(This story contains spoilers from the second episode of season 5B of Yellowstone.)

Yellowstone answered the biggest looming question with last week’s Season 5B premiere when the Paramount Network series revealed that departed cast member Kevin Costner’s John Dutton has died, the result of a murder-for-hire plot disguised as death by suicide. Featuring its second episode in the mega-return of TV’s No. 1 series, Yellowstone mastermind Taylor Sheridan once again wasted little time before delivering the next highly anticipated moment: What will happen when warring siblings Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) come face to face?

Yellowstone viewers got that answer when the second episode returned to the current timeline and Jamie, the attorney general of Montana, finds his sister waiting for him in his office. Deep in her bones, Beth knows Jamie is responsible for their father’s death, but she had to look him in the eye to get her proof. When Jamie can’t look his sister in the eye, she slaps him. She slaps him again, and again, and he still can’t meet her gaze. Beth storms out of the office with the proof she needed – along the way she punches Jamie’s friend Sarah (Dawn Olivieri), who viewers now know orchestrated the hit on John, with Jamie’s knowledge – and calls her other brother, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) to tell him what Kayce found hard to believe until now: their brother is responsible for their father’s murder.

“Jamie is in a place where he’s dangerous because he’s unpredictable and he’s unpredictable because he’s taken a big, wild swing now and if this doesn’t go well, he knows it’s probably over,” Bentley said. The Hollywood Reporter of his character, who finds solace in Sarah after taking Beth’s beating. In the chat below (which took place ahead of the Season 5B premiere), Bentley talks about getting back into Jamie’s head after the 18-month hiatus from filming, looks ahead to what Jamie can be when he’s finally free of John, and he weighs in if he would like to stay as Yellowstone will continue with a possible sixth season.

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I talked to you between seasons 5A and 5B about how intense playing Jamie Dutton can be for you, and how difficult a character it is for you to shake. How did you get back into character when you got back to filming after such a long break?

We had some time from when I first read the script to then start working on it again, and what I did is I had never really rewatched the show other than season one. I just didn’t have a chance to attend the show while we were shooting it. Then I discovered that this actually worked for me, so I planned to wait to watch the show again later (after we finished filming). . I’m excited to watch the show, but it was more of a choice where I felt like it helped me do something with the character that I thought I might not do watching it as an audience member. But during this break I decided I would watch it again to get myself back in the mood. What I ended up doing was watching some scenes. Since I didn’t want my full watch yet, I’m still waiting for that.

Did you go back and see the midseason finale fight with your sister, played by Kelly Reilly?

Oh yes. I looked at that one. And the one before that. I watched a few key scenes that I hadn’t seen in full yet.

We don’t know what will happen between Jamie and Beth this season. But it seems fair to say that these six episodes will be the most intense hours Yellowstone ever. How Method did you work during filming, what was Jamie like on set?

(Laughs) It’s funny, I think I may have said this to you when we talked about it last time: I’m not a Method actor in the sense that I have to fully embody the character or be so far into it all the time to dive. But playing this role for seven years felt like it was happening to me. It felt like the Method was happening without me really wanting it! So yes, it happened quickly. As soon as I got back inside, it’s everywhere. For me with Jamie it is mainly the self-loathing and the emptiness, the superficiality. He is lost and has no identity whatsoever. It’s really hard to let that into my world and figure out when I feel this way and when he feels this way. So that was definitely back.

What can you tease about how you and Kelly will end this season?

I can’t say too much; I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, because I can spot any little inkling of foreshadowing. But it’s more dramatic and intense than it’s ever been. The stakes are higher than ever – they don’t relax! They don’t make peace. So where we last saw them, we go straight into the sense of danger. Jamie is in a place where he’s dangerous because he’s unpredictable, and he’s unpredictable because he’s now taken a big, wild swing and if this doesn’t go well, he knows it’s probably over. So there’s a lot at stake here and Taylor (Sheridan) has really delivered.

