[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2.]
“Cigarettes, whiskey, a meadow…” and Rip Wheeler. These are a few of Beth Dutton’s favorite things. The Yellowstone firecracker has long been a series favorite thanks to her unique blend of vicious ferocity and undying passion. With Yellowstone in its final stretch (Season 5 Part 2 is said to be the final season), Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser‘s days as Beth and Rip are numbered. However, the show is still packing a romantic punch for this beloved couple, who are currently seen in two timelines as the show jumps between the weeks before John Dutton’s death and the immediate aftermath.
The Texas timeline has produced some memorable new Beth lines as she visits her man on the Four Sixes ranch. In Season 5 Episode 10, which aired on Sunday, November 17, on Paramount Network, Beth showed up unannounced in Texas for a surprise reunion with Rip.
“Oof, baby, you need a bath!” she tells her cowboy, who replies, “How the hell you find me here?” She “put a tag” in his wallet, aka a GPS tracker, so she can always keep tabs on his location. Beth jokes that it’s in case “he wandered off with some cowgirl,” so she “could find you, kill her, then castrate you.” She then adds, “I can’t help it, I’m a romantic.”
Season 5 Part 2 doesn’t have much time for romance as Beth and Rip are consumed with avenging John. But there are hopefully some lighter moments to come before all is said and done. Here, we reflect on Beth’s most romantic lines to Rip throughout the series, including the most recent installments. She may have a fiery way of showing her love, but you can never accuse Beth of not feeling her feelings to the fullest extent.
“It’s only the things I love that die, Rip, never me. … Come to think of it, I’m surprised you’re still standing.” (Season 1 Episode 2)
Beth’s love for Rip has been clear since day one. While they weren’t close to getting married when the series began, their long history was apparent from their very first scenes together. This line is dark in nature, but it’s a sneaky confession of love that shows she’s not afraid to put her cards on the table.
“Don’t say it. It doesn’t mean anything on a roof, under stars, like a bunch of f***ing hippies. You tell me… Tell me when it saves me.” (Season 2 Episode 7)
Beth and Rip have finally come together for good at this point, but despite years of longing for each other, they’ve never actually said, “I love you.” Rip is seconds away from saying it while they’re sitting on the roof of his Yellowstone cabin under the cover of the starry night sky. Anyone else would find this to be the most romantic moment imaginable to confess their love but not Beth. Her feelings are too big and all-consuming for a simple declaration on a date night. She tells Rip to say “I love you” for the first time when it’s also paired with a deep act of love. Actions speak louder than words, after all. He follows her directions and says “I love you” to Beth when she really needs it, after she’s assaulted by two men and in dire need of saving.
“Yeah, baby, he did [call you his son].” (Season 2 Episode 10)
When John calls Rip “son” for the very first time, Beth reassures her beau that he’s hearing things correctly. This isn’t a romantic moment between Beth and Rip, but it’s romantic in nature. It shows how much Beth knows that this moment means everything to him, and it’s special to her as well. John’s approval and love is something they both value more than anything, and Beth’s love for Rip radiates in this short but important moment of recognition from the family patriarch.
“[The ring] means that you have me, that I’m yours. It means, ‘Come live your life with me.’ The only thing I ask is that you outlive me so that I never have to live another day without you.” (Season 3 Episode 7)
Beth and Rip’s engagement was destined to be unconventional. Rip tells Beth that the only gift he ever wanted was her. After Beth says the line above, Rip brings up that there’s no legal evidence that he exists (he’s been off the grid since killing his abusive father as a teen, shielded by John and the ranch). Beth doesn’t care about the “contract” that is a marriage license. The romance continues with what she says next.
“Marriage, to me, is, you take me in front of those mountains, in front of my family, my friends,” she tells him. “I don’t have any friends, but should I make one, you would stand in front of them and you would tell them that there is no more you and I. There is only us.”
“I can do that,” Rip says as his yes.
“I believe in loving with your whole soul, and destroying anything that wants to kill what you love. That’s it. That’s all there is.” (Season 3 Episode 10)
The engaged couple proves they’re a perfect match with these lines in the Season 3 finale. When Beth explains her idea of what love is, Rip replies, “I believe in the same thing.”
“I want a place with no memories, you know? A place where nothing happened until we happened.” (Season 4 Episode 6)
Beth may not love the ranch like others in her family, but she has a very romantic perspective on her connection to the land. When planning her wedding with Rip, Beth says she wants to exchange their vows on a piece of the family land where no Duttons have ever tread. That’s not an impossible find, given how much land they own. For their wedding day, she wants nothing less than to christen that land with their union.
“F**k yes, I do.” (Season 4 Episode 10)
Life has other plans for their nuptials, however. Beth and Rip get married right on the front lawn of John’s house on the ranch, the childhood home of all the Montana Duttons who came before them. They have to plan a speedy ceremony, and Beth has to kidnap a priest to make it happen amid fears she’s about to go to prison for the rest of her life. After Rip delivers his lengthy vows, recited first by the priest but with his own added twist (he promises to love her even after his death), Beth can’t help but speed things up. This quick vow isn’t out of fear of impending imprisonment but rather her excitement to finally be married to Rip.
This wasn’t the big, picturesque wedding John wanted for his daughter, but it was perfectly in character for this couple.
“I could do this. I could live here and never see another person in my whole life except you … I don’t need anything else. Cigarettes, whiskey, a meadow, and you … Three things that make me feel good in the perfect meadow. I don’t need anything else, do you? All right, you can have a horse.” (Season 5 Episode 6)
While out on a days-long excursion on the Dutton land to wrangle cattle, Rip reveals the untouched patch of land he’s planning to use for their big wedding. He leads Beth there just after she says she isn’t impressed by the massive mountain view on their family land. The scope of it is too large for her to comprehend, Beth says. She finds beauty in the smaller things, like a meadow. When Rip takes her to the perfect meadow, he tops off the experience with a secret stash of whiskey and cigarettes.
Beth says that “cigarettes, whiskey, a meadow, and you” are all she needs to feel fulfilled, which may be surprising coming from a woman who loves money and finer things like luxury cars and furs. She likes those things, sure, but all she needs to feel complete are a couple of things that make her “feel good,” plus the love of her life to share them with. This is Beth’s most romantic quote of the entire series, if you ask me. In the very next episode, she calls Rip “the mirror to [her] soul,” saying that marriage to him is “pretty f***ing great.”