Former ‘Nashville’ Actor Joins ‘Yellowstone’ Cast for Season 4
Yellowstone will return to television for its upcoming Season 4 in the fall, and the revamped cast of the show will include a face that's familiar to country music fans. One of the newly announced cast members for the upcoming season is a veteran of the country music-themed TV show Nashville.
The Paramount Network released the first trailer for Season 4 of the runaway hit drama on July 1, accompanied by a press release announcing four new cast members. One of them is Kathryn Kelly, who portrayed Angela McPherson on several episodes of Nashville during its final season in 2018.
Kelly joins Yellowstone in the role of Emily, a vet tech who begins a relationship with one of the cowboys on the show. Her previous credits also include a 2019 role in the Netflix series Dolly Parton's Heartstrings, in which she played a character named Melissa Meeks as part of the "Down From Dover" episode.
Other new cast members coming to Yellowstone for Season 4 in 2021 include Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook, Birdbox) who will play Caroline Warner, the CEO of Market Equities, as well as Piper Perabo (Covert Affairs, Coyote Ugly), who will play Summer Higgins, "an outside protestor from Portland who is against the state-funded police force that protects industrialized farming and the killing of animals." Finn Little (Storm Boy, Angel of Mine) is set to play Carter, described as "a young boy reminiscent of a young Rip," the ranch overseer played by Cole Hauser.
Yellowstone tells the story of the Dutton family, led by John Dutton (Kevin Costner). Dutton owns the largest contiguous cattle ranch in the United States, and the modern-day Western drama centers around the conflict he faces with those who border his property, as well as the drama within his own family, which he rules with an iron fist. The Duttons' zeal to maintain control of their land at all costs often leads them into questionable choices, both ethically and legally.
Season 3 of Yellowstone — which has become the most-watched show on cable television — ended with multiple cliffhangers as the Dutton family came under concerted attack. John Dutton fell to the ground after he was shot in the chest, while his daughter, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) appeared to be killed by a package bomb that blew up in her office. One of his sons, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) was also attacked by gunmen who burst into his office and opened fire.
The trailer doesn't clarify who might live or die as Season 4 opens, but the press release announcing the new cast members may have inadvertently spilled the beans on Beth Dutton's fate. Describing the character of Carter, it says, "Beth decides the ranch is the best place to teach him a lesson on how to be a man" — which means Reilly's character must have somehow survived the attack on her life.
Yellowstone's Season 4 is slated to begin in November on the Paramount Network.
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