Despite all the success and acclaim that Yellowstone has had throughout its run, its fifth and seemingly final season has been an unusual affair. With all the behind-the-scenes drama, along with several other contributing factors, the show is currently on hiatus, but the second half of Season 5 is still scheduled to premiere later in the year. In the meantime, there are still plenty of unanswered questions that the fans are desperate to have answers to. It turns out that a few of these unanswered questions extend to one of its supporting characters: the loyal Yellowstone ranch hand, Lloyd.
Throughout the show, Lloyd has displayed many qualities that have turned him into such a fan-favorite character. As the series has progressed, his role in its story has gotten even bigger and more integral. Especially as of recently, he’s been through some pretty tough times that have even threatened his life at several points. As of now, Lloyd’s future is uncertain, and with the show nearing its end, there are plenty of different ways that it could go about concluding its journey. But how exactly has that journey unfolded, and where has it left him as of the end of Season 5’s first half?
What is Lloyd’s Story in Yellowstone?
Introduced in Season 1, Lloyd is a middle-aged man who has served as one of the ranch hands on the Dutton Family’s titular Yellowstone Ranch for several years. Like most of the other ranch hands, he also bears the mark of the Yellowstone brand, indicating that he also harbors a criminal past and has traded a lifetime of service to the Dutton family and their property for protection from the law. Throughout the show’s first two seasons, his role was a relatively small one. Both his participation in the overall story and his given lines of dialogue were extremely limited, but the brief interactions that did occur between him and the Dutton family showed his loyalty and commitment to them. There was also the wholesomeness of the friendship between him and Rip, as well as the father-son-like dynamic between him and fellow ranch hand Jimmy, which the fans also grew to love watching.
As brief as some of these moments were, and while they didn’t have much impact on the overall main story of Yellowstone, they did reveal that there was more to his character and helped to make him the fan-favorite he became. His role in the show has been that of a mentor figure to the lesser characters, one who shows them the ropes and hopes they follow through. His role was expanded a bit in Season 3 when he gained a love interest through barrel racer, Laramie, but it was within Season 4 that he truly became a much more realized and fleshed-out character.
Season 4 of Yellowstone Gave Lloyd More Time To Shine
In Season 4, viewers got to see a bit more development and complexity from Lloyd’s character, as he was even given his own little story arc that lasted several episodes. The already bitter rivalry between Lloyd and Walker, one of the other ranch hands at Yellowstone, reached a new level of animosity after Laramie abandoned the romance she had with the former in favor of a more serious relationship with the latter. The tension between the two finally came to a boiling point when Lloyd smashed Walker’s guitar and even threw a knife in his chest (barely missing the heart) after being challenged to a fight.
As the result of the two hands having broken the rule of “no fighting in the bunkhouse”, both John and Rip forced them to settle their situation by making them fight to exhaustion over several hours. However, even though Lloyd emerged as the fight’s victor, Rip still felt that Lloyd needed to be taught a lesson for all of his behavior; his method of doing so was by jumping him and practically beating him to a pulp. Despite the severe emotional and physical beatings that Lloyd endured, it had little to no effect on his friendship with Rip, and both he and Walker mutually agreed to finally settle their differences.
Will Lloyd Die By The End of Yellowstone?
With the show currently in its final season, and still on hiatus, there are several ways that the show could go about in its final episodes. Although he survived and has fully recovered from the slight possibility of his death in his Season 4 story arc, the fans may not want to make any assumptions about Lloyd’s well-being going forward. Yellowstone has proven time and time again that it is not afraid of killing off characters for the sake of its story, no matter how beloved they may be or how big of a role they have in the series. This could mean that perhaps killing Lloyd off for good at some point in the remaining episodes would not be entirely out of the realm of possibility.
As of right now, Lloyd is alive and well and the fans are hoping that it will stay that way. However, the possibility of his death is even greater compared to that of the show’s main cast, given his status as a recurring supporting character, which makes him quite expendable. Unfortunately, nothing is completely off the table when it comes to the fate of a character like Lloyd, and the fans are just going to have to wait and see what exactly the show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan, has in store for him.
What Else Has Lloyd’s Actor, Forrie J. Smith, Been In?
As a native Montanan with an extensive background and experience of wrangling and rodeo riding, the character of Lloyd in a series like Yellowstone feels like a completely natural fit for actor Forrie J. Smith. While his role as Lloyd has been perhaps the biggest one of his career so far, it turns out that the actor has a few other credits in his filmography that are quite impressive, going as far back as over thirty years. While the magic of movie-making will make it borderline impossible to spot him, one of his first major involvements with Hollywood came in 1988, when he got a job doing stunt work for Rambo III. Most of his credits are comprised of small roles in several forgotten made-for-TV western movies, but some may be able to recognize him in perhaps one of the best theatrical westerns ever made.
Seeing how it’s a non-speaking part, he’s incredibly easy to miss, but he can also be seen among the ensemble of the Clanton gang in the 1993 classic, Tombstone. Fans of the Breaking Bad franchise may also remember him from a 2017 guest appearance in the first episode of Better Call Saul’s third season. With Yellowstone nearing its end, and the fate of Lloyd’s character still facing uncertainty, it’s unknown what the future may hold for Forrie J. Smith’s acting career. But given the popularity of the show itself, along with just how much of his experience as a real-life cowboy that he’s brought to his role, he certainly has a more distinct edge to his career than ever, and it may just work to his advantage should he ever be given opportunities to play larger roles in other western projects.