Yellowstone‘s 30 Most Memorable Characters, Ranked
Saddle up, Yellowstone fans. With Season 4 of the Paramount Network now available to stream on Peacock, TVLine is counting down the series’ 30 most memorable characters
from every season.
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Now, bear in mind that we said “most memorable,” not “nicest” or “most likable.” So the list includes quite a few characters who fall into the “dirty rotten” category. (Yeah, lookin’ at you, Jamie… for starters.)
Among the larger-than-life personalities for whom we made room on the countdown are all the usual suspects, from Kevin Costner’s Dutton family patriarch to Cole Hauser’s gruff-but-tender ranch foreman. But you’ll also find in there a few folks who managed to make a big impression with relatively little screen time — and at least one whose every line becomes a guessing game. (“What in Tarnation did she just say?”)
Who’s who, and where did we rank ’em in our Top 30? Keep scrolling, and all will be revealed. Once you’ve seen the lineup, hit the comments with the characters you’d move up, down or altogether remove.
30. Dan Jenkins
The saying “Don’t leave me hanging!” could’ve been coined for this sleazy developer, who survived a date with the bunkhouse boys’ noose — not to mention Beth! — only to be taken out later by the Becks.
29. Christina
Jamie’s onetime campaign manager hasn’t had a whole lot to do since returning in Season 4. But as the mother of his only child — that we know of, anyway — her significance to the would-be governor, and the show, can’t be discounted.
28. Avery
The bunkhouse’s first female ranch hand may feel right at home on the range. But before her lie unhappy trails if “Ms. Pouty Lips,” as Monica dubbed her, doesn’t get over her crush on married man Kayce.
27. Evelyn Dutton
Though we only met the Duttons’ late matriarch in flashbacks, her shadow still looms large over Yellowstone, not only in John’s yearning but in the tough-as-leather badass that she made of daughter Beth.
26. Summer Higgins
The environmental activist had no freaking clue the kinda mess she was walking into by getting mixed up with the Duttons in Season 4. But it sure was fun watching John’s well-intentioned one-night stand find out.
25. John Dutton Sr.
With his dying words, John’s father set in stone both his family’s and the Yellowstone’s future: “Don’t let ’em take it away from you,” the elder Dutton instructed his son. “Not a goddamn inch.” And by the hardest, John hasn’t.
24. Lee Dutton
Arguably the Dutton who was the most like his old man, Lee was killed back in the series’ premiere — by, of all people, brother-in-law Robert… who, in turn, was killed by his brother-in-law, Kayce. Yeah, it’s like that.
23. Angela Blue Thunder
From the moment we met the smoldering weapon that Rainwater intended to aim at Market Equities, we could tell that she was as likely to blow up in his face as she was to take out the developers.
22. Willa Hayes
Smart as a whip and just as stinging, the Market Equities’ exec wasn’t merely cool, she was cold — so cold, in fact, that she gave Roarke the order to start treating their land deal in Montana like it was an oil deal in Yemen!
21. Mia
Though we’ll always have a soft spot in our hearts for the feisty barrel racer who punched Jimmy’s V card — while he was hospitalized with a broken back! — we’ll also always hold it against her that she damn near got him killed by pushing him to get back on the kinda horse that bucks.
20. Emily
Jimmy may have gotten to second base with a stallion at the Four Sixes before he did the ranch’s vet tech, but once the twosome started horsing around, he quickly drew the same conclusion that we had — she was a keeper — and made her his fiancée.
19. Teeter
Quite possibly the wackiest character to ever set foot on the ranch, the bunkhouse gal can ride the hair off a horse, is fluent in gibberish and is patient enough to wait a whole season to get a kiss from Colby.
18. Garrett Randall
If ever a man had “bad news” written all over his face, it was Jamie’s biological father. Yet in Season 4, the conniver still managed to mess with his son’s mind to the point that Jamie believed the hits on his adoptive family had been — yikes — an act of love.
17. Mo
The definition of the strong, silent type, Rainwater’s right-hand man is exactly the kind of warrior that you want to have your back, whether you’re raiding a white-supremacist camp or — take it from Monica — trying to catch a serial killer. The guy never misses.
