Forget missing dinosaur bones and abandoned vision quests…there’s only one question Yellowstone fans need solving, and it has nothing to do with Taylor Sheridan’s unwillingness to see out a plotline.
In Yellowstone, the Duttons have everything they could possibly want. An army of ranch hands that takes up half the Yellowstone cast list, an eye-watering Yellowstone fortune, and a genuine Dutton-branded helicopter. But one thing they don’t have, as fans have pointed out, is a laundry service.
On the Yellowstone subreddit, one viewer made a point of asking just how the cleaning shift works at the Dutton ranch. “I recall one scene where the cowboys briefly washed their coffee cups,” wrote nammerones. “Do they wash their own clothes? On Sundays, perhaps? Interestingly, the main house has a chef, but no cleaning personnel.”
They seem to be referring to the cowboys in the bunkhouse specifically, but the same could be said for John Dutton and his family, too. The TV series doesn’t actually clarify the extend of their in-house staff aside from the hands and, of course, their personal chef, Gator.
I mean, it’s understandable. An explanation of who picks up after the Dutton family and their workers isn’t exactly the stuff the best Westerns are made of, but it has got us thinking that you don’t see much of those who work for the Duttons outside of Rip, Jimmy, and the rest of the crew.
We have a couple of theories that could fill in the blanks. For one, John Dutton might do his own laundry. He’s a man of the land, after all. Maybe he wouldn’t like the idea of someone else going through his dirty clothes. Or, maybe he sends it out. There’s probably a few good dry cleaners in Bozeman, Montana.
As for the ranch hands, we can only assume that there’s a cleaning rota, and probably some laundry facilities off-screen, too. I mean, they spend all day in the dirt and the muck, so they’re probably doing washes on the daily.
We know there’s always a bottom tier ranch hand at any given time. When Rip was a kid, it was him. Then it was Jimmy’s job. These days, the worst jobs fall to Carter, Beth’s semi-adopted son who now works on the ranch. Odds are, he’s probably washing the bunkhouse clothes. Sorry, Carter.
For more on the Duttons, check out our breakdown of the Yellowstone timeline and the best Yellowstone characters. You can also keep tabs on Yellowstone season 5 part 2 and Yellowstone 6666 with our guides.
We’ve also got a feature on why Dallas ran so Yellowstone could fly, as well as a list of all the best Yellowstone episodes. Get watching!