Violence Haunts the Duttons

Hello everybody, Thank you so much for joining us again. It's Jefferson White here, Jimmy Herdstrom on the PARAMOUNTA Networks, Yellowstone, joined as always by Jen Land and Jen. How you doing, Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks Jeff, how you doing?

I'm good.

I mean this, I gotta say I'm feeling it is a pretty wild week in the Yellowstone universe here. So not only in episode five oh eight of Yellowstone. In season five, episode eight of Yellowstone, we've got danger on the horizon, danger brewing, this seemingly intractable conflict between Jamie Dutton and Beth Dutton boiling over, seeming like it's coming to a head. It seems like it can only end

So, Jeff, what you're saying is the theme of today's episode is death. It's going to be really cheery, and later on we are going to be talking about the five most significant deaths on Yellowstone, and we're going to be doing that with our guest. We have Lynette Rice, who's going to be joining us. She is a senior reporter at Deadline. She's a huge fan of the show and jeff She's a New York Times bestselling author.

Yeah, you've got your picks. I've got my picks. Lynette's got her picks. I'm extremely excited to dig into it, hash it out, get to the bottom of this right after this.

Okay, we're back.

I'm super excited, as morbid as that sounds to talk about death and all of the most significant and my favorite ones.

And we are going to introduce you to our guests.

Now.

This is Lynette Rice, again, a senior reporter Deadline, huge fan of the show.

Hi, Lynnette, Hello, Hello, so great to be here.

We're super excited to have you.

I do want to ask Jefferson, have you ever asked her to do one episode fully as Teeter? I mean, she's not allowed to sound like Jen, she can only be Teeter.

I've been begging her since the beginning. We did one and then the producer called it incomprehensible.

Which I thought was a little little rude.

I was going to say that, actually notes came down the line that I was incomprehensible on this show, but not because of my annunciation, just because I told stories like that Sleep with Me podcast guy, which the whole point is they go nowhere.

That would be a classic episode.

Lynnette.

We feel it so lucky to have you with us today as an expert all things, you know, entertainment and television, and I'm excited to see you know, Jen and I are a little bit biased in our opinions about the show, so I'm excited for a little objective journalism. I'm excited for a you know, a third party perspective and a little bit of you know, rationality infused into this.

Sure, I guess I could bring that objectivity. I'll be objective about the way Kevin Costner looks, I promise.

So I can't help.

But notice, you know, we've been talking about Yellowstone, We've been talking about the whole Taylor Shared and Extended universe.

I totally agree there's so much drama there left on the table. By the way, by killing her off. I want to see Gretchen Maul's mom with Beth. I mean, I feel like she'd be kind of shrewy, she would be like, oh, it would be the kind of mother daughter relationship we all live for in cinema. So it's too bad we don't have that. So yeah, I totally agree. Maya my five. Can you guys remember that journalist who died in the first season?

Yes, what the hell did she have to die?

I mean, I guess this sets up the kind of you know, pooh head that you know Jamie is. I think as he was responsible for her death. I think that was the case. It seems so long ago, doesn't it, But I remember her death. It's like, dang, she's gone, Wow, this is this family exactly right.

Not only Jamie killed her, So Jamie first sort of spilled his guts to her about all these these sordid details about the Dutton family's history and then killed her.

Yeah.

The character's name is Sarah Wynn and the actress's name is Mikaela Conlin.

She was almost my number five pick. She got edged out slightly, I think, probably by my number one pick. But my five I can't talk about five without talking about four. So my five and four, guys, I'm breaking the rules. My five and four are Lee Dutton and Robert Monica's brother because when Lee Dutton died played by Dave Annabel, it was like the Sean Bean death and Game of Thrones where I knew that nobody was safe, that anybody at any moment could drop dead because they

So those are my five and four.

Yeah, it's very Romeo and Juliet, right, because Robert Long kills Lee yep, and then Casey kills Robert Long, which.

Really, does you know?

It sets off the conflict of all of season one. Season one is so much this kind of three headed conflict between Rainwater, John Dutton, and Dan Jenkins, these people who later managed to find common ground, but it takes them a while. With such a rocky start. That's a great one. So for me, Number four really mostly so high on the list because of its how exciting and fun a sequence. It was Rourke with the rattlesnake. Yeah, rip in the river with the rattlesnake. You know, if

I love that sequence.

Very kill Bill, you forgot to say hot.

