As fans await the debut of Season 5 of Paramount Network’s most-watched series, “Yellowstone,” it’s safe to say that one of the show’s most polarizing figures, Kelly Reilly’s Beth Dutton, has had her fair share of intense, important storylines compared to the other characters.
John Dutton (Kevin Costner) may be the central family’s patriarch, but it’s his emotionally volatile daughter who owns the better part of the show’s focus, particularly in Season 4. Though her exceedingly one-dimensional villain, femme fatale act turns many viewers off (“she’s becoming a caricature of a caricature,” wrote u/elizanacat on the series subreddit), the more nuanced depiction of Beth’s character in early seasons allows her at least a few moments of admiration.
However, for every moment of shining heroism she enjoys, there are at least two “Beth Dutton being Beth Dutton” moments that would make even the most neutral viewer flinch, if not downright cringe. One of these moments — perhaps as a means of balancing out her more triumphant scenes in the storyline — takes place in Season 2, Episode 7, “Resurrection Day.” While the Duttons may be big believers in the idea that actions speak louder than words, Beth’s worst act from the season comes entirely in the form of the latter.
Beth encourages Jamie to harm himself
In Season 2, Wes Bentley’s Jamie Dutton gets himself in over his head when he impulsively murders a reporter to whom he previously reveals some seriously dark secrets about his father. Jamie certainly has his reasons for turning on the abusive John Dutton, but that he murders an innocent person in a panicked effort to save himself from his father is, on every level, unforgivable. That being said, it’s what his sister Beth does when he approaches her for help that is her worst moment throughout all of Season 2.
After berating a visibly traumatized Jamie for several minutes and telling him that his father (whose approval is the most important thing to Jamie) sees him the same way she does, Beth uses her momentum to attempt to push him even further. She then encourages her brother to harm himself, telling him that her advice “comes from a place of love.” That she pretends her abusive recommendation is from the heart at a time when Jamie is in such desperate need of actual help makes her statement all the more despicable.
What’s more, this isn’t merely an angry sister saying something she’ll later regret. When Jamie takes her advice and nearly dies by suicide later in the episode, Beth tells her father to “give [her] a week,” and she’ll have him carrying through with it. It’s a devastating moment to watch, and one that serves only to reiterate that Beth’s hatred for her brother (a hatred viewers have yet, in Season 2, to understand) seemingly knows no bounds.