Annette Bening laughs when offering an understated assessment of the Jackson clan, the wealthy and ruthless Texas ranch owners who quickly emerge as the main antagonists in the Paramount+ Yellowstone spinoff Dutton Ranch. Bening, a five-time Oscar nominee, sinks her teeth into the role of Beulah Jackson, the cunning matriarch attempting to preserve the legacy of the family’s 190-year-old ranch in South Texas and maintain her powerful grip over the small border town of Rio Paloma. Beulah is described as “Miss Rio Paloma herself” and an “acquired taste” by Everett McKinney, the compassionate veterinarian played by multiple Oscar nominee Ed Harris. As viewers will quickly discover, the Jackson family’s dysfunction trickles down through multiple generations and fits nicely into the tangle of guilt, ambition, greed and daddy issues that defined the original neo-Western Yellowstone series, which ended its five-season run in 2024.
A Complex Villain
While Beulah could be seen as the chief villain in Dutton Ranch, Bening says it is the character’s psychological complexities that make her fascinating. They seem to be primarily driven by a desire to please and prove herself to a dead father “who still lives in her head,” Bening says.
“To try and find what is underneath all of this need for power and control, for me, is a wonderful acting challenge,” says Bening, in a Zoom interview with Postmedia. “I love that about her, that she is this formidable person within the community, but what I hope I get to explore and what people get to see is the underbelly of this woman, who just like everybody else wants love and connection and to protect her family. She is not always successful; that’s why there’s a show, and she’s not always good at it; that’s why there are dramatic problems. But, still, the desire is there underneath it all.”
Returning Favorites
The Jackson clan is a new character in the Yellowstone universe, but the protagonists on the new series are Beth Dutton and her husband Rip Wheeler. Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser reprise the roles from Yellowstone. After surviving all the drama and violence of that series, the couple has emerged from the turmoil with their relationship intact. Alas, their peace is short-lived. In Episode 1, a catastrophe forces them to leave the Dutton property in Montana and start a new life with Carter, the conflicted teen played by Finn Little, whom the couple has taken in. The three end up in Texas, where they purchase a family ranch that immediately makes them rivals of the Jackson family.
While Paramount+ offered a list of plot points journalists should not reveal, the trailer alone suggests this will lead to no shortage of violence, gunplay, fisticuffs, fires and the odd explosion when the series debuts on Friday, May 15. Much of the early drama seems to revolve around a body and other buried secrets. As Yellowstone fans know, Beth and Rip have no shortage of skeletons in their own closet, a vulnerability Beulah hopes makes them “corruptible.”
That said, Beulah’s relationship with Beth in particular is complex, Bening says. The characters share some traits. Beth had her own daddy issues in Yellowstone when dealing with patriarch John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner.
“The minute she sees this woman, Beth, she is intrigued, and she is intimidated but also likes to think she has some of Beth’s qualities: That ability to strategize, that ability to protect her own and do a negotiation,” Bening says. “She admires that and is also challenged by that.”
New Beginnings
For Reilly and Hauser, there were several reasons to saddle up again, including the chance to join a new ensemble cast that includes Bening and Harris.
“I remember being told that Annette was considering coming on, and I honestly thought they were teasing me,” says Reilly, in a separate Zoom interview alongside Hauser. “I couldn’t believe she would want to come play with us in a show and a spinoff.”
Still, while Dutton Ranch is a spinoff, the idea of having these characters start again in a new setting was intriguing for the two leads, who already spent six years doing a deep dive exploration of Beth and Rip.
“To take them on a new journey was exciting,” says Reilly. “I think it was the thing of starting them again, somewhere completely different. Yellowstone was such a complete end to that story, that last season, that to take them into a new time in their life was really interesting. You could have such knowledge of a character and take them into a new world and a new part of themselves internally: post grief, post the fight for the ranch, all of that. Who are they without that fight? How do they move forward in peace and simplicity?”
“Beth asks Rip, ‘Are you happy?’ and he says, ‘Yeah, I am happy,” adds Hauser. “I wanted to see where that led. I was excited to see that new iteration of Montana, not the pressure of Yellowstone and the weight of being able to be the leader that Rip was of the bunkhouse and the enforcer he was for the family, and the responsibilities he has are the responsibility to love his wife, to love Carter, to take him and help him grow as a young man. For me, it was, ‘Let’s see where that goes.’ Ultimately, we got into the weeks with (Dutton Ranch creator) Chad Feehan and the writers, and we decided to move it to Texas, which is a whole new journey and challenge for these characters.”
Family Drama at Its Core
Like Yellowstone before it, Dutton Ranch is fundamentally a show about family loyalty and dysfunction and the lengths some will go to protect legacy and land.
“I think these kinds of family dramas, if they’re good — like our show, I hope is good — have a mythic undertone,” says Bening. “So it’s those age-old connections that we all can relate to about fathers and daughters and sons and mothers. Certainly, Beulah wants to carry on the legacy that her father gave her, and I think a lot of her angst and her feelings of inadequacy are that she couldn’t really please and trying to protect her sons and make them OK, but they’re not OK.”
“We have a set of dramatic problems that I think a lot of us have in our lives. I hope people relate to that.”
Dutton Ranch debuts May 15 on Paramount+.
