Beth (Kelly Reilly) revealed in Season 3 Episode 5, “Cowboys and Dreamers,” that Jamie (Wes Bentley) committed an appalling act of betrayal when she was pregnant with Rip’s (Cole Hauser) child as a teenager. She went to her big brother for help to get an abortion, and he repaid her trust with a forced sterilization. He took her to Indian Health Services for the procedure. The staff told Jamie that when performing abortions, they were also required to sterilize the patient (forced sterilization is still legal in the U.S. today). Jamie agreed to this without telling Beth, and she didn’t learn until later. She never told Rip because she knew he would kill Jamie for it.
Beth has been holding that fact over Jamie’s head as leverage ever since. She told John (Kevin Costner) before he died, and it changed his already struggling relationship with Jamie for good. But Kayce (Luke Grimes) doesn’t know either. She is more than justified in her hatred for Jamie because of this, and those feelings have only deepened in the time since that bombshell reveal. Beth confronted Jamie about John’s death in the second episode of Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2, and while he didn’t actually kill the Dutton patriarch, he couldn’t deny his tangential, unwitting involvement and that he knew the death wasn’t a suicide. Beth is convinced that Jamie did it, and she promised to kill him herself the next time she saw him.
Beth threatened to tell Rip the truth about her inability to bear children in Season 5 Part 1. This served as blackmail to keep Jamie under her thumb, but now Beth wants to do the deed herself. Rip has killed plenty of people in this series, but Beth has kept away from doing this kind of dirty work. We could see a world where they kill him together. No matter how it shakes down, Beth, Rip, or Jamie dying because of this secret and John’s demise seems to be an inevitable end for this drama.
Ahead of the final season premiere, TV Insider asked Bentley if Rip will learn the truth this season. It’s “very possible,” Bentley confirmed. Beth telling Rip the truth is “the thing [Jamie] would be most afraid of,” he said, adding, “It seems like her biggest and best option [to kill him] would be Rip. That’s definitely a possibility coming up.”
The third of six episodes this season airs this Sunday, November 24 at 8/7c on Paramount Network, making this the official halfway mark of the final stretch. With the series finale on the horizon, we want to know when you want to see Rip learn the truth. There are a couple of options. He could find out soon, leaving time for the aftermath to play out. But you could argue that given how long this secret has been lingering, the narrative payoff would pack more of a punch if this major moment was saved for the last episode. The only option we don’t like is the possibility that Rip will never find out. That would be a massive disappointment if we never see him learn the truth after an entire series of buildup.
What do you think: Should Beth tell Rip the truth about Jamie before the series is up, or is this series finale material? Make your choice in the poll below, and if you have theories about how it could happen and the fallout, let us know in the comments section.
