Is there a modern Western protagonist out there quite as controversial as Kelly Reilly’s Beth Dutton? It’s easy to see why the Yellowstone icon would make waves with fan groups and audiences everywhere. Some love her, some hate her, and just about everyone can acknowledge that she’s the most destructive of the Dutton clan. But is all the hate towards Beth warranted? After all, her brother Jamie (Wes Bentley) isn’t too great a guy either. But we’re not talking about Jamie this time around; this time it’s Beth’s turn to undergo the spotlight as we uncover just why folks can’t stand the Dutton heiress.
Some of the Hate Towards Beth Dutton Is Warranted
The truth is that Beth Dutton is not a good person. That’s not exactly news for folks who’ve been with Yellowstone since the beginning, but it’s a truth that apparently needs repeating. Beth doesn’t care much for anyone outside herself and occasionally her inner circle, and often puts well-meaning and unsuspecting people to open shame. She has no qualms about ruining the lives of those who might oppose her (even if they never insulted her personally) and takes no prisoners when it comes to business negotiations or personal attacks. Lashing out is her default setting, and she offers no apologies.
Beth is one of those characters that you might think will grow and change over the course of a series, becoming more softened and stable after undergoing new milestones in life, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The longer Yellowstone goes on, the more “badass Beth” moments we’re subjugated to. Yes, the quotation marks were intentional there, since these overplayed and overblown scenes have grown to become anything but “badass.” These moments seem as if the entire episode is centered around them, constructed to lead to a breakout monologue for Beth, who just rails at whoever gets in her way. It’s tiresome, and Yellowstone only suffers for it.
Speaking of unnecessary outbursts, how many scenes of Beth losing it at the Dutton dinner table have we watched? At this point, most of the scenes that take place in that part of the Dutton homestead end in disaster, and nine times out of ten it’s because Beth selfishly can’t handle sitting together as a family. That, or she just wants to make a scene, something patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) has to consistently call her out on (though never actually does anything about). It must not be easy being the heir to a multimillion-dollar cattle empire, after all.
Beth Dutton’s Abrasive Personality Hides a Vulnerable Interior
What has attracted most people to Beth Dutton––who we should note is played to perfection by Kelly Reilly, an exceptional actress who doesn’t deserve hate for playing an oftentimes insufferable character––is her brash and often inflammatory vocabulary that seeks to humiliate and misjudge her opponents under the guise of “speaking her mind.” What it really is, is an excuse for the Dutton businesswoman to cut loose and push away anyone who might attempt to get close to her. This, among plenty of other examples, only reveals how emotionally insecure Beth truly is, and while the earlier years of the show used these moments and lines to emphasize that Beth isn’t a character to be messed with, the increasing volume of “Beth blow-ups” has almost shown the opposite.
Between literal fist-fights with her father’s latest squeeze, Summer Higgins (Piper Perabo), an inability to forge a genuine relationship with her nephew, Tate (Brecken Merrill), and the forever childish hatred and rivalry that she and Jamie share, it’s clear that Beth is not okay. There’s no denying that Beth had a tough childhood. Her mother was needlessly tough on her, and her sterilization as a teenager no doubt has had a profound effect on her life, but Beth’s lack of personal responsibility or accountability only contributes further to her unbalanced nature. Heck, John forgave her for getting Summer arrested only an episode later, the same episode in which she forcibly kidnaps a priest for her wedding.
Thankfully for Beth, those insults and tantrums don’t work on everyone, otherwise she might run the risk of being alone for all time. After all this time, Rip (Cole Hauser) still agrees to marry her, and the two of them have a largely functional (though occasionally one-sided) relationship that has granted an illusion of development for the character. Unfortunately, it’s all smoke and mirrors. Despite being an “honest woman,” Beth is not much different now in Season 5 as she was in Season 1. Barring her marriage to Rip, she still acts like the same privileged (and often unhinged) Dutton child she’s been nearly her whole life.
Growth Isn’t a Priority for Most Characters on ‘Yellowstone’
At the end of Season 3, Beth tells Rip that she doesn’t believe in good and evil, she only believes that you need to fight hard for the things you love. Given her morally grey stance, it’s understandable that Beth would live her life the way she does. With not much care for anyone but herself and Rip at this point (and you could arguably put one or two other Duttons in there as well), Beth will do everything she can to win, no matter who she hurts in the process.
For multiple seasons now, we’ve watched Beth and Jamie hash it out with each other, both getting the upper hand at times, only to have the rug pulled out from under them again. It’s exhausting, and what’s worse is that it seems as if this conflict will never end. Season 3 revealed the origins of their longstanding (and incredibly soapy) hatred towards one another, largely in an attempt to make Beth more sympathetic. For the most part, that actually worked, and it was a development that helped us better understand where Beth was coming from. But after five long years of Beth vs Jamie (decades in the show’s timeline), someone needs to come out on top. More than that, it’s time for that knowledge about Beth’s past to contribute to a lasting change that makes it all worth it.
Unfortunately, Yellowstone doesn’t exactly pride itself on consistent character development. For the most part, our heroes and villains remain the same throughout their time on the show, all the while flip-flopping on where it is they want to be. (How many times have Kayce and Monica gone back and forth about how “evil” the Dutton land is.) Some may argue that Yellowstone has overstayed its welcome, and they may be right, but the biggest issue that the Paramount Network giant struggles with is a serious lack of character development among its leads, and Beth leads that charge with flying colors.
Beth Dutton Isn’t All Bad, but She’s Not Far From “Evil”
To be fair, there was a moment there after nearly being blown up at the end of Season 3 where we thought that Beth might actually change. After meeting the young Carter (Finn Little), she––in her own twisted Beth way––took an interest in the boy’s life and became something of a surrogate mother to him. But in that time, she treated this kid pretty terribly, and even ostracized him for a while after he called her “mama.” Sure, she thought that she was about to head to jail without any opportunity to get back to him, but boy was that a tough moment to watch. By Season 5, it seems that everything has been straightened out, but it’s still an odd situation that has yet to fully be explored. Hopefully, the back half of the final season will elaborate.
It’s these parts of Beth, where she can be genuinely soft, that make us want more for the character. After all, if Beth Dutton can change and find happiness, then who isn’t there hope for? But every time series creator Taylor Sheridan gives us a new side of Beth, she always slides back into her usual routine, and has it ever gotten old. In the very first season, John Dutton makes a point to tell Jamie that the reason he called Beth to Montana from Salt Lake City is because she can be the one thing that he can’t: evil. In his own words, John describes his only daughter the way many viewers have seen her over the years, and it’s a word that’s stuck.
Of course, as we’ve noted before, Beth has grown at least a little throughout the show’s five seasons, despite constantly regressing to her childish ways. While some may argue that Beth deserves to inherit the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, the truth is that she’s got a long way to go before she “deserves” much of anything. With only so many episodes left of the original Yellowstone series, it’s hard to imagine that Beth will change all too much going forward, especially when you factor in her desire to kill Jamie once and for all. Though, stranger things have happened, and with the Yellowstone sequel 2024 coming soon, it’s possible that Beth will become the Dutton heir we’ve all been hoping she could be. Then again, the “badass Beth” crowd might not like that all too much.