Yellowstone‘s Wes Bentley is opening up about the life-altering choices Jamie Dutton has made throughout Paramount’s number one series, and it feels like there’s almost a neverending list of them to choose from.
In a chat with TV Insider, Bentley laughed as he said that it would probably be easier to talk about his best choices — because it would be a far shorter list. Jamie is known for making some incredibly lackluster choices, and that’s putting it mildly. Why does Bentley believe there have been so many moments for his character that stand out as overwhelmingly negative?
It’s a snowball effect, as he explains, “I’m trying to go back in my head because it feels like every time I think of one, there’s one before it that led to that one, right?” Fans have a general idea of what Jamie’s worst choice was, and while some write it off as a decision made when he was a teenager, it could be seen as one of the first things that started that overall streak of making the wrong choice.
Yes, we’re talking about that choice — the one he made for his sister without her knowledge.
“Yeah, you’re right. That’s before he was of the age where he maybe fully understood what that all meant. Being a man, you’re an ignorant man just by nature. You don’t, even if you want to know, always fully understand, right? And you can argue Jamie saw the fear of John being more important.”
Bentley says there’s certainly an argument about why he thought that was his only decision; fans aren’t sure they’re buying it. That led him to really dig in and think about the worst choice that Jamie ever made, and it still carries a heavy weight to this day. It didn’t just change the trajectory of Beth’s life; it changed things for their family as a whole.
“The worst thing Jamie did was killing the reporter after he told her too much for a story. I got sick doing that. That was sickening. So in action, that was the worst thing. In the root cause, though, it’s letting his father tell him who to be.”
There’s a theme in Jamie’s choice that Bentley sees as unfavorable, and it all goes back to his father. Jamie considered what his father felt was important when it came to Beth and the sterilization procedure, and when he killed the reporter, he says that decision was based on his father once again. Some would agree that Jamie has always felt the weight of John’s desires, while others — well, to some, it sounds like a lousy excuse.
No matter what, we can all agree that the Dutton family is at a crossroads, and there’s no way survival is possible for everyone. Someone is going to pay for the bad choices of everyone, and soon. Yellowstone returns this summer for the second half of season five, and fans can see who lives, who dies, and who will come out on top.
