MAJOR spoilers for Yellowstone’s Season 5B premiere are ahead! If you are not caught up, you catch it in re-runs on The Paramount Network as new episodes air every Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.
In the first moments of Yellowstone’s long-awaited Season 5B premiere, it was revealed that John Dutton is dead. While it looks like a suicide, it’s heavily implied that it was a murder and that Jamie’s girlfriend-of-sorts, Sarah Atwood, is behind it, because the Dutton sibling inquired about it. So, with all that in mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jamie’s reaction to the news of his father's death and Wes Bentley’s tragic comments regarding how his character is impacted by John's opinions of him.
Before John Dutton died, he stated his opinions of his kids in Season 5, Episode 5. He said he pitied one (likely Kayce), missed another (probably Lee), envied Beth, and regretted the other one. That regret is more than likely over his adopted son Jamie. So, when I interviewed the cast of Yellowstone about the new episodes, I asked Wes Bentley about this opinion Kevin Costner’s character had and how it impacted Jamie. In response, he said:
I think John's opinions of in particular Jamie is a big motivator in his life in the sense that he doesn't get any from John, and he's just desperately looking for it. And, and it's confusing for him, because he's done everything asked of him – including change who he is as a fundamental human being. And so, you know, that fuels Jamie in every scene.
In Season 5, Episode 9 – the first of six new Yellowstone episodes set to air on the 2024 TV schedule – Jamie is seen reacting to John’s death. We watch him mourn over his father, and even cry at the end. While he did ask Sarah Atwood about hiring someone to off his family members after Beth declared war on him, it seemed that he fully bought that his dad died by suicide. Even though, to me, it seemed pretty obvious that it was a hit organized by the woman he'd been sleeping with.
However, the approval from John that Jamie is always looking for, as Bentley pointed out, seems to be clouding him in the episode. While he wanted to take down his family, it’s also clear that he’s sad about what happened. Up until Season 5, basically, he’d always been loyal to a fault to his dad, and John shaped his son into the man he wanted him to be but also hated – a lawyer. Now, Jamie seems lost.
This whole situation reminded me of the conversation I had with the American Beauty actor about his character’s relationship with his father and the loyalty he had. His answer, to me, adds a lot of context to Jamie’s complex reaction to John’s fate:
It's something I couldn't decide if his loyalty being his detriment, is that something just inside of him or is that a coping mechanism? When you are being someone you not really are, you're leaning on the people who are telling you who you are. And John's that person. And so I think he's lost without that. I don't think I've ever been able to find him outside of that.
Jamie certainly is lost, and it would appear that Sarah is capitalizing on it. She’s using his loyalty to manipulate him, and it seemingly is what caused the downfall of John Dutton.
I’m now wondering how the looming opinion John had of Jamie and Jamie’s loyalty to John despite it will impact the rest of his decisions in Season 5B. Now that he’s lost the man who shaped him into who he is – which is someone he was forced to be – I’m curious to see if Bentley’s character fully retaliates against the other Duttons or if he’ll shrivel under all this and let Sarah use him.
Either option is possible, and we’ll get to see how it plays out as Yellowstone continues airing on the Paramount Network every Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. To go back and see how Jamie and John’s relationship evolved to the tragic point it was at when the patriarch died, you can stream Seasons 1 through 5A of the Western with a Peacock subscription.
