In the episodes of Yellowstone’s fifth season that have aired on the 2024 TV schedule, it’s abundantly clear that Beth and Rip are worried about the ranch and stumped over how to save it. They know John Dutton’s vision isn’t attainable, and it’s something they made evident in the first half of Season 5. So, as we continue to watch these final episodes, I can’t help but think about Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser’s comments regarding why their characters are worried about Kevin Costner’s patriarch losing his land.
Before I saw Season 5B’s premiere, I had the chance to interview the Yellowstone cast, and specifically Hauser and Reilly, about what’s to come. Thinking about Rip and Beth’s relationship and shared view on the ranch’s future, I asked them why both had voiced their concerns in the first half of the season – knowing it’d be applicable in the episodes airing now.
In response, Kelly Reilly reflected on her character’s worries about her father’s strategies to save the ranch, saying:
The ranch cannot survive the way it survived 150 years ago. And unfortunately, the model that John Dutton wants is of this romantic time, and he wants to preserve a time that doesn't exist anymore. Beth has a line to him: ‘Your way of life – they don't care about your way of life anymore. Daddy.’ It's heartbreaking to have to say to him, but she has to find a way to monetize it, to make it work in modern times.
While Beth adores her father and it’s clear that with John Dutton dead she wants to protect his legacy, as Reilly said, “something’s got to give.” She went on to elaborate on this struggle her character is feeling, noting that Beth knows that this business is dying and she’s not sure how to save it:
And she's trying to do it, and he won't have it, you know? So it's very – you can feel the desperation of needing this ranch to survive. It is a dying time for them all, and something's got to give.
That conversation happens toward the end of Season 5A (which you can stream with a Peacock subscription), and it mirrors the worries Rip talked about in the season premiere.
Back when John was elected governor, a big party was held at the Yellowstone. Cole Hauser’s character was up on a hill watching it and worrying about what the ranch had come to, telling Beth that John was “gonna lose this place.” That’s a mentality that’s maintained in these new episodes too, and the actor behind the cowboy broke down why his character is concerned, saying:
I think for Rip, it's changing. The idea that these people will be invited into this world – which is so special and kind of sacred – at that time, is that he's starting to lose grasp of what it was.
Reilly doubled down on that point too, she noted that this scene showed the Dutton Ranch leaning into the tourism and spectacle that John had been trying to avoid:
It becomes a spectacle. It's losing its authentic soul.
Hauser reiterated that again, saying that to Rip, that moment was “the beginning, in his mind, to the end of Yellowstone.”
That worry has rumbled through Rip and Beth’s storylines, particularly in Season 5B. It was very apparent when Hauser and Reilly’s characters were in Texas, specifically. I could feel their gears turning as they took in the 6666 Ranch and tried to figure out how to make their Montana-based business successful.
Now, it’ll be interesting to see how they try to modernize and monetize the ranch in a way that preserves John Dutton’s vision for it. Clearly, they can’t do exactly what the patriarch wanted, there’s no way that’ll work. However, both Rip and Beth adore him and that land, so I know they’ll do whatever they can to save it.
This struggle between honoring John’s legacy and knowing his dream will fail is one of the things making these last episodes of Yellowstone so tense and interesting to me. While there are plenty of outside issues threatening the ranch, this romantic idea of preserving it has also caused its fair share of problems.
Now, everything is coming to a head, and Rip and Beth are trying to fix it. The question now is: Can they? We’ll just have to wait and find out on that one as Season 5B of Yellowstone continues to air on Sundays at 8 p.m. on the Paramount Network.
