Yellowstone Season 3 might have been the show’s best, and given the cliffhangers and lengthy build-up to Season 4, fans have been hanging on each and every scene. One of the most striking Season 3 scenes involves Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) visiting his mother’s grave. However, it’s not your typical graveside visit. Rip had his mom’s body exhumed for a heartbreaking poignant moment. He has a moment of reflection while looking at his mom’s corpse and retrieves her ring from her hand in order to give it to Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly).
It’s odd and a bit creepy, but it ends up being a gut-punch of a scene. In a new interview with Cowboys & Indians conducted ahead of Season 4’s release, Hauser opened up about filming the graveyard scene and how we worked to bring creator/writer Taylor Sheridan’s idea to life.
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“I thought it was a bit wild that Rip would do something like that. But as I got into the scene and started doing it as the actor, I made it into this beautiful moment, which I think is what Taylor wanted,” Hauser said. “And unfortunately, he wasn’t there at the time, so it was me just working with Stephen Kay, the director, and breaking down what it was that Taylor was trying to do there. I felt like the right motivation for me was to make it a very beautiful, kind of heartfelt moment between my mother and I. Versus the kind of goriness of digging up your mother who’s been buried for several years and looking at it in a very negative way. I looked at it more as a positive.”
As for what’s next for Rip, he teases more powerful storytelling in Season 4, saying, “Well, each year you get to know a little bit more about what makes him tick in his relationships - not only with John Dutton [Kevin Costner], but with Beth [Kelly Reilly], her brothers, the guys in the bunkhouse. And Taylor does another wonderful job of kind of opening the onion when it comes to Rip’s heart. There’s a wonderful relationship - which I won’t give away - with Beth and I that comes into our life. And again, it shows another side of not only Rip, but also Beth, and also John Dutton. So, it’s another excellent year of storytelling by Taylor Sheridan, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the audience thinks.”
Every Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET, you can watch Yellowstone live on Paramount Network via your cable provider or a service like FuboTV. Past seasons’ episodes are available to stream on Peacock. Yellowstone’s upcoming spinoffs, such as 1883 starring Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, will release on Paramount+.