16. Caroline Warner
Beth was warned in Season 4 that Market Equities’ boss lady wasn’t to be trifled with. Caroline had climbed the corporate ladder, “stepping over some little bitch like you on every rung.” Yet trifle, Beth did, in the process, making herself a powerful and relentless enemy.
15. Lynelle Perry
If one person brings out John’s softer side faster than his grandson, it’s usually the soon-to-be-former governor, with whom he lets his hair down and flirts with abandon until she throws caution to the wind and agrees to play teenagers with him.
14. Malcolm Beck
Season 2’s Big Bad thought that he could scare John into submission by having Tate kidnapped and Beth brutally attacked. Instead, all Malcolm did was sign his own death warrant — something that the character at No. 8 on this list probably should’ve kept in mind!
13. Monica Dutton
Torn between her tribe and her in-laws, Kayce’s wife — kinda-sorta the Pamela Ewing of Yellowstone — is about as comfortable in the Duttons’ home as a chicken in a fox’s den. We don’t blame her a bit!
12. Tate Dutton
Kayce and Monica’s son has scarcely hit puberty, and you can already tell that he’s a Dutton through and through: He’s been kidnapped and traumatized and poses as big a threat to a plate of biscuits as rustlers do to cattle.
11. Walker
Rip bought the ex-con who knew too much a ticket to the train station, only to discover that Kayce had left the dead man walking. Now he’s back at the Yellowstone and looking every sexy second like if he ain’t in trouble already, he’s about to be.
10. Lloyd
Don’t let his “kindly old gent” look fool ya; this loyal-as-a-Labrador Yellowstone ranch hand is as formidable and fiery as men half his age — and still young enough at heart to get that very organ broken. Isn’t that right, Laramie?
9. Carter
Beth had known the orphan that she and Rip would eventually take in for less than an hour when she had to admit that she liked his style. The more we got to know the foul-mouthed little boy lost, the more impossible it became not to realize that we did, too.
8. Roarke Morris
The banter was priceless between Beth and this Market Equities bigwig, whom she once likened to the love child of Lucille Ball and Fabio. But he posed so great a risk to the Duttons that Rip was moved to take him out with a rattlesnake in a cooler.
7. Jimmy Hurdstrom
As sweet as he is dopey, this former Yellowstone wrangler is easy to root for and even easier to worry about. On the plus side, his time at the 6666 Ranch turned him into the kinda cowboy about whom Rip could no longer say, “Gettin’ in trouble’s the only skill you’ve got.”
6. Thomas Rainwater
The chairman of the Confederate Tribes of Broken Rock is a good man, a moral man. For that reason, as henchwoman Angela so often told him, he may be ill-equipped to fight, much less win, the battles that would reclaim their people’s land.
5. Kayce Dutton
John’s scruffy golden boy is such a renegade Superman, all he’s missing is a big letter S on his chest. Well, that and a cape. And he feels so dang guilty about the no-good varmints that he’s had to off, it only makes his halo shine brighter. No wonder John prefers him to the character at No. 4.
4. Jamie Dutton
As much a wolf among the flock as the black sheep of the Dutton family, John’s adopted son has taken more blows than a prizefighter, metaphorically speaking. Often with good reason. As Beth once observed, “There’s just no right or wrong with you. That is what makes you truly evil.”
3. Rip Wheeler
It was David “the Incredible Hulk” Banner who said, “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” But it could just as well have been Rip, who’s taken so many scoundrels to the train station, he could be a Lyft driver. He’s no one-note tough guy, however: He’s so tender and openhearted with true love Beth that he ranks high among the small screen’s most hopeless romantics.
2. John Dutton, Yellowstone
The patriarch of the Dutton family walks around with the weight of the world on his shoulders — or at least the weight of the Yellowstone — and hopes that it justifies his more questionable behavior. It’s gotten to him, though. As he not so long ago told Jamie, he never imagined that there would come a day when he was tired of living when he still had the strength to do it.
1. Beth Dutton
The only thing stronger than the drinks she throws back, John’s daughter is, as she once told Roarke, a tornado; he and anyone else dumb enough to get in her way is but a trailer park. Not that she doesn’t have a sensitive side. She does — she simply keeps it hidden unless she’s with her daddy or her husband.
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