Spoilers below for the midseason finale of Yellowstone, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched!
Cable’s biggest drama took the stakes up a rung or two regarding its core triangle of conflict between Beth, Jamie, and John Dutton. After Jamie furthered his legal attack against the Montana governor, he responded to Beth’s rather brutal attack by playing one of his hidden trump cards and cluing her in on the metaphorical train station used to collect (i.e. dump) the bodies of the family’s enemies. Now, she realizes that going public with her photo-based threats will actually blow back just as hard against the entire family, giving her essentially just one option for how to move forward, and Jamie understands how far she’d go to silence him. And according to star Wes Bentley, part of Jamie’s gameplan behind getting naughty with Sarah has revolved around fatal eventualities.
While Yellowstone fans have long known that Beth would love to string Jamie up behind a horse that she could ride off into a thousand sunsets, her threats have largely added up to ruining and destroying his life, as opposed to straight-up ending it. Now that they’ve reached a point of no return, Bentley says Jamie’s true intentions with Sarah are now coming out, and fans may be as surprised to learn that his character is entirely aware of where he stands with the Market Equities enforcer. Here’s what the actor told EW:
Jamie is being used by Sarah Atwood, but Jamie's been used for 30 years of his life by his own family and become well aware of what it's like to be used. At first when I read this, I was like, ‘Oh man, here we go.’ But as I let it sink into me, I realized, ‘Maybe he's seeing an opportunity in her. Maybe he's testing her out too.’ I think he's also attracted to her, not just physically, but he's attracted to what kind of person she is. And there's something there, some evil power-couple thing happening between 'em. So I think it's deeper than just one's using the other. Jamie, just on a purely clinical level, does see her as someone he could use if needed. So you're not totally off. By the end he's saying, ‘Do you know anybody that can kill my family?’ That's him revealing what his intentions were.
For several seasons now, Jamie has witnessed just how far Market Equities has been willing to go to gain control of the Duttons’ land for development purposes, and that includes some particularly violent and immoral methods. He’s also obviously keenly aware of what John, Beth and Rip will do to keep the land pure and untouched, which includes even more violent and immoral methods. The best way to fight fire in a situation like this is with another unpredictable set of flames, and he’s certainly not above taking those flames into the bedroom to build up that twisted sense of trust. And it’s not just about taking Beth out, either, since John would never let him survive killing the patriarch’s only daughter. It’s a double or nothing kind of deal.
To that end, Wes Bentley confirmed to TVLine that Sarah was indeed implying that John would also need to be put out of everyone’s misery, even if she didn’t say his name in the moment. In the actor’s words:
Yeah. It’s John and her. They’re the targets… the actual danger. Both have to go, because you can’t take one without the other. Jamie’s agreeing that’s the move. He always suspected, but it was revealed through that fight [with Beth] that that was what was going to have to happen now.
Now, Sarah doesn’t seem to be so aware of the dangers of Rip, and Jamie doesn’t seem to be giving her fair warning that the ranch boss will do anything to protect John, Beth and the Y itself. But you know if Sarah sends some goons after either of them, Rip is going to rip their skeletons out of their bodies through their asses, and Jamie is probably going to pay the price.
But now that Beth knows about the train station, as it were, things will likely get more complicated between her and Rip, even if he doesn’t know it while down in Texas. She’ll likely catch wind that he killed Rowdy and dumped the body, which may result in Jamie approving the unwitting teen Beth’s sterilization, which may result in Rip’s head exploding and killing everyone nearby via skull shrapnel. And yet somehow Jamie is both experiencing a healthy sex life with a beautiful woman, AND he’s not being completely taken advantage of? This just isn’t right.
Yellowstone is currently on hiatus until the summer, meaning we have quite a while to build up a list of theories for how Jamie Vs. Beth 2023 is going to play out, and whether or not John will face any direct consequences because of it. While expanding such speculation, don’t forget to keep up with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren’s prequel drama 1923 with a Paramount+ subscription, and head to our TV premiere schedule to see all the new and returning shows that’ll be popping up in the coming months.
