Dutton Ranch practiced what it preached with that “peace will have to wait” slogan in the Season 1 finale. The conclusion to the Yellowstone spinoff’s first season left one main character dead and another kidnapped. Now, Rio Paloma will find out what Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) can really do. Here, Reilly and Hauser explain the action-packed finale and tease what to expect in Dutton Ranch Season 2. Warning: Dutton Ranch Season 1 finale spoilers ahead.
Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening) spent the episode coming clean about her past and present conflicts. She opened up to her lover, Everett McKinney (Ed Harris), about the traumatic story of Rob-Will’s (Jai Courtney) conception, and she told Everett, Beth, and Rip the truth about the fentanyl smuggling she had gotten into with Joaquin’s (Juan Pablo Raba) father, Mariano (Raoul Trujillo), because of their shared history. She was looking for an out when Beth and Rip came to her for work at the 10-Petal Ranch, and she hoped she could get out of the shady cattle business without hurting her Dutton neighbors. But Mariano had his men kidnap Carter (Finn Little), so the fight is on.
Reilly and Hauser tell TV Insider that Dutton Ranch Season 2 is going to have a lot more of Harris in it, and that Beth and Rip will have to work with Beulah to save their son. Beth, Rip, Beulah, and Everett are going to share equal importance to the story in Season 2, the stars tell us, and Texas won’t know what to do with them now that Beth and Rip are back in their Yellowstone mode. Mariano is going to be a big threat in the second season, one that Beth and Rip are ready to take on. But how will Joaquin be changed now that he’s murdered his brother, Rob-Will, and how will the pregnant Oreana (Natalie Alyn Lind) react to her father’s murder and Carter’s kidnapping? (Dive into the finale with Lind here.)
Reilly and Hauser break down the finale and give a glimpse into Dutton Ranch Season 2 in the interview below, which includes discussion about potential crossover with the Luke Grimes Marshals spinoff and the stars’ reactions to Monica Dutton’s (Kelsey Asbille) death.
Beth and Rip are a really solid couple that has already grown a lot, but how have the events of Season 1 evolved their relationship, and what do you want to explore with them in Season 2?
Kelly Reilly: We’ve just been talking a little bit in some other interviews about these ideas for Season 2; now we’ve been lucky enough to be green-lit for another season. You never take that for granted ever. I feel like emerging [with] a new season, a spinoff, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, with all the responsibility of bringing forward everything that was the show that we’d worked on into something new and different for the audience and whether people are going to like it.
And now Season 1 tells me, and has probably told Cole and probably told [director/executive producer] Christina Voros and our producers and Taylor [Sheridan], where we can fine-tune and where we can go. So I think now we’re going to go into our fifth gear, and I’m excited about that. I’m really excited. I feel like the big evolvement happened this season, and now we just get to layer it.
Cole Hauser: There’s an unwavering love between these two characters, and what’s going to bring them closer is getting their son back.
Reilly: Yeah.
Hauser: That’s it.
Reilly: We’re going to see them tear up Texas to get him back. When Beth says, “They want us, then they’re going to have us,” I think all of the audience knows what she means.
Hauser: Exactly.
Texas, beware.
Reilly: Yes, cartel, beware.
Hauser: Wherever they are.
What elements of Yellowstone narrative structure did you want to keep in this new series, and what elements of Dutton Ranch would you say are uniquely its own?
Hauser: The nucleus of the three of these characters, Carter, Beth, and Rip, early on, everything gets spun on its heels and for good reason. We needed to start these three characters from literally the ashes and going to a new environment, a new place, and see them on their back foot for the first time. These characters have always been on offense, and they’ve run their own entities of Yellowstone.
It’s now about these characters coming from nothing and watching them build. What I love the most is watching them stumble through it at times. I think that’s real for them and not always being in control and having to find their way. There’s no roadmap to life with these guys. And I think we did a really good job of making sure that the audience is coming with us on the ride versus us being ahead of it. They were always portrayed that wa
Reilly: Yes.
Hauser: I like that creativity. Going into Season 2, you’re going to see more of them trying to find their way, especially in the first couple episodes and certainly with the loss of Carter.
Reilly: I’m interested in them finding their way as well and seeing them succeed. Because, like you said, there was just a lot of loss and pain and struggle and back foot, which we are not used to seeing Beth and Rip on the back foot. We’re used to seeing them in Yellowstone as the rulers of their kingdom; don’t mess with us. And then all of a sudden they’re in a new place; they don’t know who their enemies are. Now, once they’ve got their feet and they can assert themselves and they can figure what they want out, I don’t think there’s going to be any stopping them, but this first season was about seeing them struggle a little bit with the coming back.
Hauser: Yeah, it’s very real in that way.
I think Carter rebelling against Beth and Rip is a great evolution of this dynamic because they were really solid at the end of Yellowstone.
Hauser: When he gets kidnapped. It’s game on. It’s a good way to open another season of the show, to see them back on offense, and then obviously we’ll have to figure out with [new showrunner Benjamin Cavell] and the writing team the drama of Season 2 and where it goes, but I think everybody knows that it’s game on.
Emerson Miller / Paramount+
Certainly. I don’t think Beth and Rip would separate Beulah’s actions from Mariano’s given that their whole camp is the reason their son has been kidnapped, but do you, as actors and executive producers, see Mariano as more of a true “villain” than Beulah moving forward? What about Joaquin?
