Ransom Canyon Season 1 Ending, Explained: Do Staten and Quinn End Up Together?

Minka Kelly as Quinn in Episode #103 of Ransom Canyon. Photo:

Netflix’s Ransom Canyon premiered on April 17 and immediately captivated viewers with its small-town, Western charm.

The new streaming hit is based on a series of novels by author Jodi Thomas, whose characters live in Ransom Canyon, a remote town in Texas. The stars include Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel), the owner of Double K Ranch who is struggling after the death of his wife and son, and Quinn O’Grady (Minka Kelly), a former concert pianist who returns to her hometown to run Gracie’s, the local dance hall and bar.

Fans are also treated to the stoic Cap Fuller (James Brolin), Davis Collins (Eoin Macken), owner of rival ranch Bar W, and Lauren Brigam (Lizzy Greene), a high schooler who must choose between the safe option in Reid Collins (Andrew Liner) or her true love, Lucas Russell (Garrett Wareing).

Quinn also struggles with matters of the heart, including her romance with Davis, her will-they-won’t-they status with Staten, and her future: does she belong in Ransom Canyon, or back in New York?

All of the characters contend with Davis’ desire to sell land from their ranches to Austin Water & Power in order to build a pipeline, which brings the series to a dramatic conclusion in episode 10.

Keep reading for a recap of Ransom Canyon season 1, including the show’s ending, explained.

Warning: Ransom Canyon spoilers ahead!

In the lead up to Ransom Canyon‘s season 1 finale, Lauren is stuck between her head and her heart, trying to appease her father by dating Reid, but sneaking around with the “troubled” Russell boy. The show’s first big reveal comes with Yancy Grey (Jack Schumacher), who shows up as Cap’s new foreman, when in reality, he’s the rancher’s long-lost grandson looking for revenge after his grandfather turned his mother away years prior.

The season finale of Ransom Canyon picked up after the death of Cap at the end of the show’s ninth episode. Ellie is devastated, but is being looked after by Yancy. He’s determined to honor his late grandfather’s last wishes by burying him on his land and completing the deal to sell to Austin Water & Power. However, Ellie helps Yancy change his mind, telling him that Cap wouldn’t want him to sell and that keeping the ranch in the family would be the right thing to do.

Yancy also consults Staten, who reveals that Cap actually spent years looking for Yancy and his mother after he had turned her away and wanted to make things right. After initially making a deal with Davis — agreeing to get Cap to sell in exchange for getting him out of prison — Yancy officially backs out of the deal, losing out on $22 million in order to retain the ranch and his relationship with Ellie.

After Quinn accepts money from Austin Water & Power earlier in the season to help renovate Gracie’s, they go back on their original “no strings attached” agreement and ask her to recoup their investment, leaving her to scramble to pay tens of thousands of dollars. Staten realizes they are going after Quinn to try to get him to sell his land and offers to lend her the money. However, she refuses his multiple offers and contemplates closing Gracie’s for good.

After some deliberation, Quinn reveals to Ellie that she is going to go to New York in order to make money for the bar. In addition to not closing Gracie’s, she also formally invites Ellie to be a new partner in the business. The evening unfolds into a night of fun and dancing, at least for a little while.

Several relationships also face uncertainty: Quinn and Davis finally break up in an emotional scene and Lauren struggles with her feelings for Lucas. After injuring her arm, which hurts her chances of getting a scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin, she pushes Lucas away. That doesn’t stop him from pulling a grand gesture at Gracie’s, declaring his love for Lauren publicly, leaving her no choice but to share a dance with him.

The final moments of the episode boil over when Davis and Staten have it out at Gracie’s after Davis makes a comment about his late sister, who was also Staten’s wife. In the heat of the moment after punching Davis, Staten makes a grave mistake in revealing a secret Quinn told him in confidence: he knows Davis is broke.

At first, both the characters and audience believe that Staten’s son, Randall, died in a one-car wreck. However, after Staten discovers a broken-off piece of a bumper at the site of the crash a year later, he encourages the police to look further into the incident, convinced there was another car on the road that caused him to crash.

As time goes on, viewers are led to believe that Randall’s cousin, Reid, was the culprit, but his involvement in the accident was tangential — he unknowingly helped get rid of the other car involved in the wreck as a favor to Kit Russell (Casey W. Johnson).

Kit is arrested after Reid puts him at the scene of the crime and he doesn’t dispute the accusations. However, Sheriff Brigman knows that Kit is lying. The sheriff gets to the truth when he puts two and two together — his wife previously had an affair with Kit, and it wasn’t just a one-time fling.

