Here's Who Survived the Yellowstone Season 4 Premiere

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 4 premiere of Yellowstone. Read at your own risk!]

As if it wasn't clear already, Yellowstone sure ain't messing around. Well, it's messing around a little bit, because it sure was teasing a lot of deaths that did not end up happening. But still, that was one hell of a premiere. 

The hit Paramount Network drama returned on Sunday with a two-episode event that picked up right where the Season 3 finale left off, with all the Duttons in serious danger. John (Kevin Costner) had been shot by machine guns, Beth's (Kelly Reilly) office exploded with her inside of it, and Kayce's (Luke Grimes) office was attacked by armed men. Their statuses were revealed relatively quickly in the first few minutes of the premiere, but the violence wasn't over yet. 

Rip (Cole Hauser) found John bleeding on the ground, with info on his attackers written in blood in the road. Kayce fended off the armed men and escaped pretty unharmed, but then raced off to find out what was going on, landing himself in a shootout on a country road. He got hit, and fell down bleeding in the grass. 

Beth emerged from the wreckage of Schwartz and Meyer, alive but covered in blood. She immediately asked a bystander for a cigarette, because Beth always gotta Beth. 

Back at the ranch, Monica (Kelsey Asbille) raced to find Tate (Brecken Merrill) and get to the bunkhouse, but was attacked before she could get out of the main house in a sequence that literally took my breath away. Luckily, the masked man on top of her was shot and killed...by Tate. That kid's a Dutton, all right. He's also going to be traumatized for the rest of his life, which probably only makes him more of a Dutton. 

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After a brief sojourn to 1893 (more on that in a minute), a slight time jump revealed that John is alive, if not well. He's been in a coma for a while, and there was a fear that he'd never wake up. Now, he's ready to get out of there but has a blood clot that the doctors need to fix before he's allowed to be awake. Beth arrives at the hospital in time to see him awake, with a nasty scar on her cheek. She later reveals a back covered in burns. 

John eventually recovers enough to move his hospital room to his house, though he immediately ignores all doctor advice and gets back in his jeans and cowboy hat ASAP. He even runs into a very much alive Kayce, wearing a ghillie suit and a nasty scar on his collarbone. He then discovers that Rip's house has been burned to the ground. 

So yeah, that means everyone we care about is alive. Even Jimmy (Jefferson White), who got thrown from a horse again, is alive, but he's gonna need a lot of physical therapy before he can walk or even use his hands. His rodeo days are certainly over, but he's not dead. 

Now, while all the Duttons survived, one man's days of fishing, doing naked yoga, and yelling about stocks are over. With some help from Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) and a talkative casino guest, Rip found out exactly who was behind the attacks, and by the end of the first hour, Roarke (Josh Holloway) was dead, but you'd never guess how. 

In one of the best sequences this show has ever given us, Rip found Roarke fishing in a stream. Rip was holding a cooler, which turned out to have a snake in it. He then threw the snake at Roarke's face, so Roarke died of a snake bite to the face, complete with a bit of foaming at the mouth. There have been some great and dramatic deaths on this show, but death by snake throw? The best one of all. 

Other notes: 

There's nothing like some father/son bonding in a natural hot spring. Kayce found John nursing his wounds in the woods, so he took off his shirt and joined him. The two men then spent their spa time giggling and gossiping about all the latest relationship drama at the ranch. Kidding! They declared that they were going to kill every last one of the men responsible for the attacks. 

Beth, who was revealed last season to be sterile thanks to Jamie's (Wes Bentley) decision-making and an incomprehensibly evil policy against Native American women, has essentially adopted a 14-year-old boy whose dad was dying in the hospital while John was recovering. The kid got a rough welcome from Rip, but now has a job on the ranch cleaning up after the horses. 

The latest on the development build that caused all this drama is that the workers found ancient remains on the property, meaning everything has to be halted while archaeologists figure out what's up. The new and slightly scary lady in charge of the whole thing decided to offer Rainwater funding for his casino, as long as he builds a casino only for the fanciest, richest people. The catch is that he has to let the development happen.

Dumb little Jimmy, who can now barely walk or lift anything, or use his hands and who betrayed John by breaking his promise to not rodeo anymore, is being sent off with horsetrader Travis (Taylor Sheridan) to see if he's still got a chance of being a real cowboy. Given that he can barely move, it feels like his chances are slim! 

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Jamie's evil new path has not yet been elaborated on, but he's buying himself land and getting yelled at by Beth, who is convinced he's responsible for the attacks on the family. John's got plans to figure out which side Jamie is on, while Beth just plans to kill him. 

Now back (way, way back) to March 1893, when Tim McGraw/James Dutton and his sons encounter some Native Americans on the Yellowstone Ranch. McGraw is the star of Yellowstone's upcoming prequel series, titled 1883. It follows James and his wife Margaret, played by McGraw's real-life wife Faith Hill, as they set out across the Great Plains to settle at what would become the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. This sneak peek scene appears to take place long after they've taken this journey and have already settled. 

The Native American tribe sends one of their English-speaking members to ask James if they can lay their dead relative to rest on the land since he was born there. James agrees, and then notices that the group looks hungry. He offers them food and a place for their horses to graze, then kills one of his cows to give to them. Nice to know James is not a horrible guy, at least in 10 years!

Yellowstone continues Sundays at 9/8c on the Paramount Network.