Kelly Reilly’s Beth Dutton is one of the most recognizable figures from the hit neo-Western series Yellowstone, but she’s got a darkness to her. Having been brought back home to Montana by family patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) to defend the ranch from encroaching forces, Beth has too often poked the wrong bear, and it’s cost her. Over the years, Beth’s body has been beaten, bruised, and burned, but there’s more to her list of ever-growing scars than we see on the surface. After all, not everything is skin deep.
Beth Dutton Has Become Increasingly Scarred Over the Years on ‘Yellowstone’
There’s no denying that Beth has often had it rough on Yellowstone. Barring her rough upbringing and some of the horrors that went with that, the Dutton heiress has had her fair share of scrapes over the years. One of the most notable occurred in the show’s second season when the Beck brothers sent a group of men to her office at Schwartz & Meyer to put the fear of God into her (“Resurrection Day”). After being tortured for what seemed like an eternity, Rip (Cole Hauser) eventually comes to her rescue, and it’s at this moment, full of blood, guts, and lots of outstanding make-up effects, that Rip confesses his love to her.
Of course, that’s not the only bloody makeover that Beth has undergone. Possibly her worst came from the Season 3 finale “The World Is Purple,” an apt title for an episode that ends with most of the Duttons bloody and bruised. In the episode’s final moments, Beth is sent a mysterious package that blows up when her assistant opens it, completely decimating her office. After losing two assistants in two years, Beth somehow manages to survive the explosion, and wanders the streets of Bozeman in the Season 4 premiere, completely covered in burns (“Half the Money”).
Few characters on Yellowstone are put through the same amount of physical trauma that Beth has gone through. Throughout the entire fourth season and well into the fifth, Beth has continued to wear the marks of her near-death experience, even as they continue to heal. Some scars, like those that cover her back, won’t ever fully go away, and that’s part of what makes this Dutton’s story so relatable and compelling.
‘Yellowstone’s Makeup Artist Says Beth’s Scars Run Deeper Than We Think
According to Yellowstone makeup artist Abigail Steele, Beth’s scars have become some of her favorite pieces to work on, with each of them pointing back to a distinct moment on the show. One piece in particular delights Steele the most though, that being the scar just under Beth’s left eye. “It had to be slight enough that even with the nuance of her expression, that it would move with her face like a real scar would,” she explained in a special feature on the show’s YouTube channel. “And it was one of my favorite pieces because she wore it through the whole season.”
“She should not have survived,” Kelly Reilly explained about Beth’s life post-explosion. “She walks out of that building burned from top to toe, covered in blood.” As Beth comes to terms with her life and what it has become, she takes the entirety of Season 4 to heal, and not just physically. Throughout the season, she and Rip move towards tying the knot, and she even becomes something of a surrogate mother to Carter (Finn Little), which allows her to overcome some of the emotional trauma from her youth at not being able to have children of her own. “This scar tells a story,” Steele explains. “That the pain she bore still remains on the outside.”
In many ways, Beth’s ever-growing collection of scars points back to the character’s own struggles throughout her life. The more we learn about Beth on the show, such as her sterilization as a teenager as seen via flashbacks in Season 3, the more we begin to understand why Beth is the way she is. In a very literal way, these scars, which appear not long after we learn all this, are a direct representation of what Beth has been keeping hidden inside all these years, and now they’ve found their way to the surface. After all, it was Jamie’s (Wes Bentley) biological father who was behind the bombing in the first place.
Beth Dutton Has Gone Through a Lot on ‘Yellowstone,’ and the Story Isn’t Over Yet
Of course, despite all that Beth has gone through, it doesn’t exactly justify her actions or behavior. The Dutton heiress is one of the most ruthless characters on the show, with very few soft spots in her at all. No wonder Yellowstone has been compared to mafia movies in the past. The character archetypes certainly fit, and in many ways, it seems like Taylor Sheridan is prepping Beth to be the eventual face of the Dutton family after Kevin Costner’s — er, John Dutton’s eventual departure, taking over the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch as her own.
“There’s such dignity in Beth,” Kelly Reilly explains in the special feature. “She doesn’t really talk about what happened to her.” Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, one thing is clear, Beth tries to forget about the past so she can focus on the future. “We saw in Season 2 how much of a survivor she is, and for Season 3 [she] still has the bruises, so they sort of start to fade throughout the show,” the actress continues. “But it’s the emotional scars that take a longer time to hear.” Even in Season 5, Beth continues to wear some of those scars, reminding us that no matter how quickly they seem to heal, there’s a lot of inward healing that the Dutton powerhouse still needs to go through.
While Yellowstone is set to end with its fifth and final season, a spin-off has been announced, titled 2024. Whatever occurs in this series, Beth will likely continue fighting for her family and preserving the cattle empire that her father has built. How it all will play out remains a mystery, but, at least for now, the deeper meaning behind Beth’s physical and emotional scars has been brought to the surface.
Yellowstone is available for streaming exclusively on Peacock.