Hauser: Mariano, obviously, he’s this entity that you don’t know who he is, especially Beth and Rip. We see him very briefly in the show, but I think ultimately there’s some issues that need to be sorted out with Beulah, and I think she will hopefully be a tool to get to where we need to get to, to find what we want, which is our son.
Reilly: Beulah’s been caught up in so much throughout her whole life. We see it when she was younger with Mariano. I do feel like there is [room for] growth for them to come together potentially. I also would love Beth and Rip to collaborate with Beulah. It has to be on a new, level field now after what’s happened, but I don’t think Beulah is the true enemy of them. She was just in over her head and made some really, really bad choices, but she was doing it for her family, and Beth can understand that. So they’re quite similar in a way.
Although Beth, I don’t think, would’ve entertained what [Beulah] was willing to do for her father’s ranch. She did some questionable things, but to put everyone in this much danger, I don’t think she could fathom why Beulah would even do that.
Hauser: Let’s not forget about the great Ed Harris. We also have him, and he’s going to become a very important, integral part of Season 2. And for both Kelly and I, obviously Annette is phenomenal, but I cannot wait to work more with him. He’s such an amazing American actor that I think was used very sparingly this year. We’re going to make sure that he is a big part of helping us moving forward in whatever capacity.
Emerson Miller / Paramount+
Yes, this first season feels like he’s present, but his utility is set up by the end of the Season 1 finale.
Reilly: Agreed. I think Season 2 is going to feel very much more Ed’s show. This is not the Beth and Rip show. This is Dutton Ranch, and there’s four lead characters, five. Annette Bening and Ed Harris, it’s such a privilege to have them come join our show. I’ve said this before, I feel like they made us legit. We could have just been a little soapy spinoff, and we’re not because of them. We’re a drama, we’re a new show, and it’s got some heavyweights in it. We’re very proud to be working with them.
By the finale, do you think that Texas really feels like home to Beth and Rip, a home they’re willing to fight for, or is this maybe pushing them to reconsider going back to Montana?
Reilly: Montana will always be home for Beth and Rip, but they can’t go back. They have nothing. They’ve got no money. They’ve got no livelihood. They’ve got nowhere to live if they [go back]. So I think right now this is where they’re at. Once they get their son back, let’s see what situation they find themselves in. But I think Cole and I secretly harbor a hope that maybe at the end of this story we leave them back in Montana, that they get back there. That is something I hold a dream for.
Hauser: I was just going to simply say exactly what she said. Texas is not home to them, and I don’t think it ever will be. Montana is where they find their peace and their love, and it’s such an extraordinary place. Ultimately, Texas is for now, and we’ll see. God willing, we’ll one day make it back to a nice porch on a river with a couple horses and a little bit of bourbon.
Reilly: Opportunities are in Texas for them right now, and they don’t have the luxury of deciding. There’s also Carter; he has a future. They want to leave something for him. So they can’t just go and buy a little cabin in the woods and disappear off the planet. They want to make something. They want to have a livelihood that they can be proud of. Small, but they still want to do it. They don’t want the burden of the legacy of the Yellowstone, but Beth is a Dutton, and at some point, is that ghost of her father and the dreams of her father, is that going to rise up in her again as long as it doesn’t get abused? There’s lots of fun things for us to play with, I think in the next however many years we’re lucky enough to do this. But to answer your question, I think Montana is where their home is, their soul.
Hauser: Try asking a Texan where they’re from, even if they’re in another state. It’s the same with Montanans.
Reilly: Maybe [smiles].
Hauser: [Laughs] What I will say is I’d love to work with Luke. We saw him in New York for the Upfronts, Kelly and I both, and I just love him, man. I miss him.
Reilly: I miss him too.
Hauser: I love people that we’ve worked with over the years in Yellowstone, but the fact that he’s on his show and we’re on this show, if there’s a way to somewhere down the road do something special where he comes and visits us or if we go to Montana, great.
Reilly: Go find our sons. But, you know, I think Beth misses her brother, so I would love that to happen. And we were all very close. Wes Bentley, who played Jamie, Kelsey [who played Monica]. We were a family and we miss them very much. So the more we can get back in, that’s what we’re fighting for, Cole and I. Where we get our wishes, we would love to have as many back in our world.
Reilly: I think that happened before our show started in a story world. I imagine Beth and Rip had gone to Monica’s [funeral]. There has been some connection, and our story started after that. [Because of] the time thing, we didn’t see it in our story, but I would absolutely imagine that there’ll be some checking in on her brother, and we just didn’t see it this year. I think it’s something that was a missed opportunity, quite honestly, but we’re all both trying to start up these big shows. And I think we can see where there are gaps, and we see where things need to be fixed.
That’s what you get the opportunity to do in a Season 2. You get to go back and go, OK, we can do this one differently. We can make this better. We can take care of that. And I think we already have our list of things in all our individual minds: Christina Voros, Taylor Sheridan, our producers, our new showrunner [Cavell]. So I’m looking forward to getting into that, and so we can make the best show we can.
Hauser: It’d be fun to see actually Kayce and Rip get along, have a scene where they’re actually happy together.
Reilly: Yeah!
Hauser: I would absolutely love to see that and see it written and actually have some fun with him in some capacity.
Reilly: I’d like Teeter to come back. That’s who I would like. She’s from Texas. Jen Landon, she’s one of my favorite people in the world to work with, and I’d love her to come back and play. We don’t get to make those decisions. There are people way above our who get to choose that, but we can definitely voice them and see if they think it’s a good idea. But if the fans want it, they should probably say so.
Dutton Ranch, Season 1 Available Now, Paramount+, Season 2 TBA