What Yellowstone Fans Missed About Beth And Rip's Relationship
If you're a fan of "Yellowstone," then you already know that Beth Dutton (played by Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) are the show's cornerstone lovers who have to fight for everything if they want to have something together. Nothing about their origin story is easy. As viewers learn, the pair were fated from the moment they met, but a series of tragedies and challenges kept the two apart.
While just about every character on "Yellowstone" seems to have to face more hardship than they can bear, both Rip and Beth have had to contend with some pretty big demons. In a lot of ways, it's a miracle that the two managed to come together at all. That kind of powerful connection is what keeps viewers coming back over and over again.
Here are a few things regular "Yellowstone" viewers might think they already know about Beth and Rip, but that really have even more meaning than what's on the surface.
Beth and Rip's power dynamic was uneven at the beginning of the show
While Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler are definitely fan favorites, the fact stands that these two definitely had a huge imbalance in terms of who had more power early on in the relationship. As many "Yellowstone" fans know, the pair couldn't hail from more different backgrounds. As a child, Rip witnessed the deaths of both his mother and his brother at the hands of his father, and then killed his father himself ... which is what landed him at the ranch owned by Beth's father in the first place.
The fifth episode of Season 2, titled "Touching Your Enemy," really takes viewers deeper into the power dynamic between Beth and Rip as a result of these circumstances. As the daughter of the man who employs Rip, Beth is able to approach her future love interest with a degree of control that we don't always see from a woman toward a man she's interested in. When Beth outright tells Rip to kiss her, he wants to, but says he doesn't know how ... and then he does it anyway, because she told him to.
Beth and Rip's 'first date' wasn't really the first time they went out
The Season 1 episode "Kill the Messenger" features an evening shared by Beth and Rip that is pretty unusual. The pair are supposedly on their "first date," sitting in the back of Rip's truck, drinking whiskey, and eyeballing a pack of wolves as they devour the remains of a deer. The stuff of great romance, no? Beth tells Rip that while she's been on more than her fair share of strange first dates, "this one takes the cake."
Rip doesn't agree that this is their first date, which prompts Beth to remind him that she's just as aware of their long, storied history as he is. Plus, as she puts it, the "statute of limitations on our first date ran out years ago." The implication is crystal clear: This might be the first time the two have spent any real time together in a long while, but their history runs much deeper than a night hanging out in the back of a truck.
Beth always thought she could never be with Rip
Despite the fact that they clearly love one another in an intense, passionate, and even (at times) beautiful way, Beth and Rip's relationship seems doomed from Beth's perspective. As viewers learn over time, she has a secret that she's worried will undo any progress she and Rip make together. In "We're Going Back to Cali," Beth finally confesses that secret to Rip.
While explaining why she always comes and goes, constantly running toward and away from Rip, Beth admits, "You know why I always run away? Because there's only so much that I can give you, Rip. I can't have children" (via Yahoo! News). Right on cue, Rip assures Beth that if his life is meant to only be lived with her, that is more than enough of a life for him.
The reason Beth can't have children is later revealed, and it's just as dark and upsetting as many fans originally feared it would be.
Their relationship is about healing from past trauma
As two people who have been badly hurt by others and witnessed some heinous acts, Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler have a lot of healing to do, both separately and together. In the best of times, their relationship serves as a space that allows them to safely, carefully do that healing. In an interview with Deadline, actress Kelly Reilly opened up about what she thinks makes the pairing of Beth and Rip so special.
Reilly explained that the relationship itself is what Beth needs, and that, "It provides a level of healing for Beth, a place for her to rest and lay down her weapons. Rip loves her in a way that's so unconditional and she's starting to settle into that place." Reilly also noted that while both the characters are "broken" in their different ways, the power of their love is that it brings them together so they can find something beautiful even when there's so much that's dark.
They are helping each other grow as parents
Not being able to have biological children with Rip Wheeler is a huge part of Beth Dutton's plot line on "Yellowstone." In a lot of ways, it's not really a surprise that the pair found themselves functioning as foster parents to a teenage boy. And while it's true that neither of them handle their new responsibility particularly well, in a strange, only-Beth-and-Rip kind of way, the threesome does resemble something of a family.
As Decider shared, at the beginning of Season 4, Beth is introduced to a teenage boy named Carter whose dad is dying. Beth decides to take Carter in, but Rip isn't sure that he's ready for the responsibility of having a teenager around (despite having arrived at the ranch much in the same way).
Cole Hauser, the actor who brings Rip to life, admitted to the publication that Rip doesn't have the best reaction when it's time to welcome Carter, but that through conversation with Beth, he begins to see the potential in the situation. In this way, the pair help one another grow by being a semblance of parents, which is remarkable since they never thought they would reach that milestone at all.
Rip feels like he always has to fight for Beth
There is another dynamic between Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler that might seem aspirational, but that more likely than not speaks volumes to the amount of trauma that Beth and Rip have each experienced. In an interview with Decider, Cole Hauser opened up about the love the two characters share, noting that Rip loves Beth "unequivocally." He added that Rip doesn't think Beth is perfect, but that at this point, keeping her is all Rip knows how to do. He explained, "It's not that Beth can do no wrong, but that she is somebody that he's going to continue to fight for. He doesn't know how to not fight for her."
In some ways, that dynamic can feel like the height of what love is supposed to be. It certainly seems like Hauser believes so, as he said that the story line is "beautiful" and something he looks forward to working with each day.
Beth didn't know if she could really trust Rip
Despite the gigantic love that exists between them, when it came down to her biggest secret, it seems like Beth Dutton really felt like she wasn't sure if she could trust that Rip Wheeler would really be with her no matter what. While Beth is open with Rip about not being able to have children, there's a larger part of the story that she leaves out for years: As a teen, she got pregnant with his child and ended up terminating the pregnancy.
Actress Kelly Reilly explained to TVLine that carrying this secret puts Beth in an unenviable spot: She is worried that Rip will find out one way or another, not realizing that she is the person who owes him this information. As Reilly put it, "So she's thinking a day might come when he might find out or she will tell him. One would say she should tell him."
Beth and Rip are soulmates who share unconditional love
The idea that Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler are soulmates probably isn't anything new to most fans of "Yellowstone," but what binds these two together is pure, unconditional love. Cole Hauser explained to Deadline that when it comes to Rip Wheeler, he's been a goner for Beth since he was a teenager. As he put it, "As far as Rip's concerned, that was his first and only love from when he was 15 years old."
Kelly Reilly continued by explaining that Rip gives Beth something she can't find anywhere else. As Reilly told the publication, both Beth and Rip make it tough to even like them as individual sometimes, but together it's hard to do anything but root for them. She said that the room that Rip gives Beth to just live and love is a first for the character, explaining, "Beth and Rip are soulmates and have been since they met. They are so tough and hard headed and the capacity of violence is in them both, but they provide a safe haven for quiet, peace and love and she doesn't have that with anyone else in the show."
Losing Rip would be one of the worst things that could happen to Beth
Even though they're characters in a TV show, the love that Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler have for one another is inspiring to fans of the show all around the world. However, the way Beth has literally run away from and back to Rip over and over again could make some people question whether she's really all in or not.
As Kelly Reilly sees it, the character she plays is so far in that if something were to happen to Rip, it would probably spell the end of Beth as well. Despite how hard Beth can be, Reilly told Parade that Rip and Beth's father are the two most important people in the world to her. As she said, "I think the worst thing that could happen to Beth is to either lose [her father] or Rip ... She's very generous with people she loves."