Yellowstone’s Beth Dutton is not someone whose s—t list you want to be on, much less top — a fact that Summer Higgins learned the hard way after she slept with the human tornado’s daddy in Season 4. So as Season 5 rolls around, the activist might feel like she’s safer behind bars than anywhere near John.
“Beth wants her father to be happy,” portrayer Kelly Reilly tells TVLine. “She just has no respect for this particular woman. She sees Summer as an enemy, someone who has absolutely no respect for their way of life. [She and her fellow protesters] just come in with this very basic understanding, thinking that [ranchers] all just rednecks.
“Beth isn’t going to walk her through it,” she continues. “She’s just going to quietly destroy her. And it’s so easy for Beth to do that. We know it’s so easy for her to do that! That capacity for violence and cruelty that Beth has in her is quite terrifying, actually.”
Though John was mortified by his daughter and Summer’s interaction, one person definitely got a kick out of it: series co-creator Taylor Sheridan, who took care to play up not only how very different the characters are but how different Beth and Reilly are. “I think Taylor has a lot of fun with that,” says the actress. “I’m not vegan, but I’m vegetarian and very much about animal welfare. I care about the same things Summer cares about.
“Of course, Taylor does, too,” she adds. “But he puts Beth in the position of being the antithesis of all of that. And she does it just to get a reaction, to provoke.”