Every Flashback Between This Western Drama’s Star-Crossed Couple, Explained

Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser play crucial roles in the Yellowstone franchise as Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler, and flashbacks to their younger selves tell their complete stories. Kylie Rogers and Kyle Red Silverstein portray Beth and Rip in their adolescence, with both characters making their debut in Yellowstone season 1. The younger versions of Beth and Rip continue to appear through Yellowstone’s final season, with Yellowstone season 5 seeing an uptick in appearances from Rogers and Silverstein.

It’s possible that we saw more of young Rogers and Silverstein in Yellowstone season 5 to set up Beth and Rip’s Yellowstone spinoff. Before Yellowstone season 5, Beth and Rip only had a couple of scenes together as their younger selves, but season 5 changed that. Then, ahead of Yellowstone season 5’s finale, a casting announcement broke the news that Reilly and Hauser would reprise Beth and Rip in a Yellowstone spinoff after the series finale. With Beth and Rip’s spinoff premiere in November, it’s worth looking back at the couple’s earliest Yellowstone moments.

4. Beth & Rip Share Their First Kiss

Yellowstone Season 2, Episode 5, “Touching Your Enemy”

Young Beth and Rip appeared a handful of times in Yellowstone season 1, but Yellowstone season 2, episode 5, marks the first flashback together for Roger and Silverstein as the young Dutton and Wheeler. We previously saw Beth in two flashbacks with her mother, Evelyn (Gretchen Mol), which revealed the Dutton matriarch and what happened to her. We saw Silverstein debut as Rip in Yellowstone season 1, episode 8, when John Dutton (Josh Lucas) finds Wheeler in one of the Dutton Ranch barns and takes him in as a ranch hand, allowing Wheeler to leave his awful past behind.

After Rip gets settled in the barn, we watch his first interaction with Beth. The flashback starts with Beth and Rip starting their days, respectively, then Beth seeks out her father’s new ranch hand by the barn. True to character, Beth initially insults Rip, calling him her “daddy’s new pet” within moments of meeting him. Rip is offended, but the moment takes a turn when Beth tells the younger Rip that he can watch her as she walks away, saying, of women, “that’s why we do it.” The flirtatious remark immediately establishes the young couple’s chemistry.

Later that night, Rip is teased for his interaction with Beth. An older ranch hand slaps Rip on the back while Wheeler shines his shoes, the more senior of the two calling Rip “little orphan boy” repeatedly while teasing him for his flirtations with Beth. Eventually, Rip retaliates, hitting the old man repeatedly until Lloyd (Forrest Smith) breaks up the fight. When he goes back out to the barn, Beth is waiting for Rip, and she initiates a kiss. The moment establishes that while Beth and Rip both navigate the turmoil of their adolescence, they find security in each other.

3. Beth Gets An Abortion

Yellowstone Season 3, Episode 5, “Cowboys and Dreamers”

Sadly, the young couple’s connection splinters in their next flashback after Beth has an abortion in Yellowstone season 3, episode 5, “Cowboys and Dreamers.” The flashback starts as Beth cries on her bathroom floor, sitting alone as she stares at a positive pregnancy test. Beth goes to her brother, Jamie (Dalton Baker), for help, telling him that she has made a mistake and needs his assistance. Unfortunately, Silverstein’s young Rip isn’t in the first half of the flashback, when Jamie goes into the free medical clinic of the Broken Rock Tribe and schedules Beth’s life-altering procedure.

After the procedure, Beth visits young Rip in the barn. It’s evident that Rip is aware of Beth’s potential pregnancy scare, but has been mostly left in the dark. Wheeler asks Beth if she took a pregnancy test, and Dutton falsely reports that the pregnancy test was negative, having just terminated her pregnancy. The younger Beth, clearly distraught, ends their romance, suggesting they shouldn’t continue. The moment represents a splinter in the security that the younger characters felt when they were together. After the flashback, older Beth wakes in her bed, torn apart by the memory.

2. Beth & Rip Go On Their First Date

Yellowstone Season 5, Episode 1, “One Hundred Years Is Nothing”

After Dutton and Wheeler break off their romance in season 2’s flashback, Yellowstone season 5, episode 1, shows Beth and Rip’s first date. Young Rip is installing a fence. When Beth approaches him, calling him a “low man,” Rip tells his former sweetheart that he’s “in no mood” for her antics. However, Beth reports that she is leaving for college and asks Wheeler if he wants to go out on a date. Wheeler reminds Beth that she will leave the next day, and Beth responds by encouraging Rip to ask her out sooner rather than later, which he does.

Later that evening, Rip gets ready for his date. He tells a fellow ranch hand, Rowdy (Kai Castor), that he can’t afford a nicer cowboy hat for when he goes into town, as he grooms himself in the bunk house. When Rip meets Beth outside the barn, she throws her keys at him, telling him he can “play man.” The date has a promising start. However, when Beth and Rip arrive at the bar, their date goes awry. Beth shows her cleavage to the bartender so he will serve her a dirty martini with three olives, though she is underage.

Beth’s gesture upsets Rip, but Dutton quickly reminds him that she isn’t his to be envious of. Realizing the date was a mistake, Rip wants to go back to the house. He encounters the other cowboys, who lend him a truck. Beth returns later with Rowdy, who is driving her car. She pulls Rowdy into the backseat, a gesture intended to make Rip jealous. The ordeal is sad for Rip, who never truly understood why he and John’s (Kevin Costner) daughter broke up. The flashback ends with an older Beth, who is, again, sad about the memory.

1. Beth Chooses Rip Over Rowdy

Yellowstone Season 5, Episode 5, “Watch ‘Em Ride Away”

The last flashback to Beth and Rip’s younger selves in Yellowstone doesn’t feature a milestone, such as their first date or their first kiss, but it shows Dutton’s attitude shift toward Wheeler. The flashback takes place in Yellowstone season 5, episode 5, “Watch ‘Em Ride Away.” In the episode’s current timeline, John Dutton and his cowboys are preparing to drive cattle up the mountain. The Yellowstone Ranch cowboys prepare to accomplish the same task in the episode’s flashback, and Dutton wakes early to see Rip off. She lingers by the barn, watching the ranch hands prepare for the journey.

We watch Beth’s attitude shift, seemingly trying to make up for some of the damage she caused when attempting to make Rip jealous of Rowdy. That morning, Rowdy rides up to Beth as she stands and watches the cowboys. He asks her for a kiss, but Beth implies that Rowdy is stupid for asking to kiss her in front of her father, and she walks over to Rip instead. Beth asks Rip how long he will be gone, and tells him to be careful. At that moment, Beth chooses Rip, reflected in her actions. Something about her perspective has changed.

While she doesn’t say it outright, Beth is worried about Wheeler and cares for him. Rip isn’t so quick to be sweet to Dutton after she has dumped him twice. He tells her he isn’t hard to find, but then says that none of the cowboys are, referring to Beth’s brief romance with Rowdy. Beth stares into the rising sun as the flashback comes to an end, lost in deep reflection. As with every other flashback, aside from their first kiss, the past Yellowstone moment transitions to older Beth, haunted by the way she treated the love of her life.