The storm may have officially settled in Ransom, but there's still plenty of melodrama surging through Ransom Canyon episode 8.
In "The Bad Seed", a suspect finally gets carted off in handcuffs for the car accident that tragically killed Staten's (Josh Duhamel) son. There's also a healthy amount of family dysfunction on display — not only between Davis (Eoin Macken), Paula Jo (Meta Golding) and Reid (Andrew Liner), but also Yancy (Jack Schumacher) and his secret grandpa Cap (James Brolin) — as well as romantic to-dos between Staten and Quinn (Minka Kelly).
Here’s everything that went down in Ransom Canyon episode 8.
Doing time
Lucas (Garrett Wareing) has quite a rude wake-up call. After Reid's tip-off, the Ransom sheriff's department swarms into the trailer home to arrest Kit (Casey W. Johnson) for his involvement in Randall's car accident.
Lucas upset not only because Staten fired him due to the arrest — which will make it impossible for him to make bail for his brother — but also because Kit isn't putting up much of a fight in his own defense. (When the sheriff interrogates the older Russell about what happened that night, Kit agrees to a full confession to have his sentence decreased, but Sheriff Dan still feels like he's withholding key details from him.) Adding extra worry is the fact that Lucas, who is still a minor, will be put into the foster care system if Kit doesn't get out of jail.
Lucas proposes to Kit that he'll take the fall for him. He's younger, his record is clean; a jail sentence will be less of a life-ruining thing for him. But Kit wants Lucas to get out of that small town and make a life for himself.
Things slightly look up for Lucas when he gets more insights from Reid (Andrew Liner) into what happened with that blue Ford pick-up. He and Tim (Niko Guardado) got into some trouble over the summer when they bought molly off a guy in Bandera, who then tried to shake them down. Kit was there that night and got the boys out of the jam — they owed him a big one.
So when a couple of months had gone by and Kit called them to take a Ford truck out to Bandera to scrub the VIN and then dispose of it, that's what they did. Reid didn't know that was the truck until Sheriff Dan had told him later. He wishes things were different, he assures Lucas, who gives him a beer as an olive branch.
Daddy issues
Things have settled down post-storm for Yancy and Ellie (Marianly Tejada), but the latter still demands he tell Cap the truth about who he really is. If Cap doesn't accept him as family, at least he can walk away with his head high, knowing he did the right thing, Ellie says.
Yancy plans to tell Cap, even informing Davis he is prepared to reveal his true identity (though not Davis' involvement in the ranch scheme). However, when he tries to come clean to Cap when they're fishing by the creek, he chokes. He thought not having a home or family was the worst that could happen to him, but losing the family he has now is harder. Ellie assures him his grandfather is just like him: gruff on the outside and soft on the inside.
However, before Yancy can tell Cap the truth, a scheming Davis does it for him. When Yancy returns to the Fuller ranch that evening, Cap is waiting for him with a gun and some harsh words — he says he'd rather sell the place to Austin Water & Power than to a liar like him. "You mean nothing to me," he growls. Yancy leaves heartbroken.
Good cheer
While Lucas is busy dealing with all of Kit's legal troubles, his girlfriend Lauren (Lizzy Greene) is trying to figure out a way to get to that UT cheer clinic. After getting injured in the storm last episode, Sheriff Dan refuses to sign her permission slip for the tryouts. However, even with a bum ankle, she manages to get to Austin to audition with her cheer buddies.
However, when it's her turn, she ends up royally messing up her flip. She's already upset when her estranged mother Margaret (Sarah Minnich) surprisingly shows up to the clinic — turns out it was Margaret who signed Lauren's permission slip.
Though mom assures Lauren she's recently gotten a job at a dress shop and is steadfastly attending AA meetings, her appearance just serves as a reminder that Lauren's audition failure just means she'll be stuck in small-town Texas like her mom was.
All too well
Good news for Lucas: after Jake (Tatanka Means) convinces Staten he shouldn't have fired the boy for what his brother did, Staten rehires the young Russell, who has some good ideas about bringing in solar power to modernize the ranch.
While they're out planning in the fields, they catch sight of Austin Water & Power reps checking the salinity of Staten's wells. And just like Paula Jo (Meta Golding) plotted, the water samples come back brackish. When Staten is informed about the grandfathered well clause that's on the agenda for the upcoming town meeting, he realizes his water has been spiked and Paula Jo is trying to force him into selling the place. Lucas, however, has an idea.
Back at the Collins residence, Paula Jo is popping bottles of champagne in celebration that her plan worked, when Reid comes in asking about why the Collins and Kirkland clans hate each other so much. It's a generational feud, she explains, with each side thinking they're the hero of the story. He's heard the men's hero stories, she tells him — it's time he's heard hers.
Later, at the town meeting, Paula Jo, Davis and the rest are ready to vote on the well clause. However, Reid interrupts saying he wants to make a statement — during which he plays a taped confession of his mother admitting to spiking the salinity of the Double K wells, a double-crossing set up by Lucas. Paula Jo is left humiliated, and Davis is furious at his son: "You just let a damn Kirkland work you over." But Staten is proud of his nephew and tells him it was the right thing to do.
Back at home, Paula Jo is weeping in the shower. Davis comes in to comfort her and, after a moment's hesitation about his relationship with Quinn, gives into his ex.
Getting real
Speaking of Quinn, she's had a lot of distractions lately — in the form of Staten and Davis — which has led her to drop the ball work-wise. Ellie has been hiring staff, doing repairs and dealing with storm insurance without her. hen Quinn criticizes her for overstepping, Ellie snaps that if Quinn didn't want her to step up post-tornado, she should have been there herself. Quinn tearfully apologizes and Ellie tells her to take the day off to get her head straight.
But these damn cowboys won't let her. When Staten wants to talk about what happened between them, Quinn immediately rushes to the conclusion he regrets sleeping with her; she says it was just a blip for the both of them. He, however, proclaims she knows exactly how he feels about her, and she can keep pretending all she wants, but they did happen.
When Davis drops by the dance hall, he acknowledges she's been standoffish the past few days, thinking it's because of Paula Jo's pipeline plan and her threatening the Gracie's liquor license. He assures her he's had no hand in Paula Jo's schemes, but Quinn still says she needs some time and space to think.
After all that thinking, the final moments of the episode sees Quinn grab her keys and drive to... where exactly? We see a door being opened and her offering the owner a loving greeting, but who is she visiting?
All 10 episodes of Ransom Canyon season 1 are now available to stream on Netflix.
