As one of the most-watched shows on television, Yellowstone has a lot of fans. They can be intense.
To the dismay of many longtime viewers, Kevin Costner, who plays Yellowstone’s main character and patriarch John Dutton, left the series to focus on his self-funded western film series, Horizon, following scheduling issues. The show, which follows John’s battle to protect his family ranch against developers and other outsiders, is back for the second half of its final season after an extended hiatus.
Wes Bentley, who plays John’s adopted son, Jamie, knows his character appears to be the show’s main villain as it reaches its end. Fans don’t always see him that way, though, he said.
“There’s a segment of fans I meet who see Jamie as a protagonist and his family as the antagonist,” he told Yahoo Entertainment. “He’s definitely the villain for most people, who see John and his vision of the ranch as being valid.”
John’s main goal over the course of the show has been to retain and protect his family’s ownership of Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, the largest contiguous cattle ranch in the United States. Jamie, a lawyer and who eventually becomes the attorney general of Montana when John is elected governor, is more receptive to selling the ranch, open to progress and and eager to gain political power.
Bentley said he struggled to “let Jamie go” in the two years he waited between filming new episodes, which was tough because Jamie is “not a pleasant person to be around.”
“[Jamie is] such an unstable guy because [he’s] not really anything. He doesn’t know who he is and he doesn’t know what he really wants,” Bentley explained. “He’s an intense guy and every scene is an intense scene.”
He appreciates how his interactions with Yellowstone fans help him process his character.
“It’s an enthusiastic fan base that isn’t like, rabid or crazy or anything,” he said. “They really just want to talk about the show. For me, it’s a lot of therapy talk — what’s wrong with Jamie? Why can’t we fix him?”
Bentley teased that at the top of Season 5B, Jamie is going up against his sister Beth and his father.
“They’re willing to go as far as they can to stop Jamie, and Jamie’s also always up against himself because he’s a self-saboteur,” he said. “He messes up a lot. So there’s a lot of things that can go wrong just from Jamie trying anything.”
Many fans consider Beth Dutton, John’s financially savvy but chaotic daughter, their favorite character, and her relationship with Rip Wheeler to be a highlight of the show. Kelly Reilly, the actress who plays Beth, told Yahoo Entertainment that isn’t the case for everyone.
“There are some people who love Beth, and there are some people who can’t stand her and would like to see Rip with anybody but her,” Reilly said. She considers showrunner Taylor Sheridan’s writing to be the reason so many fans have strong opinions about Beth and Rip.
Cole Hauser, who plays Dutton family’s fixer Rip, told Yahoo Entertainment he thinks most audiences see “how beautiful they are to each other.”
“[Playing] those scenes with Kelly — whether it’s sitting on the porch in the morning in my cabin or sitting on the roof looking at the stars — there’s such romance in those scenes,” Hauser said.
“It feels like a fantasy. So I think people have just let into that love story and it feels good,” Reilly added.
Beth will be up against “everything and everyone and herself” this season, Reilly said. She’s scrambling to protect her father from Jamie and to keep the ranch afloat financially as Rip heads off to Texas to save their cattle.
“I won’t give it away, but there’s a pretty amazing scene where [Beth] comes down and surprises [Rip], to say the least,” Hauser said. “I don’t think the audience really understands what they’re in for.”
Luke Grimes and Kelsey Asbille, who play the tough and complex rancher-turned-livestock commissioner Kayce Dutton and his wife Monica, also told Yahoo Entertainment that their characters will have a lot going on this season.
“[Kayce] definitely has to make some decisions finally,” Grimes said. “He’s been trapped in this place of, ‘I don’t know what to do’ … so he has make up his mind and go for it.”
As for Monica, Asbille says she’s been up against “the Dutton ranch for five seasons now,” but she’s “finally moving forward.”
The show might be ending, but it’s changed Grimes’s life in more ways than one. The actor fell in love with Montana while filming and moved there with his wife.
“It’s an amazing place. They call it the ‘last best place,’ but I don’t want to do an ad for it because people in Montana would get mad at me. They don’t want other people moving there,” he joked. “Don’t move there. It’s terrible. Montana sucks.”
“There’s no train station, though,” Grimes added, referencing the Dutton family’s code for the place where they dispose of bodies. “You would definitely go to jail if you killed people.”
Yellowstone Season 5, Part 2 premieres Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. ET on Paramount Network and 10 p.m. ET on CBS.