'Yellowstone' Season 3 Episode 7 Preview: Should Beth blame John Dutton instead of Jamie for her hysterectomy?
Spoilers for 'Yellowstone' Season 3 Episode 6 titled 'All For Nothing'
We now know it is cool to hate on Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) these days, but it shouldn't be. Why? Simply because he is not really at fault. So, two episodes ago, it was revealed in a (predictably) shocking flashback that Beth had an abortion go wrong that led to a hysterectomy and a lifetime's worth of anger and regret. It was her older brother Jamie who had taken her to the free clinic on the reservation and despite a warning about the sterilization, goes ahead with the operation without telling Beth.
And naturally, viewers have lots of feelings about this. At first, everyone was mad at Jamie for taking over Beth's agency and apparently ruining her life for good when he made such a decision for Beth all by himself. Then, when the anger subsided, there were many viewers who pointed out how Beth blaming Jamie was her coping mechanism — to shrug off her own responsibility.
"Beth went to Jamie. An 18-year-old scared of a powerful detached father. John should be mad at himself. Had he not be so disengaged and remote - maybe she would have asked him for help. Most 18 years don’t think the through decisions made in fear or panic," a fan had rightly pointed out. And while that may be, for it sounds perfectly humane and perfectly Beth too that we're thinking it is their parenting at fault.
Yes, it is at the hands of the mighty John Dutton (Kevin Costner) that Beth's life turned out this way and Jamie is stuck in this hateful relationship. John is a detached strict father whose focus is more on the ranch and the land. In fact, he has bred four kids so that they can keep the land in the Dutton family.
At the end of the previous episode, Beth comes clean to John, who immediately marches up in arms against Jamie. He wishes to beat the life out of his son, but can't. And we hope this is because he finds his own fault in this mess.
"John should ask what *he* did. Why did his kids not come to him? Why did Jamie get put into a position of being asked to do this and make a choice he likely didn’t understand the consequences of. Because John was still disengaged and remote to his own children," a fan had explained. The fact that Beth approached Jamie speaks a lot about John as a parent and a single father than anything else.
If John was a better father, Beth wouldn't have felt the need to approach Jamie for help, she would have gone directly to him. At the same time, if he was a better father, Jamie wouldn't have been pressurized into making a rash decision in order to protect the Dutton family name. Even if Beth would have asked him for help, he could have talked to John about it.
This is why we think that regardless of the blame games, the real perpetrator and puppeteer is John — Beth must stop blaming Jamie alone and recognize the flaws of her daddy. 'Yellowstone' airs on Sundays at 9 pm ET/ PT on Paramount Network