He was very hot, very sorry, very hot, gentleman, very hot.

Rourke was not on my top five, Jeff, but I have a star on my notes. I made my own section called favorite death, which, like, by the way, I have more than one, but that was my favorite death. I remember reading that in the script and being like.

Yes, my four, I'm gonna say Casey and Monica's baby.

Why did they do that?

I mean, it's it's set up such an incredible season for Kelsey. I mean, god, she's just been so depressed and she's obviously done some of her best work on the show. And really brought out in the dimension of her character, of which I think was lacking, but that still was kind of a wham. I mean, it's like, Wow, what a thing to put on that little kid and then to put her through and it involved it was Was it.

A buffalo that it was evolved with? It was a buffalo?

Right?

Yeah? Bad newsman.

Yeah.

The classic beginnings and endings, you know. So, season five, episode one, John Dutton is elected governor. It's this moment of perhaps triumph and then the tragic loss of Casey's son, also named John. So for me number three and perhaps there's a little bit of Jimmy bias here, it's Fred. It's Fred from season one, the first guy we saw

Jeff, when I was searching the internet for all the people who had died on Yellowstone because I forgot, I was surprised that an inordinate amount had to do with you. And I always think of Jimmy as this like sweet, peaceful guy. But maybe Jimmy is the villain because there were like seven deaths related to you, more than any other care character, perhaps seven, like.

In Really Something Crazy. I was like, God, Jimmy, just if you go around.

Me, you die.

Listen.

To be fair, I think Casey kills seven people in the first three episodes of Yellowstone. They didn't make the list, So Jimmy, listen, Jimmy. Jimmy only participates in Jimmy Is Jimmy is perhaps also haunted by violence, haunted by tragedy.

He's had a very hard life.

This the mid season finale, when we saw you, Jefferson Uh in your new settings, to me, you look like a completely different guy, especially because in comparison to that first season. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Nothing's changed about you in the They changed your look, but you seem so different to me, Like you know, you've come into your own You're mister true cowboy. You know you have the beautiful woman I.

Mean, Lynette listen. I was already a fan of your work. We knew, we knew that you had a sort of clear eye in incisive style of journalism and reporting on the ground. But this is really demonstrating your ability to cut through the bullshit and get straight to the facts of the matter. Thank you, thank you very much for saying that. With that, and now I'm going to turn it back on you. Your number three death, Yellowstone number three death, Who is it?

Okay?

I didn't love that? Well, no, I took that back. It was very interesting that we met Jamie's true dad. I didn't love the character because he felt like a nuisance. But I also still don't understand why Jamie killed him. Because it's still his real dad, even though he was kind of a butenski. I was shocked that Garrett, you, obviously played by Will Patton, met his maker. That was kind of a shocker because he was the only dude left in Jamie's corner.

Really, yeah, it was brutal.

It really felt like about as machiavellian as Beth has ever been. You know, Beth has Jamie for most of their lives, certainly their whole adult lives. And forcing him to kill his own father, sort of building this puzzle box the only way out of which was killing his own father, is perhaps as evil as Beth has ever been. Granted, the argument can be made that Garrett Randall himself was an evil man. He orchestrated the attempted hit on Beth

A quick break, all right, So we're on our number three death, Lynnette. My number three pick is the same as your number three pick, which of course is Garrett Randall, played by Will Patton, Jamie's dad. Not just because I'm obsessed with Will Patten as an actor, but because I think that having to kill your own father crosses a line of which you do not come back from Beth by doing this. I think it's a monster of her

I think what's most significant about this death and kind of really speaks to Taylor's thinking and obviously how he's thinking of ahead. That death gave Beth the first introduction to the train station she followed Jamie. She took that picture, which ultimately she uses as a tool in the mid season finale as a way to blackmail him into doing what he does. But there there's some people who think that how would she not know about the train station

Yeah, it makes sense to him, Jeff, go ahead.

I think it's it's plausible deniability, you know. I think John has different soldiers for different tasks. He asks Rip to take people to the train station, he asks Lloyd, he asks Casey. I think Beth handles a completely different side of the operation, and I think that, if anything, it's smart leadership to keep those halves distinct. And there's also I remember, very specifically, there's some stuff between Rip and Beth where Beth asks Rip to tell her where

Yeah, it feels very much to me like both of those men protecting Beth is a top priority, and so to expose her to that in any way is dangerous or deadly.

