Spoiler Warning! [This story depicts teasers for the first two episodes of Yellowstone’s Season 5]
When it comes to his character, Wes Bentley agrees with Beth Dutton on one point: Jamie Dutton’s chance at atonement is over.
In the second episode of Yellowstone’s fifth season, the powerful Beth (Kelly Reilly) tells her brother Jamie (Bentley) as much. The neo-western drama developed by Taylor Sheridan returned to Paramount Network on Sunday night with a two-episode launch that set a rating record. If you have been following Yellowstone, here’s how you can watch and enjoy Yellowstone season 5 with your loved ones!
“I want to believe that you’re advising what’s best for the family, I do. But then I remember, this isn’t your family. And he’s not your father. And we both know how you treated your own father,” says Beth, reminding Jamie and the spectators that he is the adopted son to patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and that he murdered his biological father for his attack on the Duttons — a choice he made under Beth’s strong-armed guidance in the season four finale. “Just stop thinking that you have a chance to earn redemption, Jamie. You don’t.”
Jamie receives insults, instructions, and dagger stares from both Beth and John during the first two episodes, with the latter instructing his Attorney General son to sacrifice his own political goals and strengthen his “weak, self-loathing heart” for the benefit of the family.
“I love Montana, but I’m doing this for the ranch,” John declares to his children as he takes the oath of office as Montana’s governor after mounting an anti-progress campaign. “We measure every decision against what good it does for the ranch. The ranch comes first, always.”
Jamie accepts whatever is thrown at him. He nods, remains silent, and obeys directions. But, as the Duttons’ new adversaries (Jacki Weaver and Dawn Olivieri) observe from his forlorn face, Jamie is on a close leash and ready to fight back.
“Inside, he’s boiling. And it will explode,” warns Bentley about what’s to come. “Jamie’s potential for being the threat is real.
Is that redemption? Is that revenge? Or, is it survival? I don’t know. But something like that is going to have to happen. I don’t think Jamie comes back from season four events; I think he is a changed man now.”
With Beth blackmailing him and John attempting to gain access to the governor’s office, “any love that was there is gone with Beth, and his father basically took any job Jamie would like out of this whole arrangement, so now he views John differently, too. Jamie is a broken man, but at the moment, he’s a broken man under someone’s thumb who doesn’t have a way out, so he’s boiling and looking for that way out.”
When the season starts, Bentley claims Jamie hasn’t even begun to understand the trauma he caused by murdering his own father.
The decision was made in an attempt to save himself after Beth discovered that Jamie’s father was the one who ordered the hit on the Duttons and she threatened him with death if her father or husband Rip (Cole Hauser) found out.
“In the first episode, Jamie is trying to survive,” says Bentley, following his finale choice. “Jamie has a strong sense of right and wrong, but it’s his own sense of right and wrong and it definitely has to do with his benefit.
So, part of it was about him surviving rather than his dad surviving. He sized out that what his dad did was wrong, so when faced with the options from Beth, he decided it was right to kill him. As painful as that is to say or do, he was really left with no choice. But, despite that, that’s now led to some intense hatred and anger of Beth deep inside.”
He continues, “It’s devastating and it’s only going to be more devastating as time goes on, as Jamie realizes what he doesn’t have. His father [played by Will Patton] was his only real family.
And I think in Beth voicing for him to kill his father, she has opened a deep wound. So now he has to figure out what he’s going to do about it. But, he is under her thumb and can’t do the instinctual thing, so he has to play her game — at least for a bit.”
That simmering rage is on top of Jamie and Beth’s deep hate for one another. As shown in flashbacks, when Beth was a teenager looking for an abortion, Jamie took her for a sterilization operation without her knowledge, and her infertility as a result has fuelled much of Beth’s animosity toward her brother.
Bentley observes that airing in a post-Roe world may provoke even more emotional audience views about Beth and Jamie’s damaged relationship, but he also notices another political link.
“More than his politics, John running for office sort of mirrors what’s happening now in the sense that there are a lot of people who don’t believe in government or democracy that are running on selfish, self-promoting reasons,” says Bentley of the self-serving motivations behind John’s governorship.
“John just wanted to be governor for his own personal gain, not for the people. And there are a lot of people running like that who don’t believe in government or democracy, who are just trying to get what they want, despite the opinion of the people.”
For the time being, Jamie is striving to be the voice of logic and discourage John and Beth from making actions that he believes would cost them the family cattle ranch, such as taking on the coastal elites and any powerful billionaire developer scouting in Montana.
“He’s the only one who really understands how this works in the modern time. He thinks everyone else is playing a game of cowboy,” says Bentley of the land politics.
“It’s very frustrating for Jamie because he has a stake in this — he wants a piece of Yellowstone as well. We have a lot of new people and new angles that are being attacked at the ranch, and a lot of relationship changes like between me and John and Beth. I think it’s going to bring up a lot of new and different feelings than in the last four seasons.”
And Jamie might not be the only danger. There are indications that the Duttons may face a reckoning: After receiving an alarming vision about the “end of us” in the season four finale, youngest son Kayce lost his unborn boy after his wife Monica was in a car accident at the finish of the premiere.
“It feels like they’re at an inflection point, almost entirely from their own decisions,” says Bentley of what the Duttons will be up against in season five. “It does feel like the world is coming down on them, or at least they’ve run themselves into a corner and they can’t get out of it. And also, not being able to deal with the emotions of all of this has got to be something that’s interesting that they struggle with.”
The Yellowstone series airs on the Paramount Network on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET. This season is not accessible on Paramount+, but you can access previous seasons on Peacock TV.
What are your thoughts on Beth’s exposure to Jamie as the adoptive son and his unreal father, as well as how he mistreated his actual father? Let us know in the comments section below!
Jane Davies
