‘Yellowstone’: Piper Perabo Explores Summer’s ‘Loneliness’ in Season 5

In Yellowstone Season 5, John Dutton uses his power as governor to commute Summer Higgin’s prison sentence. As a result, Summer must remain on house arrest at the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. It’s an odd situation for Summer to only have the Duttons to interact with for the foreseeable future. Perabo explored feelings of loneliness in her character this season.

Summer Higgins is on house arrest at John’s home in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5

At the start of Yellowstone Season 5, Summer Higgins is serving a lengthy prison sentence for civil disobedience and assault. After John is sworn in as governor, he uses his power to commute her sentence to house arrest. Summer must live at John’s home for the foreseeable future.

“One thing I realized at the beginning of the season was when Summer gets out of prison, the only one there is John, and it’s not like John brings her to his house and she calls her folks or her friends,” Piper Perabo observed while speaking to Variety.

“She doesn’t call anybody, she just starts living there on that ranch. And because of that, I went with this idea of the loneliness of Summer’s character.”

Piper Perabo explored her character’s loneliness this season

To make matters worse for Summer in Yellowstone Season 5, she is living alongside Beth Dutton, and the pair really don’t get along. However, after a fistfight between the two women, they come to a mutual understanding.

Summer clearly feels out of place throughout the season. When John and Beth leave to brand cattle, she tells Beth that she doesn’t know what to do while he is gone. Beth suggests she walk around the ranch and try to learn something. At the Dutton family’s cemetery, she runs into Monica.

Perabo told Variety that her character’s loneliness “really helped inform the scenes I have with Monica. Even why she kind of puts up with Beth as much as she does,” she continued.

“Summer doesn’t really seem to have anybody else. John respects her, and so that gives her some standing, and she’s sort of friends with Gator. That’s about it. And so I think there’s a real desire for family that Summer can see.”

Summer joins the Duttons inner circle in season 5

Yellowstone often focuses on themes of adoptive family and loyalty. Rip swore his loyalty to the Duttons long ago, and in season 4, he and Beth brought Carter into their home. Now in Yellowstone Season 5, Summer has come into the Dutton’s inner circle.

“As f***ed up as the Duttons are, everybody’s family is kind of f***ed up, and families are still the rock of a lot of things, even if it’s your chosen family and not your family of origin,” Perabo explained to Variety. “So I don’t think Summer wants to let go of what she’s found, because I’m not sure she has it anywhere else.”

Yellowstone Season 5 returns with new episodes this summer, 2023.