And don't I don't want to get I don't want to get too much in the weeds here, by the way. But train station is that a cowboy state saying? Have you guys heard that before? I mean, why take to the strength train station? Why not like take to the more, take to the fridge? Do you know if like where he came up with train station of all places?

Is that a saying, Jeff, do you I don't think it's I think it's an invention.

I think it's an invention of the lore of this world, so of Taylor's world here. And I think what's fun about it too, is it also has a kind of intergenerational linguistic flair clever.

It's very clever.

Yeah, because we don't know when people started doing this. We don't know when the first time somebody went to the train station was.

Yeah, Like you can also like you can say the train station, like while you're you know, taking them to the train station, while you're like sitting in a coffee shop, you know, maybe getting your nails done. But you can't be like take them to the morgue, you know, right in the middle of a pedic Yeah.

It's it's code, yes, total code.

Yeah, And it leads to this nice open secret because Beth probably would have heard somebody say, oh, take them to the train station and not necessarily understood what that meant. There's this very shilling sequence in season one, I think when Walker is in the back of Rip's truck and Casey says to Walker, Hey, wait a second, where you guys going, And Walker says, al, he's going to take me to the train station because he doesn't know what

In the know.

You're gonna go to the Bear's dramatically satisfying.

Just to we're just going to the beach, kid, Uh, that intergenerational thing, Jeff, like I thought it was. I was thinking about how you know, at a certain time, when you board the train to go somewhere else, like you're not coming back because it's an incredibly long, arduous journey or whatever. But I wonder if Taylor is going

Yeah, oh well, didn't we get the origin of the train station when we saw the flash? Was that so the the the kid that young rip beat up? Do you think that was the first body to the train station or was the train station already established before that?

It seems to me to be implied that it was already established before that, and that Rowdy being taken Rowdy's body being taken to the train station was another entry. So it seems like, you know, young Lloyd who takes that body to the train station was already familiar with

Jeff, do you want to do you want to give us your number two?

Well, my number two has got a bit of a Jimmy bias to it as well. So Jimmy's old life kind of comes back to haunt him, particularly in seasons Season two mostly you know, so Season two is a violent season for Jimmy. He's confronted by some of his old associates who end up beating his grandfather to death. So his last living relative is his grandfather, Dirk Heardstrom, who in the pilot episode of Yellowstone asks John Dutton, Hey, will you take my good for nothing grandson onto the ranch?

It feels like.

Those And then you know, the subsequent Jimmy and Rip and the gang exploding the meth house trailer, killing Jimmy's old associates. There's a series of very violent deaths that seemed to me formative for this new Jimmy. The Jimmy that we know now, you know, he has this kind of rebirth away from his old associates and his old way of life. So for me number two, it's Dirk Hurdstrom and it's Jimmy's old associates, the drug dealers.

What do you think, Lynnette, my.

Number two is going to be Jens. I think it was her four or five. It's Dave Annabel. I think her comparison to Sean Bean in Game of Thrones was apt because Sean Bean's character at the time, he was the moral center of Game of Thrones and he went away, and Lee Dutton represented all that is good about the rancher's life. There was nothing bad about this kid. He was just a good hard worker and he loved his family and he loved his land. And they killed him. So that was sad to see. And I also really

You know. I can't help Leneppa draw some parallels between the death of Lee Dutton and the death of John Dutton Senior.

In nineteen twenty three. As a result of this big shootout.

So, you know, you mentioned Dave Annabel the performance that was robbed from us by the death of Lee Dutton. I feel the same way about James Badge Dale, who plays John Dutton Senior, because James is an incredible actor, one of his generation's best character actors, and I was really excited to see you many more episodes and a

That a little bit?

Will you?

Will you break that down?

I mean, I don't know if I'm going to break it down.

But I can tell you the fear that it has sparked in me, which is that I believe that what Elsa says is that she says only one of them, of her two brothers, only one of them will see their children grow to be adults themselves. Right. So here we have John Dutton senior, right, he is killed. We have Jack Dutton, his son, right, who I consider to

Right, you know what I mean? Isn't that what she says?

Does she say only one of them will live to see their own.

She says she's only one of them will live to see there's grown or something like that.

Sorry, that's my relief.

And wonder now where we leave Spencer. We've seen Spencer sort of fight his way through hell. In World War not only in World War One, but now he's sort of being haunted by violence across all of Africa. It seems sort of chasing his own death. You know, he's either being haunted by violence or he's haunting violence, because it really seems like he's pursuing death in some way.

