The Sentimental Rip Moment In Yellowstone That Doesn't Make Sense

Another barn-burning season of Yellowstone has come to an end, and the show certainly continues to find new ways to keep viewers' heads spinning. What can we say about that season 3 finale? Just that it'll surely keep heads spun until season 4 finally hits Paramount Network.

As it is, fans of the stark neo-Western drama have a long, torturous wait ahead as to which Duttons survived that finale, with many still pondering who put the hits out on the family to begin with. Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) is currently at the top of the list.

Whoever did put the hit out is certain to face the wrath of Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) in season 4. If nothing else, the strong-but-silent, occasionally ultra-violent Dutton Ranch hand and fierce family ally will be out to avenge yet another attack on Beth — particularly as he'd been planning to ask for her hand in marriage.

That plot point actually led to one of the more perplexing twists in Yellowstone's season 3 finale, as Rip spent the better part of the episode digging up his long-departed mother to reclaim what he hoped would be Beth's engagement ring. Posited as a deeply sentimental, even wildly romantic gesture, the move remains genuinely confounding. After all, it's more than a little bit morbid to pull a ring off a decomposing corpse and give it to your would-be betrothed. 

Perhaps more importantly, there's the issue of Rip's family history to contend with. It's impossible to forget that the woman wearing the ring was frequently beaten and eventually murdered by the man who gave it to her. Needless to say, that ring isn't exactly a symbol of happiness, and we can't imagine Beth would be itching to wear it for forever and always.

The larger issue heading into season 4 of Yellowstone is obviously whether Rip will even get to give the ring to Beth. And should Beth die from that bomb, well, it's hard to imagine the hell that Rip is set to unleash on the people who set up the hit.

Hopefully she'll pull through, because the Beth and Rip romance continues to be a highlight in the increasingly bloodied Yellowstone landscape. Whatever becomes of the lovers, it's still pretty hard to get over that creepily endearing engagement ring debacle, because it's just impossible to imagine what led Rip to believe it'd be a grand romantic gesture to begin with. 

The gesture itself has, perhaps rightfully, become a hot topic of conversation in Reddit-land, with some fans finding the ring storyline super sweet, and others finding it super weird. Redditor Latz31 in particular noted the moment as, "87% creepy AF/13% romantic." They further added that it was "Only not 100% creepy because it's Rip and we all love him."

While her own logic was hotly-debated in that Reddit thread, graced121 was of the opinion that said engagement shouldn't have been buried with Rip's mama in the first place. "As a funeral director's daughter I can tell you the final act before the casket is closed is to remove all jewelry. It causes a body to decay." 

Again, that logic was heavily debated, but it does beg the question of whether Yellowstone's writing team could've found a slightly less unnerving way to get the ring into Rip's hands. As it is, Rip essentially pulling a cursed ring off of a corpse doesn't exactly scream romantic, even by Yellowstone standards. The only hope now is that said ring isn't going back onto the hand of a dead woman in Yellowstone's season 4 premiere.