It can be universally agreed upon that Taylor Sheridan has forever altered the way the audience perceives Westerns in the modern film and television industry. He not only brought back a near-extinct genre to life but gave it such momentum that Westerns are gaining a foothold as one of the most-watched genres by the modern audience.
Yellowstone, in that respect, began a revolution. It was not simply the cowboys and the vast, endless expanse of the ranches that made life seem so attractive. Sheridan’s creation gave the viewers a feast for the senses. With family drama and politics wrapped in murder and mayhem, Yellowstone ushered in a new era of Westerns that erased the line separating greatness and corruption.
Taylor Sheridan Invokes Greatness Via Yellowstone
Taylor Sheridan can invoke a multitude of compliments from the cast of every Paramount project he has conceived and it would all fall short of defining his creative genius. The failed actor-turned-writer convinced Robert Redford to step out of retirement on a whimsical throwaway request from HBO for his series and got Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren to star in his sequel project.
Such greatness is not an inborn talent but a skill cultivated steadily over time. It is not simply his scripts and dialogues that make his show work but also his ability as a director to eye the bigger story in play. In Yellowstone, it was the overarching narrative of Cole Hauser‘s Rip Wheeler and Kelly Reilly‘s Beth Dutton that became the winning plot of the series, and for good reason, too.
As Kelly Reilly’s character screeched, yelled, clawed, and sauntered her way through the series, Beth Dutton became one of the most polarizing characters of the times. Equally loved and hated by the people, her arc is one that goes to extremes and leaves no stone unturned to get what she wants.
Beth’s power lies in her unforgiving, unapologetic, and wildly untameable character and although it makes her hard to love, fans find themselves being increasingly enamored with her with each passing episode of Yellowstone.
Yellowstone Makes Kelly Reilly Iconic
It is no easy thing to craft a character so uniquely personified as Beth Dutton. With her violent moods and her vindictive battles that stretch on for decades, Kelly Reilly could not have molded Beth into a fully formed arc without the help of the person whose mind conceived the character in the first place. That is where Taylor Sheridan stepped in.
Giving her a gist of the character she was set to inhabit for the better part of a decade, Sheridan told Reilly:
I want you to take out any vulnerability in your soul while you play Beth. There is none. She has erased any sense of weakness for many reasons that we found out during the course of the show. And that for me was like, “Wow, who is this teflon woman? What is that?” And obviously, as we want to go under and find out what that’s about, I got to discover all of her.
With each passing Season of Yellowstone, there were layers upon layers of background story that slowly unraveled her character and laid her bare. As the audiences got to know more about Beth, they sympathized in part while others related to her pain on a more personal note. But whichever way one puts it, Kelly Reilly’s Beth Dutton remains an iconic character with an enviable legacy as far as television roles go.
A larger subsection of the Yellowstone fan demography, however, find themselves being increasingly put off by her resentment, abuse, and vitriol that she uses as an armor against Jaime. Meanwhile, women all around the world find themselves feeling liberated and emancipated by her rage that she wields so unapologetically against all who dare to bring her down.
Yellowstone Season 5B premieres on Paramount+ on November 10, 2024.
