Yellowstone: Why Leaving Montana Would Have Been A Risky Ending For Beth & Rip

Spoiler Alert for Yellowstone season 5, episode 14, “Life Is a Promise.”It would have been fun to see Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser) turn over a new leaf and start a fresh life outside Big Sky Country in Yellowstone, but the couple remains shackled to Montana despite Kayce (Luke Grimes) selling the Dutton family’s heirloom ranch. In the Yellowstone season 5 finale, Kayce sells the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch to the Broken Rock Tribe. The decision relinquishes Beth from the burden of protecting her father’s (Kevin Costner) treasured legacy, and she is free to move onto a ranch in Dillon, Montana, with Rip and Carter (Finn Little) and begin a new era.

Yellowstone season 5, episode 14, sees Beth, Rip, and Carter get settled on their slice of Montana at the end of the outing. The couple has seven thousand acres of deeded land and another 20 in a Bureau of Land Management Lease, where Beth supposes her husband can run around 600 pairs of cattle. The land is 40 miles west of Dillon, without a tourist site, and has a breathtaking 360-degree view of the mountains. It has all the things the couple loved about Texas when Yellowstone season 5 flashed back to their trip there.

Rip Is Essentially Undocumented & Leaving Montana Could Result In More Problems For Him & Beth

Beth, Rip, & Carter Need To Lie Low

In Yellowstone season 3, Beth and Rip’s relationship takes off. Beth finally asks her dad if she can marry Rip and is ecstatic about the development. However, the ranch hand’s complicated legal history surfaces during this time, and Rip tells Beth that he can’t go to a courthouse and get married because no record of him exists. While Beth is happy to have a ceremony at the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch that is void of most formalities (although she kidnaps a priest), Rip’s undocumented status could still cause the couple hurdles, especially if they decide to leave Montana.

Rip could be an undocumented citizen to somehow protect him from prosecution for murdering his father, whom he killed in self-defense when he was a teenager. It also could be that Rip was born at home, and his family simply never recorded his birth. Regardless, it is beneficial for John Dutton that authorities couldn’t easily trace his ranch handler (via Reddit).

The community is familiar with Rip and the other Yellowstone Dutton Ranch employees, but things could get riskier for Rip if he leaves Montana. While Beth and Rip could forge papers to cement Rip’s existence, it makes sense for the couple to lie low anyway. Beth also kills Jamie in the Yellowstone season 5 finale, and while there’s no suspicion from the authorities so far, it wouldn’t be a great look for Jamie’s last contact to flee the state. Yellowstone doesn’t explain precisely why Rip is undocumented, but the Beth and Rip Yellowstone spinoff could fill in the blanks.

How Rip’s Status Can Cause Problems In His & Beth’s Yellowstone Spinoff

Simple Things Could Become Tricky Without John’s Connections

The spinoff will show Beth and Rip’s first years outside life on the Yellowstone Ranch, and it will be the first time that Rip has existed anywhere but on the Dutton family’s massive land plot, the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, in years. Rip’s undocumented status could still cause issues for the couple in the spinoff, regardless of the couple staying in Montana. Rip previously had thousands of acres to traverse at the ranch without explaining who he was to anyone. He earned a paycheck without providing legal information he would have had to elsewhere, but lost that privilege when Beth lost the ranch.

When Rip traveled outside the ranch before, he was always in a Yellowstone Dutton Ranch truck that protected him from many forms of law enforcement.

The two things that will affect Rip the most in the spinoff are existing outside the ranch and John Dutton III’s death. When Rip traveled outside the ranch before, he was always in a Yellowstone Dutton Ranch truck that protected him from many forms of law enforcement. While some officers may still know Rip, he won’t get the same treatment without the ranch’s brand and his connections to John. Trivial elements like bank accounts and licenses will become tricky for Rip if he doesn’t straighten out his status before the Beth and Rip Yellowstone spinoff.

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