‘The Ranch’ Part 8 Reveals Who Shot Nick

The Ranch’s eighth part is out, and one of the main plot lines involves a major mystery. At the end of Part 7, Nick (Josh Burrows), the no-good ex of Mary (Megyn Price), was seemingly shot by an unknown party. The Part 8 trailer confirmed Nick died from the altercation, but it played coy on who exactly pulled the trigger. However, as Part 8 begins we learn what exactly happened just before Nick was shot, and we later learn who carried out the murder.

Spoilers ahead for The Ranch Part 8.

There were three leading suspects in the death: Beau Bennett (Sam Elliott), Colt Bennett (Ashton Kutcher) and Luke Matthews (Dax Shepard). There were all shown rushing to Nick’s trailer before the scene where the burnout was shot. In the first episode, we learn that it was not quite a race to see who got to the trailer first.

All three of them arrived and found Mary beaten strung out on drugs. Luke then leaves with Mary while Beau and Colt continued to wait for Nick. However, they ultimately back out of the act.

However, Colt then receives a phone call from a mystery party and turns around and heads back to the trailer park. We then see that police arrive and find Colt alone at the scene. He is initially arrested for Nick’s murder, but it soon cleared after he is discovered on camera at a gas station at the same time the shot was fired. So for the first bit, we still have no clue who killed Nick.

However, that all changes in Episode 7, entitled “What Was I Thinking.”

Luke is arrested for Nick’s murder in the episode, but he is not the guilty party. The threat of Luke being tried for the crime finally forces the murderer to confess. With all the show’s key players gathered at the Bennett household, Colt is pressured into revealing who killed Nick. However, the guilty party speaks up, and it’s Mary’s daughter Heather (Kelli Goss).

“I did it. I killed Nick,” she says. “That night when I saw what he did to you, it brought back every time he hit you, or me, or Darlene. I’ve been scared of him my entire life. I went to the trailer to pack up your stuff, so you’d never have to go back there again, and while i was packing I found a gun. And then Nick walked in a he saw the gun, and he came at me, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Colt adds, “She called me right after. That’s why I was there and got arrested.”

Heather then meets with local lawyer Jerry (Martin Mull) who advises her that she could be in huge trouble, even if she really did shoot him in self defense.

“Heather, based on what I’ve heard, you acted in self-defense, but the prosecutor’s gonna say you were angry about what happened with your mom, that you broke into Nick’s trailer, that you waited until he came home, and you shot him in cold blood,” Jerry says. “I’m just saying, that’s how they’re going to paint it in a trial.”

Besides the risk, Heather decides to own up to the crime and heads down to the police station to confess. However, when she arrives, she learns Mary took the fall and claims that she killed Nick herself.

Being as Nick has been beating her, Mary eventually gets off for the crime with probation only. Heather and Colt do not get in any legal trouble for the crime.

All episodes of The Ranch are currently streaming on Netflix.

Photo Credit: Netflix