As Season 4 of Yellowstone wound down, things were looking dicey for Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) in the work realm. She had just enraged the deep-pocketed CEO of Market Equities, Caroline Warner (Jacki Weaver), who was not so oblivious as to miss Beth’s effort to sabotage the company. Warner threatened all kinds of consequences, starting with insider trading charges. And she vowed to make Beth pay if she had to spend a fortune doing it.
But Beth still has an ace up her sleeve in the battle with Market Equities. And that’s the land she bought through Schwartz & Meyer. Not to mention her new controlling interest in that firm. Without ownership of the land in the valley, Market Equities’ plans for an airport and ski resort will go nowhere.
In a new thread on Reddit, fans debated how much of an ace that land really is, and whether Beth will still have her ownership stake in Schwartz & Meyer when the dust settles from her brief employment at Market Equities.
Yellowstone Fans Debate Beth’s Land Ownership Moves
One fan kicked off the thread with the theory that the land gives Beth ultimate veto power over Market Equities’ airport plans. As Yellowstone fans will recall, Beth included in the fine print of the contract with Schwartz & Meyer that Schwartz & Meyer was the junior partner in the deal and only co-owns the land. And now that she has a controlling interest in the firm, it’s basically a moot point, anyway.
“She claimed to her old boss that Schwartz & Meyer co-owned the land with her and then when she was offered the job she told Market Equities she wanted their controlling interest in her old firm, so does that mean she solely owns that land now?” the fan posted. “If so, she could take that land and sell it to the reservation (some sort of Land Buy-Back) and that would surround the Yellowstone.”
But other fans jumped in to point out that Market Equities was unlikely to let Beth off the hook so easily. She did, after all, take the job there with the intention of undermining the company. And that’s what she did as soon as she arrived.
“Her compensation from ME shouldn’t be so clear cut,” another fan posted. “She was acting in bad faith and ME can probably prove it. If you take a job for the purpose of defrauding your employer they can sue for damages including any compensation they gave you.”
“I doubt it, since Jaime pointed out in another episode that if she were an actual attorney she wouldn’t have filed paperwork in the [wrong] state,” another fan replied to the original poster.
Multiple Suspenseful Plotlines Await in Season 5
The fate of Beth’s career is just one plot thread that series co-creator Taylor Sheridan has to tie up in Season 5. Also hanging in the balance are Kayce’s (Luke Grimes) marriage, Summer Higgins’s (Piper Perabo) freedom and Carter’s (Finn Little) status at the Dutton Ranch.
The Market Equities plot, which was simmering for most of Season 4, should be coming to a head in Season 5. It promises to make for some suspenseful television. So keep an eye out for announcements about the Season 5 premiere date. It’s likely to happen sometime next fall.
