“To get burned like that is painful and awful, but she doesn’t wear it heavily,” Reilly tells Parade.com in this exclusive interview. “She doesn’t walk around going, ‘Poor me.’ Beth is just getting the job done. And then you realize at the end of the [first] episode, ‘Wow, she went through hell, too.’ For me, that’s one of the dignified things about her. I find her strengths, and that she can really go through so much and still survive, I find that really a nice character trait.” While it isn’t 100 percent clear yet who was responsible for the attacks on the Duttons, the motive has to be tied to the acquisition of the land. Everyone wants to take Yellowstone away from the family, which has been an issue since season 1, but now, the people coming after them are even more powerful than before. So, we may see some strange bedfellows this season with Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) realizing that the same company that wants to turn the Yellowstone Ranch into a tourist destination like Aspen, might very well come after the tribe’s lands, too. It could be he realizes that the enemy of his enemy is his friend. “I’m interested in seeing that relationship with the Duttons and Rainwater,” Reilly said. “Probably the biggest threat that they’ve ever experienced is upon them right now in this season. And part of what I loved about doing this season is you’re seeing Beth realize there’s only so much she can do. There’s a potential that this has gone too far, and it’s turned her slightly panicked. She has got to find a way to save them, and she doesn’t think she can, and that’s something that is really interesting.” One of the things that is keeping Beth strong is the two men in her life. Luckily, her father survived his shooting—and she pretended to him she always believed it, and she also has Rip’s (Cole Hauser) love and strength to count on. “I think she was terrified that her father was going to die, honestly, but she can’t show him that,” said Reilly. “I think the worst thing that could happen to Beth is to either lose him or Rip, so I think she needed [her father] to know. She’s very generous with people she loves. I think her telling him that infuses him with some strength. I think that’s what she’s trying to give him in that moment.” For spoilers on season 4 of Yellowstone, read more of the conversation with Reilly in which she discussed Beth’s relationship with brother Jamie (Wes Bentley) and why she thinks he’s behind the attacks; she talks about Beth’s love for Rip and why they work; and the new man, rather kid, in her life named Carter (Finn Little), who plays on her maternal instincts.
Beth is so certain that her brother Jamie is responsible for these acts of terror, but is that because of their lifelong animosity? Because her father and Kayce (Luke Grimes), her other brother, have a different idea in mind. Will she act against Jamie in some way this season?
She acts against Jamie in every season, so there’s nothing new there. But yeah, I know what you’re trying to get at. The first few episodes Beth is absolutely convinced it’s him. Jamie has betrayed her father in earlier seasons. He has betrayed her. She has a very low opinion of him, and she feels that he is dangerous. And she says that time and time again, “He is dangerous.” She sees him as an enemy of her father and everything that her father is asking her to protect. And if Beth thinks someone’s her enemy, she’s like the Dark Destroyer.
Is the fact that Jamie connected with his biological dad one more reason for her to have more animosity and to believe that he would betray them even more?
She doesn’t know what it is, why she believes he’s got something to do with it, she just feels deep down in her soul that it’s him, but she doesn’t know what to pin that on. But she’s going to find out. She’s like a dog with a bone, she’s not going to let up. What’s great is that everyone has a case in this show: Kayce’s perspective, Beth is all twisted up, Jamie’s point of view is so brilliant, and Beth’s point of view, where she’s coming from is so clear. I think that’s what makes great drama. As a dramatist and writer, Taylor Sheridan can literally have you one-minute egging on one character and believing in them and feeling for them, and then the next second, you’re behind another character’s point of view and perspective of things. And I think that’s what makes this show work.
While she was at the hospital visiting her father, Beth took Carter under her wing. Is there something special about this particular boy that she wants to help him out? Or is it part of the fact that she can’t have kids of her own?
In that moment his father’s about to die, so she’s not really taking him under her wing. She’s just like, “What’s she going to do?” Go, “You’re on your own?” So, she’s very in the moment there and I think she feels for him. She feels like she’s losing her father there, she thinks that she might be an orphan, too. She has a thing for troubled souls and she sees the suffering in him. I think there is a heart in Beth, a very passionate heart. And I think when she loves she loves, and when she hates, it’s intense. So, I think that this kid, just in that moment, she’s going to be there for him. And when he shows up, I don’t think she’s going, “Oh, this is going to be my child.” I don’t think that is in her wheelhouse of thinking at all, I think she just wants to help him. She wants to help him, but she is not sure if she’s going to get Rip’s approval of bringing this stray, wild kid into their house who wants to rob them. And, of course, he is a kid that for Rip, it’s probably like looking into a mirror because that was who he was. And, of course, Rip was taken care of and taken in by her father. So, there is that dynamic of taking in these sorts of strays, these wild animals, and showing them compassion but also being tough with them. So, who knows where that storyline’s going to go? I mean, I know where it’s going to go but I can’t tell you.
Speaking of Rip, Beth and Rip’s relationship is one of the high points of the show. Why do you think they work?
They’re written so beautifully and there’s such devotion to them. They found each other when they were kids. They fell in love when they were 15 years old. I think this is the only man, apart from her father and her brothers, that Beth has ever loved. And they both share that loyal, devotional vein, they have that in them. Separate they’re unstoppable, but together they allow each other that softness and vulnerability. I think they work because they know each other so well and they respect each other so much. They are each other’s home. And I think for all their brutality and all their violence, that level of love and devotion that they have where they would do anything for each other and protect each other, it’s beautiful to watch.
There was that scene where Beth and Rip made love and we saw all the scars on Beth’s back. Will that heal?
What I loved when I read that episode was, obviously, there’s a two-month jump. Taylor said she’s been in the hospital for two months, too. She’s had all those skin grafts and she probably went to the best surgeon to get her face fixed. But she was messed up, and then you think that she’s fine when you see her, and by the end of the episode you realize, “Oh, she really did suffer.” Yellowstone airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Paramount Network. Next, We’ve Rounded Up Everything We Know About Season 4 of Yellowstone
