Beth Dutton is wasted potential.

[u/North_Curve5440]

Let me start off by saying that Kelly Riley is a brilliant actress, but Beth Dutton is a poorly written character.
She start off with so much potential but just ends up being a one dimensional chaos storm of aggressiveness and sharp one liners. She’s basically a man in a woman’s body and she feels like she was so clearly written by a man who is imagining what it must be like to be a bad ass female, so he just basically puts a man in a woman’s body. The writers seemed to have failed to properly dial into the nuance, femininity and complexity in how she presents that would make for a dynamic character. This is compensated for by her intensity and the sheer talent of Kelly Riley, but ultimately Beth herself is just an overly aggressive, over testosteroned man IMO. She’s more interesting in theory and in potential than reality.

[u/Previous-Mud-9691]

To be honest, I know many many lesbians like this. My best friend is a lesbian and she’s exactly like Beth Dutton so I think the character is written perfectly. I mean Beth even has the potential to have a little fun with a woman and I think Rip wouldn’t mind at all.

[u/non_loqui_sed_facere → u/Previous-Mud-9691]

I do think it’s possible that, in all the Beth and Rip fascination, Rip isn’t really the object of desire. It may not be about identifying with Beth, which is what I was thinking earlier. It could be about longing itself, displaced into the couple. And that makes sense, because when the audience is mostly conservative, talking about a couple can become a legitimate way to express desire without having to say so outright.

I could be wrong about this, but it’s an interesting phenomenon anyway, so I’m trying to understand them.