Ransom Canyon Season 1 Episode 3: Trouble Can Be Fun Sometimes

Ransom Canyon episode 3 opens on a flashback to a prison yard, where Yancy Grey is serving time and fights a fellow inmate named Freddie. A guard tells Yancy he has a visitor: Davis Collins, with whom he has been corresponding by mail. The deal between them takes shape — Davis will put in a good word with a friend on the parole board, and Yancy will make sure Cap Fuller sells the ranch to Austin Water & Power. If Cap refuses, Yancy threatens to take the ranch from him.

In the present, Gracie's Dance Hall is being set up for its grand reopening, and Ellie has called Staten Kirkland in to fix the busted beer cooler. Staten and Quinn have another awkward encounter and make no progress reconciling before Sam Kirkland arrives. Quinn's sister Angie shows up to race horses and urges her to stop pining after Staten; Quinn also lets calls from Katherine Bullock, the director of the New York Philharmonic, go to voicemail rather than answer a request to audition as a pianist.

While picking something up at the hardware store, Yancy overhears two criminals and recognises one as his old prison acquaintance Freddie. Freddie does not see him, but Yancy tails him to see where he is staying and then warns Davis that if Freddie knows he is in Ransom he will do damage and blow Yancy's cover. Davis tells him to watch the plates on Freddie's truck and call the car in to the police; Yancy's plate swap works, though he cuts his hand and former nurse Ellie stitches it up.

Lucas is angry when he catches up with Lauren after class — at her, and at his brother Kit, who disappeared after the two fought. Kit later returns and explains he was running a side hustle to get the brothers back on their feet, which Lucas worries about. Sam talks Staten into attending the dance, to Davis's annoyance; Davis turns up with flowers for Quinn and brags about Reid's recent appearance on the news, though Staten knows it was he, not Reid, who rescued the teenagers.

During a slow number Staten asks Quinn to dance and they share a moment, until Davis demands to cut in and starts throwing digs at Staten's honor. Staten answers by bringing up Reid and the lie about the abandoned house, and Davis pulls Reid over, who admits his heroics were a fallacy. Quinn is upset both that Staten made Reid look foolish and that he only came because Sam pushed him. The party also brings a fight: Sheriff Dan Brigman, drunk and displeased to see Lucas and Kit there, brawls with Kit and has to be taken home by his own deputy.

Lauren is tearful in the parking lot because her father blamed her for the fight, and she tells Lucas that Dan made her end things with him; Lucas changes his mind at the last minute and runs after her, and they kiss in the street. Yancy runs late for the party but is intercepted by Freddie before he can go in, and misses it entirely. Back at Staten's house, Staten — who refused to let Sam stay after confronting him about Quinn — hears a knock and finds not his father but Reid, who has been kicked out by Davis.

As of S1E3, the episode does not establish why Freddie has come to Ransom Canyon or what he intends; he intercepts Yancy before the party and the scene ends there.

As of S1E3, whether Freddie will blow Yancy's cover is not resolved; Yancy warns Davis of exactly that risk.

As of S1E3, the recaps state that Yancy is "not really" Yancy Grey, but his full identity and the reason for his imprisonment are not disclosed.

As of S1E3, Quinn lets the director's calls go to voicemail and does not decide about the audition.