Once the peak of the action started in the Dutton Ranch Season 1 finale, it never stopped. The season ended on a major cliffhanger that leaves one main character’s life in the balance, setting up Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip’s (Cole Hauser) conflict for Season 2. Joaquin’s (Juan Pablo Raba) father, Mariano (Raoul Trujillo), was finally introduced, and his presence led to a deadly fallout for one character. Here, Natalie Alyn Lind, who plays Oreana, breaks down the finale, explaining what happens next with her character and addressing Jackson family tree secrets that could come to light in Dutton Ranch Season 2. Warning: Dutton Ranch Season 1 finale spoilers ahead! This article also contains discussion of sexual assault.
Beth and Rip finally learned the full extent of Beulah Jackson’s (Annette Bening) corrupt cattle operation at the 10-Petal Ranch. Beulah also told the truth about Rob-Will’s (Jai Courtney) parentage to her lover, Everett (Ed Harris), revealing new details about how Rob-Will’s father really died. Beulah told Everett that she became pregnant because of the sexual assault she endured when she was younger (this story was revealed in flashbacks in Episode 7). She previously said that Rob-Will’s father died in a flood before he was born, but Beulah actually killed her attacker herself, and Mariano was a witness. Mariano was forced to take the fall and had to return to Mexico, and young Joaquin was left with Beulah.
As repayment of her de facto debts, Mariano smuggles fentanyl into the United States through the cattle being sent to the 10-Petal Ranch. Their shady business practices demanded no proper inspection of the animals being brought to the U.S. This led to Beth and Rip buying the diseased steer that infected their entire herd with foot-and-mouth disease, resulting in the execution of all their cattle. Beulah was looking for an out from her deal with Mariano’s cartel when Beth and Rip came to them for work after that disaster, and she thought she could make it work without Beth and Rip finding out and being in danger. She thought wrong.
The conflict led to Mariano’s men kidnapping Carter (Finn Little) and Joaquin murdering Rob-Will, who had just had a rarely tender moment with his daughter, Oreana, right before he was shot in the head in the entryway of the Jackson family home. The finale also revealed that Oreana is pregnant with Carter’s child. Carter doesn’t know yet, but they were planning on running away together. Now, every plan Oreana had is up in the air.
Lind tells TV Insider in the video interview above that it was too soon for Oreana to know if she wanted to keep the baby or not. That final talk with her dad was healing, and it made her feel for the first time that she maybe could handle motherhood. But where is Oreana’s mother? Lind knows, but she can’t share the details.
“Yes, I do know. This show was such a blessing. As an actor, you sometimes have to create backstories for your character internally because you don’t necessarily know exactly where they came from. But on this show, we were sat down with some of the creatives behind the show, and they gave us our family history going back to the 1800s,” Lind reveals. “So I do know where Oreana’s mom is or was. I’m trying to put it in my mouth so that I’m not giving anything away, but I do think that that’s probably something that’s going to be coming out in Season 2, which I’m really excited about.”
Even without the traumatic experience of her father’s death, Oreana would be thinking about her mother as she considered motherhood herself. Lind believes that Oreana will want to keep the baby.
“That’s probably one of the things I’m most excited about for Season 2, just seeing how motherhood changes Oreana,” she explains. “Being raised with somebody who has made so many mistakes, I think that kind of scares her about going into motherhood. And in Episode 9, the conversation that Rob-Will and Oreana have right before the very traumatic thing happens, that’s the first sign in the back of her head where she sees her dad so vulnerable. It puts her into a different mindset of, ‘OK, I think I can do this,’ after seeing that her dad is also a real person, because I don’t think she’s seen that vulnerable side of him very often. She doesn’t see that he doesn’t necessarily love the ranch more than her. He just feels like it’s something that he has to maintain in his bloodline. She really relates to her father in a very impactful way in that scene.”
Check out the Dutton Ranch finale video interview with Lind above for more insights into Oreana and Carter’s relationship, her feelings about Beth, Rip, Beulah, and Joaquin, and more.
