There may be quite a bit up in the air about the world of Yellowstone right now — which was true before the writers’ and actors’ strikes halted production across Hollywood — but the first half of Season 5 did end (back on January 1 of this year!) with Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Jamie (Wes Bentley) ready to make some serious moves.
To put it mildly, Beth was none too pleased to learn that Jamie was calling for her father, John (Kevin Costner), currently the governor, to be impeached. Her reaction was pure Beth: “That motherf**ker” and breaking into his home. She hit him, threatening to expose his disposal of his father’s body, only for him to reveal all about the “train station,” a.k.a. where all the bodies of the family and ranch’s enemies are. The two were at war as she left, with Beth warning him that it was “just beginning.”
What Jamie did by telling Beth about the train station, however, was give her an idea. She confronted John about its existence, and he confirmed it. “It’s the trash can for everyone who’s attacked us,” he said. “Where do you think the men who attacked you in your office and attacked our ranch went? You’re shocked we found a way to circumvent the consequences of defending ourselves? I’m shocked we need a way. But we do; we always have. Unless we’re willing to walk away from 120 years of our family bleeding into this ground, we always will.”
Well, she pointed out, they had an enemy who belonged there, too: Jamie. “What do you think, Daddy?” she asked. John didn’t answer, but he did lean forward, suggesting he wasn’t against it. Plus, he has said he only has one son (Luke Grimes‘ Kayce), so we know there’s no love lost between the man and the son he’d adopted. (And if you ask Kylie Rogers, who plays teen Beth, her version probably would only be surprised “outwardly” about the adult’s decision: “On the inside, maybe it’s a thought she’s had perhaps.”)
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But Beth wasn’t the only one plotting to have someone killed. Knowing what Beth would start planning, Jamie asked Sarah (Dawn Olivieri) if she knew anyone with … experience in this type of situation. He wasn’t in the mood to play “defense” by having security guards with him. Rather, he wanted to look to “offense,” he insisted, and she told him of companies (in New York and Virginia) with professionals who could make it look like a heart attack or car accident. Jamie wanted to meet with them, but Sarah told him to let her handle it.
According to Bentley, Jamie’s decision is likely just a result of knowing what Beth will do. “He’s a chess player, so he’s three moves ahead. He’s thought it through a hundred times. He knows making that impeachment speech, making that move, means they will try to kill him somewhere down the line,” the star told TV Insider after that midseason finale in January.
That’s not to say that Jamie wants Beth dead. “I don’t think Jamie wanted anybody necessarily dead. … I don’t know if that’s in him, but the hatred for her is there; it might be enough,” Bentley explained. “It certainly felt like that to me, but it also felt more like a necessity, like this has to happen. She says something at the end of that fight where he says, ‘It’s over, Beth,’ and she goes, ‘No, Jamie, it’s not.’ He knows what that means. That’s his cue to make that move he was waiting for.”
What might make him especially dangerous is that he knows that Beth’s husband Rip (Cole Hauser) would kill him if he did, in fact, go through with his plans, and “Jamie’s accepted that he’s dead anyway, that this has been coming and it’s only been put off because he was useful. Well, now he’s not useful anymore. In fact, he is now the thing in the way, the challenge, the enemy — ‘I’m the one trying to come for the land’ — and you know what happens to people when they come for the land and try to leave the family,” he continued.
So as we await the (eventual) return of Yellowstone — you can watch starting from Season 1 on CBS this fall in the meantime — we’re wondering who is more likely to actually go through with plans to have someone once considered a sibling killed. Beth has had reasons to want Jamie dead for a while now; he’s the reason why she can’t have kids. And with the series ending, it is very possible that one or both of them don’t make it to the end. (Another potential death: John, especially with Costner’s availability a question mark.)
Considering Jamie doesn’t make the best decisions (see: taking teen Beth for an abortion to a clinic that sterilized her and killing a reporter after he said too much), we do think it’s probable that Jamie may take a plan to have Beth murdered in a way that makes it look like an accident too far before he can stop it and setting into motion a series of events that get out of hand.
As for Beth, we have a feeling she’ll do something to get revenge on Jamie before the finale. It might just be a question of whether she comes up with something worse for him, in her eyes than death.
But what do you think? Let us know in the poll below.
Yellowstone, Season 5 Return, TBA, Paramount Network
