“Yellowstone” star Kelly Reilly isn’t so sure Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) are going to end up together when the show returns for its final run of episodes.
The British actor has been portraying the only daughter of Montana cattle rancher-turned-governor John Dutton (Kevin Costner) in the Paramount Network drama since it debuted in 2018.
In a featurette clip that appears on the Blu-ray and DVD release of “Yellowstone” season five, part one, Reilly spoke about where she sees her character’s storyline going, and cast doubt on Beth and Rip’s future together.
The interview was conducted before it was announced that season five would be the show’s very last.
“Beth is haunted by her past,” she said. “She has a lot of regrets and she has a lot of secrets that he doesn’t know.”
“So there is something that is under the surface that will one day, I’m sure, come, and she’s probably certain that she will lose him,” Reilly added.
After several seasons of will-they-won’t-they, the fan-favorite couple tied the knot in an impromptu ceremony in the season four finale, overseen by a priest Beth accosted at gunpoint, her father, and the motley crew of ranch hands that live and work with them.
Reilly said that despite the couple starting afresh with their marriage, Beth hasn’t been able to shake some of the darker moments from their shared past.
“In this season, you see that she is waking up in the night, constantly having bad dreams, constantly thinking about how she treated him, how she was with him, some of the decisions she made,” she said.
Reilly added that Beth feels “immense guilt” over the fact that she will never be able to give Rip biological children, following the reveal that her adopted brother, Jamie (Wes Bentley), had a doctor give her a hysterectomy when she became pregnant as a teenager, leaving her infertile for the rest of her life.
“She cannot switch that part of herself off,” Reilly said, adding that “there’s a tremendous sadness in that.”
Reilly predicted that this storyline is “coming home to roost,” and that Rip discovering this secret could have dire consequences for not only Jamie, but his and Beth’s relationship too.
“He doesn’t know any of that, and she’s protecting him,” she said. “So there’s a weighted burden in her heart that she cannot share with him. He’s trying to reassure her and love her, but he doesn’t know the truth.”
Reilly also spoke about her and Hauser’s on-screen chemistry, which she credited to the solid foundation of friendship that exists between the two of them.
“Cole and I have such tremendous respect for each other,” she said. “We’re each other’s champions as well. We support each other, we’re honest with each other, we can have a real laugh with each other, we make fun of each other.”
“Like, it’s a genuine warmth between us which you can’t fabricate and the characters are written so beautifully. ”
She added: “If Cole didn’t play Rip with as much love for Beth, I don’t know if the audience would love her as much. You see her softer side through him and it allows her to be vulnerable so it gives me a really beautiful playground to explore.”