[This story contains spoilers from the second episode of season 5B of Yellowstone.]
Add the latest episode of Yellowstone to the list of epic confrontations between Beth and Jamie Dutton.
The sibling rivalry at the core of the hit Paramount Network series from Taylor Sheridan has delivered some of the biggest gut-punches throughout the show’s seven-year run, particularly when the audience found out that when they were teenagers, Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentely) helped a young Beth (Kelly Reilly) get an abortion at a clinic that performed forced sterilizations without her permission. For Beth, that betrayal was unforgivable and it drives her rage in what has been billed as the epic conclusion of the series with season 5B.
In the second episode of 5B, written by Sheridan and directed by Christina Voros, Yellowstone delivered on the pair’s inevitable face-to-face meeting following the shocking news of the death of their father, John Dutton (played by departed star Kevin Costner). The premiere episode revealed to the audience that Jamie and his girlfriend Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) were behind the act in a murder-for-hire plot that made John’s death appear to be from suicide. Beth and the characters in the show are not yet privy to this information, but Beth knows in her gut that Jamie orchestrated their father’s death and she needed to be alone with Jamie in a room to get her confirmation.
“I was reading Twitter and it’s strange the number of people who seemed upset that John Dutton was killed off, despite knowing that Kevin [Costner] himself said he wasn’t coming back to the show,” Voros tells The Hollywood Reporter in the chat below about star Costner leaving the series between seasons 5A and 5B. “There were a lot of people who were outraged that John was killed — and you’re supposed to be outraged he was killed. The characters are outraged that he’s killed. So in a strange way, it is the point. You are not supposed to be OK with it.”
Beth’s rage leads her to slap Jamie across the face — three times — and physically bulldoze over Sarah on her way out of her brother’s government office. She calls her other brother, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), and tells him what happened, and it now seems inevitable that the siblings will begin to seek their vengeance on their estranged brother Jamie, who also happens to be Montana’s Attorney General.
Below, Voros goes behind-the-scenes of filming this second episode to talk about that face-off fight between Wes Bentley and Kelly Reilly, dig into Jamie’s motivations and possible chess moves as he takes on his family, respond to the audience reaction to the massive Yellowstone premiere — as well as Costner’s reaction — and remind viewers what this show is really about (it’s not just about solving the mystery around John Dutton’s death).
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First of all, have you been keeping up with the audience reaction to the Yellowstone premiere?
I have. I’m interested. The reaction is what I expected. I think any time you come to a final season of a beloved show, historically, you are going to get a mixed reaction. You’re going to have the people who love it down to the last drop, and you’re going to have the people who hate that it’s ending. [Editor’s note: A sixth season of Yellowstone is in talks; but season 5B was announced to be the end.] Everyone who has fallen in love with this show has their own ideas on their favorite characters and how they want it to end. It’s impossible to live up to every single person’s version of how things should have been dealt with.
I was reading Twitter and it’s strange the number of people who seemed upset that John Dutton was killed off, despite knowing that Kevin [Costner] himself said he wasn’t coming back to the show. I think even in the face of that information, people don’t want it to be true. And in a weird way, it’s life imitating art. There were a lot of people who were outraged that John was killed — and you’re supposed to be outraged he was killed. The characters are outraged that he’s killed. So in a strange way, it is the point. You are not supposed to be OK with it.
We spoke last week about how I thought it was a bold decision to approach a story that way, and to deal with [John’s fate] right off the bat. What I look forward to is seeing the response as the season goes on, because that’s where it gets complicated and nuanced and beautiful without the impact of this big chess move at the top of the season. But, the story is not over. You still have the rest of the season and no one knows, really, where that’s going now. A lot of people expected the season to resolve in finding out that John is no longer with us. But when you go there first it’s disorienting: Where are we gonna go next?
Kevin Costner reacted to the premiere; he said he heard his character’s death was by suicide, so he hasn’t rushed to watch the episode yet. “Maybe it’s a red herring. Who knows?” he said. Do you hope he tunes into these final episodes to see how John Dutton’s legacy is handled?
I do. I think he will. We really have built a family over the years. As the Duttons are a family, so are the actors playing them. We have built a story together over seven years of filming from start to finish. I would like to think that he would want to know what the resolution is, not just for him, but for everyone.
The episode was the biggest ever in the ratings for the show. What do you attribute to that?
There has been so much build up. It was such a long hiatus because of the strike. I ran into a number of friends who were confused that it wasn’t on Paramount+, so I actually think that when they do the Live+3 and Live+7 [delayed data] that the ratings will be higher, because there are a bunch of people who took a day or two to catch up. But I’m not surprised. Every season has sort of been a blockbuster explosion of numbers from the season before and because this is the final season, it doesn’t surprise me because you have the time for more viewers to catch up. It’s sort of what happened during COVID; all these viewers discovered the show because they had the time to discover new shows. Going into the season following that, so many more people were following the narrative because they discovered it in that period of time. So I would have been shocked if it was the inverse of that.
I want to dive into filming this episode’s big confrontation scene between Jamie and Beth Dutton [played by Wes Bentley and Kelly Reilly]. I loved Jamie’s surprise that Beth was in his office, because I had the same thought: “Oh, we’re going there; she’s here!” The show answered John Dutton’s fate right out of the gate, and now in week two you get to Beth and Jamie’s first face-off. Why get to this so quickly in the present timeline?
When I get questions about the writing it’s hard because I can’t speak to how Taylor [Sheridan] spins his magic with these scripts. I have no idea how the stories come out of his brain as the well-wrought, infinitely nuanced things they are, considering how many stories he’s telling at a time now. He’s a unicorn; it’s a mystery to me.
But in terms of my feeling about how it serves the narrative, it feels like part of the same approach [as the premiere]. The sooner you get to the inevitable confrontations, the more time there is to complicate and reveal things that aren’t expected. After the first episode, everyone knows there has to be a confrontation with Beth and Jamie; it’s inevitable. So that’s where you go next but, where do you go after that? And I think what’s beautiful about how the season builds is that by answering these questions early on, it leaves a lot more up in the air to wonder about moving down the line.
How many times did you film Beth slapping Jamie, and can you talk about the stunt work there?
Our stunt coordinators on the show are unbelievable: Jason Rodriguez and Jordan Warrack, who works with him, have been with this cast since season one. They are in really good hands in terms of the training to sell that stuff. From a production standpoint, you always have stunt doubles on hand to keep the actors safe, but I would say 98 percent of the time the actors are doing the work themselves. And so it’s a combination of having a great stunt team supervising and the actors taking the initiative to really sell slaps and punches and falls themselves. They’ve been honing that. There has been a lot of physicality in the show. We have not been easy on the cast in terms of what’s been asked from them physically, and every single one of them has risen to the occasion and typically wants to do it themselves.
So that was Wes and Kelly doing the slap stunts?
Yes. Source link
