Ransom Canyon brings forth a whole array of characters to love and hate in this soapy drama about a group of ranching families living in Texas. Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly play the lead characters.
Ransom Canyon has family feuds, sexual tension, love triangles, longhorn cattle, football, cheerleaders, and dance halls. Everything you need for twisty Texas plot lines and surprises. In Ransom Canyon the fight is over land and water, not oil, which is a welcome change from the usual Texas story.
Since I’ve lived the majority of my life in either New Mexico or Texas, it bugged me that the supposed Texas hill country setting of the series was so clearly New Mexico. I don’t suppose that will be a problem for most viewers, who will get involved with the characters and their drama immediately and not be worrying over the kind of trees growing in the hills or the sight of high mountains in the background.
The People of Ransom Canyon
I’ll try to summarize a few basic plot points and characters. No spoilers.
Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel) owns a big ranch. He lost his wife about 3 years ago and his son in a car accident just one year ago. Staten’s father, Samuel Kirkland (Brett Cullen), is a U.S. Senator and part of a group called Austin Water and Power who want to put a pipeline on his ranch and other ranches in the area. Staten says no to the pipeline.
Staten is in love with Quinn O’Grady (Minka Kelly) who left town to pursue a career as a pianist, but is now back. In the meantime he married Quinn’s sister, now deceased.
The other rancher fighting against the pipeline is Cap Fuller (James Brolin). Like Staten, he lost a son. HIs wife is in a memory care facility. He hires a young fellow from out of town, Yancy Grey (Jack Schumacher), to help on his ranch.
Yancy immediately falls for Ellie Estevez (Marianly Tejada), who is in business with Quinn running a dance hall. She likes him, but he obviously is hiding a lot.
Yancy secretly works with another rancher, Davis Collins (Eoin Macken), to get Cap to agree to the pipeline. Davis needs the pipeline money. He’s desperate for it, in fact. Davis’s son Reid (Andrew Liner) is Staten’s nephew.
Are you lost yet? There are more . . .
Staten insists Sherrif Brigman (Philip Winchester) investigate his son’s death, which brings the Sherrif, his cheerleader daughter Lauren (Lizzy Greene) and his alcoholic wife (Sarah Minnich) into the story.
Lauren is dating Reid Collins the football hero while trying to get a cheerleading scholarship to UT. But she secretly loves a boy from the wrong part of town Lucas Russell (Garrett Wareing). Lucas and his older brother (Casey W. Johnson) are on their own.
Are you lost yet? There’s still more . . .
Davis’s ex-wife Paula Jo (Meta Golding) is working for Austin Power and Light to bring in the pipeline. Quinn’s former mentor Katherine (Kate Burton) wants her to go back to NYC to play with the philharmonic orchestra. There are other secondary characters as well.
This season of Ransom Canyon has 10 episodes. You can stuff a lot of characters and subplots into that many episodes. There’s no firm word on a second season yet but I can’t imagine this not being renewed. It could go on a long time like Virgin River or other hit shows with engaging characters and twisty plots.
I don’t think I’ve seen Minka Kelly in much of anything since way back in Friday Night Lights, although she’s been working steadily since then. She was outstanding in this and quickly became my favorite person in the cast.
The story seemed slow in places and I got tired of the sexual tension – it felt a bit like high school but with grown men and women. But when the tension finally broke, it was sexy indeed. The series was written and developed by April Blair. The women directors were Amanda Marsalis and Meera Menon. You definitely felt the female gaze in this series, especially in the sex scenes.
There were two important story lines left as cliffhangers at the end of the season. Guaranteed to make you want more.
The entire season is available now on Netflix. Saddle up.
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What a gem of a series. So much potential in future seasons, I didn’t want it to end. With a whole year before a possible return.
The 1st season has been entertaining with multiple story lines and pulls the viewer in to want to see more. Such a great climax in regards to the season finale!
I see why viewers of app subscriptions try not to get involved in a series until its second year as such a nail bitter to think we the audience, may never know more about the characters.
I’d never heard of the idea of waiting for the second season of something to start watching a show, but it’s an interesting idea. I can think of several things I loved only to be disappointed there was no second season.