‘Yellowstone’ EP on Season 5 Premiere That Will ‘Immediately Surprise Everybody’

Cole Hauser as Rip Wheeler in Yellowstone
Fall Preview
Paramount Network

Fifteen million viewers watched the Season 4 finale of Yellowstone TV’s top-rated cable show in January — and were thrilled when wild woman Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) finally wed longtime love Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) on her family’s coveted Montana ranch.

Because fans also appreciate cocreator Taylor Sheridan’s sense of Western justice, they were equally happy to see Beth blackmail her adoptive brother, lawyer Jamie (Wes Bentley), into shooting his biological dad, who’d ordered a hit on the Duttons. (Beth then snapped pics of Jamie burying the body!)

Yellowstone’s producers keep plot info tighter than a cowboy’s jeans, but here, we speculate on what’s next for the land saga with help from executive producer David C. Glasser.

Where do we pick up?

“Episode 1 will immediately surprise everybody — where our story starts and what has happened,” teases Glasser. Could there be a small time-jump? Has patriarch John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) race for governor been decided? What new ways have he and Beth found to use Jamie?

Will we meet new baddies?

Yes, it sounds like Market Equities CEO Caroline Warner (Jacki Weaver), who vowed to put mole Beth in jail after she sabotaged the firm’s development plans, will have company.

Confident corporate shark Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri, who also played James Dutton’s sister Claire in the drama’s prequel series 1883) is a new Montana arrival. Perhaps she is who Dutton sibling Kayce (Luke Grimes) was referring to when he said, “I saw the end of us” during his finale vision quest?

Does Rip find out what Jamie did when they were young?

Ranch boss Rip still doesn’t know that his new wife got pregnant back when they were high school sweethearts — or that Jamie took Beth to abort Rip’s child and the clinic sterilized her. The actors who play teen Beth and Rip (Kylie Rogers and Kyle Red Silverstein) are confirmed to appear again this season. Will that bomb finally go off?

Kelly Reilly as Beth Dutton in Yellowstone

Paramount Network

Can we expect more bunkhouse drama?

With a new cowboy named Rowdy (Kai Caster) in the mix, we’d bet on more brawls. Plus, two bunkers have been upped to series regulars, ranch hand Teeter (Jen Landon) and Emily (Kathryn Kelly), Jimmy’s (Jefferson White) fiancée.

Who and what else is new?

Country music singer-songwriter Lainey Wilson joins the cast as musician Abby, while actress Lilli Kay has been tapped for the role of Clara Brewer, a new assistant for one of the Duttons. And as if the series doesn’t already showcase the most beautiful country in the U.S., Glasser promises, “We visit some new and amazing Montana locations.”

See you in Helena?

Yellowstone, Season 5 Premiere, Sunday, November 13, 8/7c, Paramount Network

This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s 2022 Returning Favorites issue. For more first looks at fall’s returning shows, pick up the issue, on newsstands now.