‘Dutton Ranch’ Star Natalie Alyn Lind Unpacks ‘Yellowstone’ Sequel’s Finale Bombshells

[This story contains major spoilers from Dutton Ranch’s season one finale, “El Padrino.”]

Dutton Ranch star Natalie Alyn Lind gossiped with her castmates about what the season one finale of the Yellowstone sequel series held in store for her character of Oreana Lynn Jackson. But nothing could’ve prepared her for the one-two punch that came her way.

For starters, the heiress to 10 Petal Ranch learned that she’s pregnant, and while all signs point to Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) and Beth Dutton’s (Kelly Reilly) adopted son, Carter Green (Finn Little), being the father, it’s not necessarily an open-and-shut case. After all, the naive 19-year-old met Oreana after he jumped her 30-something steer wrestler boyfriend, Hoyt (Kyle Dondlinger), for getting too physical with her during a heated argument. Oreana and Carter immediately began their own relationship after she finally kicked Hoyt to the curb.

“Oreana is a very unpredictable girl. So, in my heart, I believe that it’s Carter’s, but that’s not a question that I have a definitive answer to,” Lind tells The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s a lot of genius masterminds working on that right now for season two, and I have not been told one way or another.”

It’s established early on in EP Taylor Sheridan’s fifth Yellowstone spinoff that Oreana does not want to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother, Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening). The latter became a young mother before eventually taking over her family’s Rio Paloma, Texas ranch from her father. 

Consequently, Oreana convinces Carter to run away with her without telling him the reason behind the impulsive decision. Upon her return home to pack for their getaway, she encounters her volatile father, Rob-Will (Jai Courtney), who’s being unusually sentimental considering he’s been the show’s antagonist thus far.

Oreana senses something is off, and sure enough, she hears a gunshot less than 30 seconds after he departed her bedroom. She proceeds to find her father’s dead body near the front door before clocking that her adoptive uncle, Joaquin/Kino (Juan Pablo Raba), is speeding away from the scene. The two brothers had been dueling all season long for future control of 10 Petal.

“I was definitely shocked once I read the finale. I had heard that my character may or may not be pregnant. I wasn’t expecting the death [of Rob-Will] and Oreana’s pregnancy to both happen,” Lind says. 

Lind had to do a lot of wailing upon discovering Rob-Will’s lifeless body, but the waterworks weren’t limited to just her coverage. When Bening, as Rob-Will’s mother, arrived late on the scene, Lind couldn’t keep it together off camera. “We were shooting the reverse of Annette, and even though the camera wasn’t on me, I couldn’t stop crying off screen because of the vulnerability that she brought to that scene,” Lind shares.

Season two of Paramount+’s Dutton Ranch has already been greenlit, but many questions linger: Who’s the father of Oreana’s baby? Will she now embrace her birthright after the murder of her father? Where is her unmentioned mother? Lind and the rest of the Jackson family actors received a great deal of backstory prior to filming the show, but it remains to be seen if that’ll stick now that there’s a new showrunner, Benjamin Cavell, in the fold. “I know the mother’s backstory, but nobody else does yet,” Lind admits. “I hope it’s brought into season two, but I’m going to leave it there for now.”

Lind is also a self-proclaimed “horror addict,” and every Halloween, she goes above and beyond to establish her bona fides. She recently took it a step further by self-producing her own horror movie called Halloween Store. She leads the ensemble cast, as a masked killer begins targeting the staff of Spirit Halloween’s lesser known competitor, Shriek Shack. The film is on the verge of finishing its sound mix for release later this year. For Lind, the endeavor was less about being a scream queen and more about shepherding a production.

“Halloween Store was really about me being on the opposite side of the camera. It’s something I’ve always had an interest in since I was little,” Lind says.

Below, during a conversation with THR, Lind — who’s the older sister to Emily and Alyvia Alyn Lind — dives into Dutton Ranch finale and what comes next, as she also discusses the well-adjusted dynamic of her showbiz family.

How familiar were you with the Yellowstone universe going into Dutton Ranch auditions for Oreana Jackson?

I’ve been watching Yellowstone since the beginning. I was such a huge fan of the franchise and the characters in this brilliantly created universe. So in getting my first meeting for Dutton Ranch, I wasn’t just excited because there was the potential of me being on the show; I was just as thrilled to know that, as a fan, Beth [Kelly Reilly] and Rip [Cole Hauser] were coming back. So it didn’t feel like I was actually a part of it until I was on a horse at Cowboy Camp in Texas. It’s bizarre when you’ve been watching something for so long, and then, all of a sudden, you’re a part of it. I still can’t put it into words how crazy and how grateful I am for that.

Did the casting process start with sending a self-tape off into the ether?

Yeah, I sent a tape to John Papsidera, who’s probably my favorite casting director of all time. For a show like this, they don’t give you a ton of context for who the character is. My first audition scene was the introduction scene where Oreana gets out of her boyfriend’s truck, and she starts off just guns blazing. After I’d booked the show, I wasn’t even sure if that was her opening scene because I hadn’t received a script yet. Perhaps we’d see whatever brought her to that point of anger, so I love that you don’t meet her before then. It’s just such an intense way to come into a show, and that’s her entire energy throughout the season.

Once I sent in a tape, I didn’t really hear anything until two weeks later. I got a call saying that they wanted me to come to Texas in two days. So I got on a flight to Fort Worth where 12 to 14 other girls tested with me. It was such a supportive group of girls, and we all had a fun time staying at the Stockyards together. We thought of it as a little vacation to Texas. 

After we had the first day of testing, they brought us back in for a second day. I went in once, and then they pulled me aside to have me and Jai Courtney go into the room together.  I was like, “Nice to meet you. I don’t really know what’s happening.” We had to stand straight and then to the side. That night, I got on a flight to go home, and by the time I landed, I heard I had booked it. They gave me two days to get my stuff together before moving to Texas for six months. It was a whirlwind.

How was it explained to you that your 24-year-old character would be dating a 19-year-old high school kid (Finn Little’s Carter)?

It’s a very interesting dynamic because Oreana is a character who has been given everything to her on a silver platter. She’s been told who she is and what her path is going to be. And she’s now at a phase where she’s trying to rebel against that. Within that, she is snarky and kind of acting like a child. You then have Carter, who’s had a very rough upbringing having lost his parents, and he’s now been uprooted from Montana by [his new guardians] Beth and Rip and taken to Texas. 

In episode one, you see Oreana’s boyfriend Hoyt, who looks like he’s around 30, and it shows that sometimes love doesn’t have a number if there’s a genuine connection. Carter brings this whimsical, childlike feeling that Oreana was robbed of when she was younger. So the fact that they do have this age difference is going to play a role in later seasons. They’ll be at different stages in their lives, because it is a pretty major age difference. He can’t even legally drink yet. My character has already gone to an amazing college and graduated at the top of her class. So she’s a very, very smart girl, and she’s seen a lot of life. And Carter, even though he is younger, has experienced more than some people in their 50s have.

I feel so much secondhand embarrassment watching the Carter character operate. He makes every rookie mistake possible by love-bombing this more experienced young woman. Why do you think Oreana wasn’t scared off by his emotional immaturity?