Yeah, and there's that great line that that Kara says, Helen Maren's character character. I just always want to be like Helen. I just want to connect to Helen Maren as much as that she says. At the letter she says and I add to a to a letter Dispenser's, she says something along the lines of, I don't know what war it is you're fighting inside or you know, but you need to you need to put that aside and come back home and fight this one.

And well that was his war, his war days, right, he's still carrying the heaviness of the war.

There is a PTSD storyline, I think in that.

Yeah, sure, I thought that that was some ballsy writing by Taylor, because I when when I first heard else to say that, I was a bit confused and I had to stop and look at every you know, detail available about what this new show was setting up, and who's related to who? I got confused at first, but now it's all very clear. He was obviously talking about

He could die very late, he could he could die. It takes like, let's say it takes twenty years for a kid to grow up. Let's or eighteen.

We got it.

We got to carry on the Detton seed somehow, So obviously somebody has to live.

No, they don't, because you could have a kid, right, you can have a kid. She they just I think that I think it was that you just don't see him grow up so correct, you know up till eighteen. You know we can wherever that limit hits.

Well, this is so exciting, and it's what you guys described earlier. Is this feeling that nobody's safe. I think that's an atmosphere that Taylor has really expertly crafted on nineteen twenty, on nineteen eight, on eighteen eighty three, and on nineteen twelve, twenty three, this feeling that these beloved characters are never safe. So going into every gun fight, I find myself, you know, breathless, trying to track what's happening.

And that when when.

Our man shows up in the car with the Tommy gun, that was such a sort of frightening image, you know, the image of that modernity, just like all these guys.

It feels like it's you know, it's decades.

It's like the future showing up in the middle of Montana with a Tommy gun and to say, you know, sit down.

Yeah. And there's that moment earlier in the episode, which like was very satisfying on a light version of that, when the family is walking down the street and they talk about the washing machine, you know that there's and they talk about those things coming in and I don't know when he when he got out of that car with you know, I don't know enough about guns, but I'm gonna call it like an automatic weapon.

Basically.

Suddenly the car and that weapon, it felt so deeply fair. The fight no longer felt like a fight. And I couldn't help but think about, you know, how Native American tribes felt when settlers showed up with guns, when you know, when they when they had bows and arrows.

It seems to represent intergenerationally, the Duttons are often outmatched by technology, by these sort of like legal maneuvers. It feels like so much of what Market Equities is doing is trying to make the parameters of their fight unfair. They're trying to do whatever they can to sort of bring, you know, the coercive American legal system to bear against the Duttons. They're sort of trying to they can't win the fight by the Duttons' rules, so they're trying to

I'm gonna fight my way.

I'm gonna, you know, hit you with a car and shoot you forty times with a machine gun.

I thought it was such a bitch and prop.

It was very much like an Indiana Jones moment, remember that from the first movie where he pulls out the.

Gun when you know they're the nights with them and he just pulls up like shut up.

I got giddy when I saw the prop. It was Now, I don't know where Shepherd is going to get a Tommy gun, but whatever.

Details details, I thought it was. It was pretty great.

Well, the choreography in that whole fight sequence, I just have to say was so breathtaking. Moment to moment, I have this reaction when I watch things that are like violence.

That is beautifully.

Choreographed, I like start crying, even though I don't feel sad, And that happened during this fight sequence, even down to like the detail of the entire family being on one side of that fallen log and then going to the other side and just like holding on for this narrow margin of potential safety.

Jin it sounds like you've got a lot of insight about Lynette's number two. I've yet to hear a number two from you. So let's go to a break really quick, and then when we come back, you're on the hook.

Okay, Jan, I'm dying to here, get it, dying to hear what you're number two is.

Okay, listen, my number two. While not technically a death, it you know, or in the literal sense that we've been you know, addressing things, Uh, it feels to me like a death of a dream, a death of a possibility, a death of and and I think that you know, this feels like a death for a lot of women, which is Beth's hysterectomy, and suddenly she cannot have she cannot have children, and people I know who have been told they cannot have kids. It feels very much like

So that's my number two.

Cheery, excellent selection.

And I remember, I mean the reveal on that was so huge and I immediately went to the Internet to look up the history of these clinics on the reservation and that whole story is steeped in reality, which was even more depressing. That one really hung on to me.

