Urban Cowboy

Ashton Kutcher explains how The Ranch gets middle America and why it’s unlike any other comedy on TV right now

- Damian Holbrook

COLORADO’S BENNETT BROTHERS— comprised of ex-football star Colt (Ashton Kutcher) and semi-screw up Rooster (Danny Masterson)— were grappling with a whole new herd of issues (pun intended) when we last saw them in Netflix’s The Ranch. Colt’s plan to propose to high school sweetheart Abby (Elisha Cuthbert) was derailed by the fallout from a one-night stand; Rooster had abandoned the family’s failing farm for a more corporate outlet elsewhere; and their parents, Beau and Maggie (Sam Elliott and Debra Winger), had finally, painfully signed their divorce papers after a valiant attempt to mend fences.

Not exactly typical sitcom fare, but The Ranch is not a typical sitcom. With salty language abounding and the show shot in multi camera format before a studio audience, it is more like the sister-wife to Netflix’s socially-up-to-speed, Norman Lear– produced One Day at a Time reboot. What results is an oddly endearing hybrid of broad comedy and tense family drama that doesn’t telegraph its laughs as much as mine them from the characters’ many flaws.