I was SO happy that the ranch failed and they placed most of the blame on Mr Cooke. He was such a horrible ranch owner and definitely a poor boss to his foreman and the other cowboys. I know Mrs Cooke is a modern day woman but she was way too assertive for a rancher's wife and she really did wear the pants in the family. The only one in the family I even remotely liked was Hannah and by the end, I didn't care much of her either.

I was happy to see the cowboys gather around Jared and left when he got fired. I was also happy that their evaluation mentioned nothing of Jared taking the horse probably because they understood that Mr Cooke was being a supreme jackass. I can't believe he didn't even want to trade for Jared's life and all he cared about were the stupid cattle.

AHahah! Good, stupid Mr. Cooke. He did not have any control over his ranch foreman and he did things that were way out of the time period (i.e., the woman cowgirl- which i was ok for except for the fact the house cook wanted the position well before she did and it was more appropriate for him to take that position). Plus, not caring about Jared when he was "prisoner" really states a lot about his character and probably did not bolster his ranch hands' confidence. OUt of curiousity, why did Jared get fired? I missed that episode.

I agree about Maura becoming a cowboy. She really should've taken the cook's position and let Shawn participate in the cattle drive especially since he made it clear when he volunteered for the cook position that he would like to return to being a cowboy. It was poor taste to put Maura above Shawn in terms of rank.

Jared got fired in the last episode. Mr Cooke sat each of the cowboys down to talk about their wages and whether they would like to purchase a horse and Mr Cooke backed out of the deal he previously had with Jared about his horse. Mr Cooke said that because he had to pay for Jared and his horse's release, then he essentially bought back the horse and it was no longer Jared's. So, in order for Jared to get the horse, he'd have to pay more money than they had previously agreed upon. As a viewer, this made Mr Cooke even more of a hypocrite since he said at the meeting with the chief that he wasn't going to barter for Jared and that they'd just deal in terms of cattle/horses. And really, it wasn't Jared's fault that the chief counted Jared's horse in with the 4 he said he'd trade with Mr Cooke. Mr Cooke should've counted the horses before they left the campsite.

Anyways, so Jared said that he was going to ride off with the horse when it came time for them to leave the ranch and Mr Cooke said he'd beat the crap out of him if he tried. Mrs Cooke overheard this conversation and after cooing over how brave and strong her husband was, she decided that Mr Cooke should fire Jared because of his bad attitude. Keep in mind, this is some time later and not immediately after the Mr Cooke/Jared conversation. She all of a sudden decided that Jared had a lot of darkness inside of him and that he was a threat to the family. So, Mr Cooke went and told Jared he would accept his resignation. Jared said he wasn't resigning so Mr Cooke fired him.

Mr and Mrs Cooke = idiots