The Sheriff pays her a visit at her temporary residence in Austin after she abruptly walks out on her family and she tells him the whole story, including her culpability in the crash. After wrestling with the decision to penalize his wife, in the final episode of the season, Margaret Brigman is arrested and Kit returns home.

Yancy and Ellie had a wild ride during season 1 of Ransom Canyon. After she uncovers several secrets of his past early on, he has a lot to make up for to prove his worth and that he should stick around town.

She softens after a scene where Yancy risks his life to save Cap from a tornado, and sees his ailing grandmother, who is in a home for dementia care. Afterward, the couple’s romance heightens.

During the finale, in addition to deciding to keep the ranch and going back on his original deal with Davis, Yancy proposes to Ellie with his grandmother Ruth’s ring. She initially turns him down, telling Yancy, “I want to know the man I marry.”

Ellie says that she will think about it, without giving him a definitive yes or no. He says he will wait for her that night, but nothing can ever be that simple. At Gracie’s, Ellie appears ready to go with a white dress in hand when she is interrupted by a woman off-screen who is asking for Yancy Grey, only to reveal that she’s his wife.

The tension between Quinn and Staten was palpable from the get-go. When Davis pursues Quinn, the two begin to date, but that doesn’t stop the sparks from flying between Quinn and Staten.

Their friendship takes a turn in the season’s seventh episode, when they are bunkered at her home during a tornado. They reminisce about prom and Staten confesses that he wanted to ask her to dance that night. Quinn and Staten end up having sex while she is still dating Davis.

Before she can break up with Davis, he figures out she has been sleeping with Staten when he spots their matching twine bracelets. This revelation sparks a revenge plot on his end to steal even more business from Staten and put his ranch in jeopardy.

Even with her relationship with Davis off the table, Quinn and Staten continue to face struggles in their connection. They get into an argument about Quinn potentially selling Gracie’s and she reveals that she might move to New York after getting an offer to play with the Philharmonic for six months.

Staten gets angry, feeling left behind again, and accuses her of seeing their relationship as just a fling. Viewers are given a flicker of hope at the end of the season when Staten appears at Gracie’s bar, but he’s gone before Quinn can reach him. When she approaches, she finds his abandoned drink and bracelet on the bar.

The end of season 1 of Ransom Canyon leaves the future of Double K ranch unclear. Staten remains steadfast in his decision to not sell to Austin Water & Power, but he may have no choice, especially going up against Davis and his own father, Senator Samuel “Sam” Kirkland (Brett Cullen).

Staten wasn’t shy about sharing his disdain for the Austin Water & Power plan throughout the show. In the first episode, he lays out his reasoning to Davis, pointing out that the aquifer that would be affected by the pipeline feeds into the town’s wells that provide water for crops and cattle.

Throughout the season, Staten is thrown new obstacles, including having cattle stolen from his property by a group of men who were in prison with Yancy. Later, he’s faced with financial hardships when he makes the decision to go solar and has to raise his cattle prices, causing him to lose business to Davis, who is laser-focused on taking from his client roster.

Staten is also nearly backed into a corner by Paula Jo when she orders his wells to be spiked for a report, which would have led to millions in fixes if her son didn’t reveal she had organized the sabotage.

By the end of episode 10, Staten’s father makes it clear that he is going to contest his son as sole trustee by trying to prove that his he is a danger to the ranch. The Senator enlists the help of Davis to provoke Staten at Gracie’s, which leads to a drunken brawl.

The last viewers see of the scene is Davis joining Senator Kirkland in the backseat of a car while he’s on the phone, assuring the party on the other line that they’re all set to move forward with the plan.

Ransom Canyon has not yet been renewed for a second season. However, the end of season 1 leaves plenty of stories unfinished.

Lauren and Sheriff Brigman have to deal with the aftermath of Margaret’s arrest, while Lucas is wrestling with a decision for his future, choosing between one of the Ivy League schools expressing interest in him or staying behind in Ransom Canyon for Lauren.

Quinn has plans to leave Ransom for six months to join the New York Philharmonic, but what will happen with Staten (or Davis) when — or if — she returns?

There’s also the matter of Senator Kirkland and Davis plotting against Staten to contest his role as sole trustee. As the dust settles on season 1 of the series, the fate of Double K is still up in the air.

Daily News

Ransom Canyon Season 1 Ending, Explained: Do Staten and Quinn End Up Together?

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