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‘Yellowstone’ Actor Gil Birmingham Claims Rainwater Has ‘Inside Info’ on Dutton Attacks

Who was behind the Season 3 finale attacks on the Duttons? It’s one of the top debates among “Yellowstone” fans since last season ended. And now Chief Thomas Rainwater actor Gil Birmingham is hinting that his character knows who carried out those attacks.

In an interview this month with TV Insider, Birmingham said his character has “got information.”

“He has some inside info that he may or may not use,” Birmingham teased.

‘Yellowstone’ Star Says His Character Will Face Moral Dilemma in Season 4

Why wouldn’t he share what he knows? Well, for one thing, as Angela Blue Thunder (Q’orianka Kilcher) reminded Rainwater at the end of Season 3, he and John Dutton (Kevin Costner) are not exactly friends. (Dutton did have Rainwater jailed in Season 1 over a matter of some missing cattle.) They’re more like frenemies, or, as Season 3 ended, uneasy allies.

Birmingham implied that Rainwater will be forced to wrestle with his conscience in Season 4. Perhaps there’s something in it for Rainwater if he stays quiet about what he knows. But can he abet attempted murder?

It’s a matter of “moral or ethical consideration,” Birmingham told TV Insider.

Will Money and Power Corrupt the Broken Rock Chief?

With power comes inside information, and often opportunity, too. In previous seasons of “Yellowstone,” Rainwater has wrestled with the question of whether he’ll make any difference at all. (That’s what the last chief wondered, his driver and bodyguard Mo (Mo Brings Plenty) tells Rainwater with a laugh.) Now, given an opportunity to make a difference in the fate of the valley, will money and power corrupt Rainwater?

Birmingham foreshadowed a battle within the Broken Rock chief when faced with some dangerous forces. He said Rainwater’s greatest challenge next season is “the moral dilemma of some of the ethical choices he makes in relation to some dark, dark forces that enter into the storyline.”

What those are, Birmingham wouldn’t say. But we already know from various trailers and behind-the-scenes featurettes that in Season 4, Rainwater takes a meeting with Caroline Warner (Jacki Weaver), the CEO of hedge fund Market Equities. What could Warner – whose goal is to pave the whole valley over – possibly offer Rainwater that would get him to play ball?

Then again, perhaps the Broken Rock chief is dealing with forces even darker than the too-big-to-fail hedge fund. In one Season 4 trailer, we catch a glimpse of Mo guiding someone out of a vehicle with a hood over his head.

“Sounds very violent,” Birmingham said coyly. I’m sure the guy deserved it, whatever it was.”

Still, at the end of the day, Birmingham noted, “Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan “always incorporates compassion of the human being to human being interaction” into each episode. And audiences can presumably expect some vengeance for those violent attacks mixed with compassion for the morally ambiguous characters that populate the show when “Yellowstone” returns tonight at 8 p.m. ET.