Ransom Canyon episode 2 recap: shady business

Ransom Canyon episode 1 laid quite a lot of ground.

Ransom Canyon episode 2, "Sure as the Day is Long," expands things even further with some surprising business dealings that do not sit well with our lead rancher Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel). There's also a potential lead on that accident that tragically killed his son a year earlier.

Read on to find out what went down in episod 2.

Romance is rough

After rebuffing her declaration of love last episode, you can't blame Quinn O'Grady (Minka Kelly) from giving Staten the cold shoulder when he tries to smooth things over with her. Later, Staten gets cowboy-wasted at the dance hall; embarrassingly crooning Hootie & the Blowfish certainly doesn't help things.

Similarly, Lucas Russell (Garrett Wareing) is getting ghosted by Lauren Brigman (Lizzy Greene) after her dad refused to let her go to the UT cheer clinic if she kept seeing the boy.

Staten and Lucas — the latter of whom has picked up a gig at the Kirkland Ranch to make extra money — commiserate about their respective losses: Staten, the deaths of his wife and son, and Lucas, the abandonment of his father. "Hard getting left behind, isn't it," Lucas says. It's clear he's not just talking about his dad.

Money to burn

Ellie (Marianly Tejada) tells Quinn she wants to become business partners with her and she has ideas to help with the dance hall. Quinn isn't opposed but is realistic: "What we need is money, Ellie. Lots of money."

Enter Yancy Grey (Jack Schumacher), who just so happens to be doing a lot of chin-wagging about that Austin Water & Power pipeline in the dance hall. The company is throwing around a lot of money trying to win people over, Yancy tells her. Why not see if they'll throw some her way?

You also can't blame Quinn from being swayed by the kind words of Davis Collins (Eoin Macken), who tells her she "deserves someone who sees you for all that you are and all that you want to be."

Daddy issues

After his humiliating Hootie performance, Staten wakes up to think Quinn — who got him home safely the night before — is still in his house. But no, it's his senator dad Sam (Brett Cullen), who is in town to host a fundraiser for his reelection campaign.

Things are clearly frosty between father and son, with the water pipeline plans adding to the chill. But Sam knows all the animosity is born out of grief. "Lashing out at me isn't going to bring them back son, no matter how hard you try," he tells Staten.

In the Brigman house, Lauren is still dealing with her own problems with dear old dad. Keeping with her father's request, she is taking Reid Collins (Andrew Liner) instead of Lucas to the big fundraiser. When her mother questions her on it, Lauren gets angry when she sees that her mom is worryingly drinking alcohol, after promising her daughter that she would remain on the straight and narrow. "How about, instead of trying to fix my life, you fix your own," Lauren tells her.

When Lauren arrives at the fundraiser, Lucas — who is working the event as a waiter — spots her and follows her outside, demanding to know why she's gone radio-silent on him. They make up but she rushes off when she hears somebody nearby. When she returns home, Lauren finds a note from her mother, saying she's leaving her husband and daughter behind.

Missing parts

Staten and his buddy Deputy Kai Flores (Justin Johnson Cortez) bring that piece of a car's fender Staten found last episode to a mechanic to identify it. It's part of a Ford pick-up — but that doesn't narrow things down in truck-loving Texas, where seemingly everyone and their mother owns an F-Series.

Kai later informs Staten he knows a guy who knows a guy at a chop shop in Bandera, who says they scrubbed a blue F-Series a year ago, which is when Randall's accident was. Staten wants to go investigate, but Kai warns that the guys at the shop are not to be messed with.

Fundraisers ain't fun

Everyone who's anyone is at Sam Kirkland's fundraiser — and, unfortunately for Staten, that includes both Quinn and Davis, who show up together. Things get even worse for the Kirkland lad when his dad begins introducing folks like Quinn and Cap Fuller (James Brolin) to an Austin Water & Power executive.

Speaking of Cap, Yancy is chatting his ear off to get personal info on the old rancher. He finds out that Cap's soldier son died in Afghanistan and his wife, Ruth, is living with dementia at a nearby care facility.

During her sit-down with the Austin Water & Power rep, Quinn is wary of agreeing to the deal. "What's the catch?" she worries. However, when she's assured that there's no strings attached, she decides to take the deal and accepts the capital to help the dance hall's finances.

The executive publicly announces the investment into local business like Quinn's dance hall during dinner, which unsurprisingly gets a heated reaction from Staten. "You're gonna kill this town," he yells. Upset, Quinn chugs the rest of her wine, tells him that not everything is about him and storms out.

In the last minutes of the episode, we see Yancy visiting a care facility — yes, the same one where Ruth Fuller lives. Sitting down with Cap's wife, he shockingly tells her that he's her grandson, the child of her late son Lincoln. Do we believe him?

All 10 episodes of Ransom Canyon season 1 are now available to stream on Netflix.