“Yellowstone” stars Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly in new episodes of the fifth season

NEW YORK – Let’s address the big question that echoes throughout the “Yellowstone” universe.

Cole Houser and Kelly Reilly, better known as Rip and Beth, don’t know (as both claim) or won’t say (which is more likely) whether they will continue the neo-Western – be it a new unannounced season or a spin-off – beyond what it was announced as the #1 upcoming final episodes of the TV show.

But California native Houser, 49, and London-born actress Reilly, 47, who play America’s favorite passionate power couple, are ready to carry the show’s dramatic load. after the departure of Kevin Costner, who played patriarch and Yellowstone rancher John Dutton. And they’re eager to show off their hard work as the highly anticipated second half of Season 5 kicks off Sunday on Paramount Network (8 EST/PST) and, by most accounts, well beyond.

“Yes, there is responsibility, and the workload is even greater,” Houser told USA TODAY during a joint interview with Reilly. “I’m enjoying it.”

“The other part of the story needs to be told now,” Reilly adds. “The question is who is going to stay, how are they going to cope and what are they going to do? There’s a tension there that’s exciting and new.”

It certainly surpasses previous tensions surrounding Costner’s performance as Dutton, a cornerstone character in the ever-expanding Yellowstone universe since its 2018 premiere. After a lengthy battle with creator Taylor Sheridan over supervision, payment and filming schedules, In June, Costner officially confirmed that he would not return. His announcement came after production had already begun in Montana, where Dutton served as television governor.

While Dutton will be prominent and appear in flashbacks using previously filmed footage, loyal ranch hand Rip and Dutton’s foul-mouthed daughter Beth are his clear successors.

“John Dutton remains the central figure of the series,” says Reilly. “He’s everything we talk about, especially Beth, who has two men in her life, Rip and her father. Since season one, she has been her father’s loyal soldier, fighting everyone for him.”

This army of Dutton’s enemies looks set to become deadly in the final episodes. The trailer shows Beth clashing with lawyer Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri), who has joined forces with John’s conniving son Jamie (Wes Bentley), now the state’s attorney general. Sarah and Jamie seek to destroy his father’s empire, while Jamie begins impeachment proceedings against him and even broods darkly to Sarah about going “on the offensive” by hiring professionals to take him down.

What does Rip mean? Beth won’t fight over cameo

Individually, Rip and Beth have their own legions of fans. “They’re not perfect; that’s what made people fall in love with their deep flaws,” says Houser, who insists Rip is his character’s real name, despite fan theories. “It doesn’t mean ‘rest in peace’ or anything like that.”

But a strong and silent assistant at the Yellowstone Ranch is ready to kill and dispose of Dutton’s enemies in the Train Station Ranch cemetery. Beth is Tito’s vodka-drinking, facially scarred warrior, adored for her fistfights (verbal and physical) and Sheridan’s dead-eyed lines like, “You’re a trailer park, I’m a tornado.”

Beth’s sides are so beloved that they adorn t-shirts, coffee mugs and cocktail glasses. One fan suggested ” many money” for Reilly to curse out his loved one in “Cameo” for his 50th birthday gift. “I thought I would do it for charity, but I backed out. I didn’t want to muddy the waters. Nobody wants “Happy Birthday” from Beth. They want “(expletive) you.”

What is the appeal of Rip and Beth as a couple?

They are strong individually, but together Rip and Beth become the Wuthering Heights cattle ranch of Catherine and Heathcliff, who are fiercely loyal to each other.

After Beth proposed, they got married at the ranch in the Season 4 finale, with John as their only witness. Their first date participated in drinking whiskey from a bottle in Rip’s car and drinking cotton wool.Jing wolves feast on elk. The famous scene in which a screaming Beth suddenly runs towards the wolves with her bottle involved real wolves.

“They were trained, but they were still wolves,” Reilly says. “I told the handler, ‘I’m really going to run at them screaming like a banshee. How do you know that they won’t run back at me?” She said, “Well, I don’t know.” I thought, “Great.”

“I was right next to you, following you with my little knife,” Houser says.

The wolves, like most of Beth’s enemies, ran away. But some enemies aren’t so lucky. Take Atwood, for example, who is already the conventional choice as the culprit behind John Dutton’s seemingly inevitable death.

“A woman can endure a lot. He is the center of her soul,” Reilly says, acknowledging Beth’s reaction to her father’s dark fate. “What will this do to this woman? This will turn it into a hurricane.”

How—and whether—John Dutton will die is another looming Yellowstone mystery, as well as how the new half of the six-episode season will end. Reilly, like the other actors, received edited scripts to increase secrecy. Houser, whose role spans the ranch and rooming house business, insists his scripts were not darkened. “I received all six scripts, unedited,” he says. “I don’t play this game.”

The trailer for Yellowstone Season 5, Part 2 features Kevin Costner’s Dutton.

Check out the new trailer for the second half of Yellowstone Season 5 when it airs on Paramount Network on November 10th. Kevin Costner’s John Dutton is back.

Reilly says she knew how “Yellowstone” would end from the very beginning. Costner’s premature departure did not fundamentally change this course. “It shouldn’t have happened so soon,” she says. “But the fact that we were able to poetically return to the true vision of the show is really satisfying.”

Once the finale airs on December 15, the duo will be able to determine (or announce) either a new season or a new series.

“We don’t really know,” says Houser, who refuses to take a pinky oath on the matter. “The truth is that nothing is certain or set in stone at this point,” Reilly says. “We want everyone to see these last six episodes as a finale. And then if there’s a future and Taylor writes something inspiring for us, we’ll both say, “We’re there.”