You had a correct prediction when we spoke after the midseason finale: you predicted that not all of the Duttons would survive this. That was before we knew Kevin Costner was leaving the show, so there may be more who won’t survive. But what does this Dutton family civil war look like without John in the picture? I’m very curious to see what Jamie looks like without John.

I want to be clear that the things I’m about to say aren’t distracting, but for John’s relationship with Jamie, it’s a more important relationship than his with Beth. Beth’s anger at Jamie is something Jamie did to her. Jamie moved on with that in life because he could, and he’s a jerk and didn’t look back on it until later in life. His focus has always been on John (who was revealed in season three to not be Jamie’s biological father; the Duttons adopted him as a baby), and Beth keeps popping up in the way to start fights and settle her cases . So for Jamie, everything he does in life…John is the one who told him who to be. And when Jamie became that, John demanded so much more from him and was never satisfied with him. So if John is gone and Jamie is already a lost soul, what will he become? Who is he referring to? What is his fight about? What are his real feelings? So not to say what’s coming, but if you don’t have John as Jamie, it’s interesting to find out: what’s that to him? So maybe we’ll see that.

As an actor, we’ve seen you and Kevin Costner contrast the same way you and Kelly Reilly do. How was the set without Kevin?

Well, I actually haven’t interacted much with him or anyone in the main cast for a few seasons in a row, I think since season four of 2020. I’ve really had few interactions, so I’m used to not seeing them! I go out with my own storylines and my own sets where no one else ever enters. (Laughs) So I kind of got used to that with the whole cast.

Your director Christina Voros told me about the Marvel-esque safeguards put in place to prevent spoilers from leaking. She said the main Duttons know how it all ends, and that the ending leaves people wanting more, but is also “beautiful, compelling and unexpected.” How did you feel when you read the ending?

I felt what I felt in every season I read, I felt its power. It’s pretty powerful, these scripts and these shows. I know they’re very dramatic, but that’s kind of the power in them. And this season, I think there’s most of that. It’s the most emotional and I think the most invigorating in the sense that the danger is palpable and immediate, so I was very pleased. It was quite a nice feeling to know where we were going. But it’s also sad because I’m invested in the story, and only sad in the sense that we’ve reached a certain point in the story where changes are happening.

Last time we spoke you hinted at Jamie retiring, but there are talks about possibly doing more Yellowstone and whether that happens or not, there is a whole Yellowstone-verse where you might pop up. Are you interested in continuing to play in this world, or do you want to do something else next?

Oh yeah, I’d be interested in both. It’s a very difficult character to play, but if I were asked to continue, I would. It was great to work with Taylor and everything in his universe. But at the same time, I’m an actor who thought I was going to make films my entire career, so six weeks was the longest I would invest in anything. So I would love to move on in life as well and see what’s next for me. I want to do this as long as I can. If I’m lucky.

This show returns right after the elections and a divided time in the country. Yellowstone was once billed as a “red-state show,” and it was shot by Taylor Sheridan. The series appeals to everyone and its success has sparked a Western craze. Do you think there will be more shows like Yellowstone that appeal to both rural and urban America?

Yeah, I think we’ll see that, mostly due to the fact that the show is more of a hit than where the culture is going right now. In Hollywood it’s simple math. “Was that a hit? Please let’s make a version of that. I’ll take ten of them!” (Laughs) Yellowstone is a big, unexpected hit. It’s actually a relief that it wasn’t cornered into just being called a Red State show. I think it avoids a lot of the current stuff while vaguely speaking to us in general terms. So I think people can escape in some ways. While it’s a little bit about us, it’s also a little bit not about us, and so we get to escape into it and we can all do that together.

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Yellowstone releases new episodes in its six-episode season 5B on Sundays at 8 p.m. on Paramount Network, followed by a linear premiere on CBS at 10 p.m. See how you can stream here Yellowstone and read THR‘s premiere chats with Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, Luke Grimes and Kelsey Asbille, and director Christina Voros.