’d get the scripts.” He says their theories were pretty close to accurate: “Everybody just knew something was going on [with 10-Petal]. We didn’t really know how it was going to cross over, what it was going to be, but the way they’re doing it is amazing. It truthfully is. It’s cool to see. And I’m excited for everybody to watch [Episodes] 8 and 9.”
English believes that Beulah, Rob-Will, Joaquin, and Chet (before his death) were all well aware of the villainous business they were running, and he thinks some of the cowboys knew and turned a blind eye.
“You hear Chet talk about it: ‘I did everything for this ranch. I kept my mouth shut like Beulah told me,’ and everything like that. He knew,” English says. “I think a lot of guys know. I think some of the guys in the bunkhouse just want a paycheck and they’re just there to get a paycheck and cowboy.”
Austin tells Beth and Rip the truth about Beulah because it’s the right thing to do. English says that the cowboy isn’t afraid of what could happen to him because of this. He doesn’t fear he’s a dead man walking for spilling the truth, but English does say that he “has nothing to lose” now.
“He just stands up for what he believes in. He stands up for the people in his corner,” English explains, “and he doesn’t have any backup and he’s not scared of anybody. Sometimes that’ll get you in a bind, but you never know. He’s just standing up for what he believes in and for what he thinks is right.”
Austin turns to Zachariah for help first, and he believes that he’s telling the truth about Beth and Rip’s character solely based on “the look in his eye,” adding, “Austin just feels something with Zachariah.” While he’s apprehensively trusting Beth and Rip, English says that Austin also “doesn’t have any other option,” so this one needs to work out.
English doubts that any of the 10-Petal cowboys have met Mariano, Joaquin’s father, and he teases that there’s some drama to come between Austin and Joaquin in next week’s Dutton Ranch finale, but he notes, “I don’t want to give too much away right here.” (The Yellowstone spinoff has been renewed for Season 2.)
Austin may be primed to be a Dutton Ranch cowboy after this narrative shift.
“I feel like he has something inside of him where he was born and raised to just stand up for what he believes in,” English says. “And I feel like when he’s confronted, he just doesn’t care what’s going to happen, what is happening. He’s just going to stand up for what he believes in and doesn’t matter who’s in the way or what he has to do to get there, he’s going to stand up.”
Sounds like some Montana ranchers we know.
Dutton Ranch, Season 1 Finale, Friday, July 3, 8/7c, Paramount Network, Streaming on Paramount+