Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler’s (Cole Ha) Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone exit caused screenwriter Taylor Sheridan to close out the original series, many believed some continuation would exist, with Reilly and Ha as its leads.

Yellowstone aficionados turned out to be right, with a report breaking the news that Kelly Reilly and Cole Ha would reprise Beth and Rip in an offshoot, as opposed to continuing the original series with Yellowstone season 6. Still, it sounds like Beth and Rip’s Yellowstone spinoff will have a lot of crossover with the original, and its title is the biggest indication yet. While John’s ranch was formally known as the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, it was often just called “The Yellowstone” or “Dutton Ranch.” That said, Beth and Rip will carry on a crucial aspect of John Dutton’s legacy.

How John Dutton Failed Yellowstone’s Dutton Ranch

John Dutton Refused To Modernize The Yellowstone

While he left a massive legacy behind him, John Dutton failed the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. While the ranch had been in John Dutton’s family for nearly 150 years, his son, Kayce (Luke Grimes), was forced to sell the land in Yellowstone season 5's finale. Kayce and his big sister, Beth, simply didn’t have the money to maintain the ranch. When John died, his children couldn’t afford the massive inheritance tax that came with taking stewardship of the ranch, and it left them with few options to preserve what their family fought for. Ultimately, John failed his family.

Kayce selling the ranch to the Broken Rock Tribe was a beautiful ending, restoring the land to the ancestors of its Indigenous stewards. The ending even fulfilled 1883. Still, John’s decisions were short-sighted and left Kayce with no choice but to relinquish the ranch. Ultimately, John’s failures lie in his unwillingness to modernize and adapt, unable to turn a profit on the cattle business, leaving his children without a feasible way to carry on his legacy. That said, Beth had the skill to change that, and she showed us how.

Beth & Rip’s Yellowstone Spinoff Title Suggests John Dutton’s Failures Will Be Redeemed

Beth Will Carry On The Dutton Legacy With Her New Ranch

Beth and Rip’s Yellowstone spinoff title, Dutton Ranch, suggests that John’s daughter will redeem his failures, like she set out to in Yellowstone season 5. In the final chapter of Costner’s Yellowstone series, Beth points out to her father repeatedly that the ranch's business model, not turning a profit, isn't sustainable. Beth is further frustrated when her father proposes to accrue millions of dollars in loans to lease land in Texas, after the cowboys discover that the herd is liable to contract brucellosis unless they’re moved to far-away pastures, somewhere John doesn’t have to feed them hay all winter.

The title Dutton Ranch confirms that Beth and Rip’s future is in ranching.

In Yellowstone season 5’s finale, Beth buys a ranch outside of Dillon, Montana. We get to see Beth and Rip settle in at the end of the series, suggesting that they will continue to live the cowboy’s dream. The title Dutton Ranch confirms that Beth and Rip’s future is in ranching, and it also suggests the power couple will maintain an important part of their past, keeping “Dutton Ranch,” while dropping the “Yellowstone” moniker.

How Yellowstone Season 5 Foreshadowed Beth Redeeming John Dutton’s Failure

Beth Gets Big Business Ideas In Yellowstone Season 5

If Beth can take her finance aptitude and apply it to a successful business model for ranching, that could redeem John’s shortcomings as a modern rancher, with her and Wheeler as the new representatives of the Dutton family name in Montana. Yellowstone also told us how Beth could build on her father’s legacy exactly. In Yellowstone season 5, Beth questions her family's main income, wondering why a steak turns such a high profit, yet they see so little of its yield. John tells Beth that ranchers don’t take home a higher portion because they peddle the cattle, not the meat.

Beth immediately has a solution: Beth wants to figure out the repacker that John Dutton says bars family ranches like his from making a profit on the cattle they work so hard to raise. As Rip Wheeler carries on the ranching legacy that he helped John build and protect, Rip will surely be more open to Beth’s innovative ideas than John, leveraging Beth’s finance degree and track record of making million-dollar deals for Schwartz & Meyer. After John’s death, Beth can finally overcome his stubbornness and build something that can survive and even thrive, where the original Dutton Ranch failed.

Beth and Rip might take a few keys from their friendly associates in Texas.

Beth picks up other ideas, like when she travels to Amarillo, Texas, to see Rip in a flashback in Yellowstone season 5, episode 10, learning at the hotel bar that Travis Wheatley’s (Taylor Sheridan) Four Sixes Ranch makes their own vodka. Later, she learns that 6666 sells their meat directly to consumers on a website, and Beth is captivated by the prospect. In their spinoff, it sounds like Beth and Rip might take a few keys from their friendly associates in Texas, with the final chapter of Yellowstone giving us plenty of hints about what we can expect.

Source: Bloomberg