Punches and bruises are just part of the day-to-day life on the Dutton ranch, but one Yellowstone character has an especially bad time.
Look, the Dutton ranch isn’t exactly a vacation spot. If you’re there, odds are you’re a member of Yellowstone‘s highly-dysfunctional Dutton family, or you’re one of their incredibly hard-working ranch hands. Either way, living and working there is no picnic.
It might be easy to assume that when it comes to the unluckiest Yellowstone residents, you’d be looking at, say, Jamie, who has been beaten down more times than we can count (mostly due to his own stupidity). Or, it’s one of the smaller Yellowstone characters, like Jimmy, who goes through intense physical pain 99% of the time on the drama series.
But no. Fans have recently noted on the Yellowstone subreddit that there’s one other character who seems to bear the brunt of the Dutton’s mistreatment, and it’s none other than their personal chef, Gator.
“Every meal he makes looks absolute fire but nobody ever eats — they just sit down for a few seconds, take a few bites, then either storm off in a rage or run off to work,” wrote Intelligent_Toe4030. “Sometimes they don’t even taste it at all before they just up and leave the table.”
“The worst time was when Gator was up before dawn making a breakfast that totally slapped and was soooo proud of his biscuits, then John and Tate just eat a bowl of Choco Chimps. That was the first time I legit teared up watching this show.”
This got us thinking about Gator and his culinary tenure on the TV series, and there’s a point to be made here. It didn’t take us long to notice that Gator is easily the most underappreciated member of the Dutton staff (and the Yellowstone cast, for that matter).
All the countless, beautiful meals he’s cooked for the family and barely any of them get eaten. This is mostly down to Beth Dutton storming from the table after fights with John/Jamie/insert literally any other character here. The food sits, growing cold and stale, a sad reminder of hours of work lost over nothing.
Of course, it’s all probably just another day for Gator. He likely gets paid a pretty penny for his 24-hour service to the Duttons, so maybe he’s happy to put up with it. Then again, we can’t imagine he’s thrilled about the sheer amount of food that goes to waste, thanks to Beth and the like.
This is all made even more upsetting by the fact that Gator is actually played by the on-set caterer for the series, Gabriel Guilbeau. In fact, he actually wrote an entire cookbook full of show-themed recipes. (It’s on my Christmas list, trust me.)
So, yes, while the fictional Gator might be able to take the lack of manners on the chin, we’re not so sure the real-life kitchen master might feel the same way.
For more, check out our guide to Yellowstone season 5 part 2, and the 6666 release date. You can also take a look at the best Yellowstone episodes and see what we think John Dutton’s fate will turn out to be.
We’ve also got features on why Dallas ran so Yellowstone could fly and why the Western has always been a genre for women, too.