Okay, are we at number one? Are we going to talk about number one deaths? I'm ready, I'll go because mine's I'll just lead here and we'll go around this way again. Okay, so my number one deaf, though I do kind of want to change it. My number one death is Evelyn and Dutton because I think the ultimate wound is the mother wound.

It's a really good one, Jen, I mean, the Evelyn stuff is really I don't think it can be overstated how much the you know, it feels like this generation of Dutton's, their grip on this ranch is more precarious than it's ever been. We see it sort of slipping out of their fingers. From the very beginning, the ranch is in crisis, and John Dutton bemoans over and over again, God, if my wife could see how poorly I've done holding our family together, if my wife could see the mess

It's really it's very tragic.

Yeah, as you were talking, I was just thinking about young Rip all of a sudden and of course, and you know, young Beth and young Jamie, and how there's a lot of these characters as children feel deeply responsible for, you know, for deaths of individuals or for you know, Jamie, the hysterectomy of Beth. That it's just a tremendous amount of shame to carry into adulthood.

Grew up way too fast.

All right, I'm going to my number one is all the deaths at the end of eighteen eighty three.

Yeah, I have to agree. I mean, I think my number one is similarly. Yeah, all these Duttons that have come before. You know, by the time we get to the action of Yellowstone, it feels like Kevin Costner John Dutton is dragging behind the terrible weight of his ancestors. It feels like he's got all of these skeletons almost shackled to him. That he's trying so hard to drag them along with him into the future. And I can't

This list, this is what makes TV so great. I mean, this is why showrunners should never listen to fans, because fans will always want to keep everybody alive. But there's no conflict there, there's no drama. And if you think back at the best television of your life, it's the one you think about those great deaths. My one of my all time favorites is when Josh Charles was killed off on The Good Wife.

I still remember it. I still watch it today and it kills me.

And so I mean, as sad as it is to say goodbye to these characters, you need this to keep the show fresh and interesting. In getting us to talk about this and do lists like these, it's this great stuff.

Yeah, hey, Jeff, since I know that you love death so much and you were sad to be limited to five significant ones, can we just get into some of your your top five faves because they're Yeah.

Actually, I made a list of thirty thirty five. We're going to start at number thirty five, here we go.

No, I'm just kidding.

I think of myself as a bit of a Yellowstone historian. So I just want to run down some of the exciting deaths, you know, exciting defining deaths from the history.

Of the show.

So Dan Jenkins, oh yeah, more went out for Dan Jenkins. Dan Jenkins, that was a bit for me of a moment of oh, how do we go back from this? Because he had been such a sort of formative importance and character in the first two seasons of the show. It felt like he finally saw the light towards the end of his life. Yeah, you know, he finally understood that.

Well, actually, if you want to get into a t and ay three. And I didn't realize this until recently when I was reminded of it. You know Don OLIVERI who plays the vixen, who's like pulling in Jamie right now. She played Claire Dutton. Remember that whole sequence where her daughters died and she decides it's not worth living and she ends up staying there by his grave.

That was brutal.

That was freaking Bruce at all, totally.

So yeah, that's that's up there.

You can pour one out for her too.

Yeah, the past was bad. Overwhelmingly.

As I'm watching eighteen eighty three and nineteen twenty three, I'm reminded that the past pretty rough time to be alive.

Yeah, not so good, guys.

As we've been exploring throughout this entire episode, all things must end. All palaces are temporary palaces, This too shall pass, and this unfortunately brings us to the conclusion of this episode. So I'm so so grateful for you out there listening to us, Lynnette. I'm so grateful that you joined us. Thank you for bringing your perspective to all of this.

What a joy.

Yeah, thank you, thank you so much.

And I really hope that you end this episode with Jen as Teeter saying, you know, sending Jimmy to the train station.

Do you think you could do that, do a teeter like a teter.

Dreaming in a fucking translation.

I'll nice shit.

There it, Lynette.

I've been begging her to do that for months. I've been begging her to do the voice for months, and all you had to do was ask.

I blacked out. What happened?

Thank you so so much for joining us. We'll see you real soon.

Bye.

Don't forget to subscribe to the Official Yellowstone Podcast and you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Official Yellowstone Podcast is a production of one oh one Studios and Paramount. This episode was produced by Scott Stone. Brandon Getchis is the head of Audio for one oh one Studios. Steve Rasis is the executive vice president of the Paramount Global Podcast Group.