The First 10 Minutes of the Yellowstone Season 4 Premiere Will Shake You to Your Core

You might want to prepare yourself for Sunday evening, because all is not well on the Dutton ranch. When Yellowstone returns for its Season 4, it picks up right where the Season 3 finale left off, with the entire Dutton family under siege. John (Kevin Costner) had been shot with machine guns on the side of the road, while Kaycee (Luke Grimes) was fending off an attack in his office by more armed men, with a confused Monica (Kelsey Asbille) on the phone. Beth (Kelly Reilly) was caught in an explosion as she cleaned out her office and one of the boxes contained a bomb. And then there's Jimmy (Jefferson White), once again thrown from a horse.

It seems unlikely that all of the Duttons will make it out alive, especially given that there's more to come. The carnage isn't over yet, and it all plays out in the first part of the premiere in some of the most intense sequences TV has seen in a while. You might have to remind yourself to breathe. 

"That was the goal," Asbille tells TV Guide. "It's such an intense opening. We pick up right where we left off, and Monica doesn't know who or what she's fighting. All she has on her mind is to keep Tate safe." 

Find Out Where to Stream Anything with TV Guide's Search Engine for Streaming Shows

Asbille says it was shot "really differently [from] the rest of the show," in an "intense, almost war-like space." You can imagine that it's going to cause some trauma as if Monica and her already traumatized son Tate (Brecken Merrill) needed more of that. 

"For her, this certainly has more stakes because of the effect that it has on Tate, and seeing the Dutton in him especially, really is terrifying," Asbille says, carefully trying not to spoil. "So she's really at her tipping point."

Monica is in the midst of trying to take control and "recenter" her life away from the Duttons, Asbille says, which is not an easy task. And however this attack goes for her husband Kaycee, there's a battle ahead. 

"They really have to fight with each other to fight for each other," Asbille teases of that relationship. "And it does open up a new chapter for them that has its own kind of crazy cliffhanger." 

Elsewhere, Rip (Cole Hauser) also has no idea what has just happened. All he knows is that there are birds circling in the distance. 

"I think, maybe it's a dead cow," Hauser says of Rip's thoughts. "Because when birds circle that quickly, it's something that's been there and they just found it. I think it's, 'What the hell is going on?' And then he pulls up and sees what he sees, and then it's [time to] go into game mode, and how do we save lives?" 

Rip spent much of the finale digging up his dead mother to get her ring to give to Beth, and so obviously he'll be devastated to think she's been blown up. Hauser couldn't spoil Beth's fate, but he could say that the aftermath of these attacks will be "intense and dramatic."

"It takes some time to get through all the carnage...but [Creator Taylor Sheridan] does a great job of slowing the season down for a minute and being able to go through the different pain and suffering of each and every character and what they've gone through," he says. 

And then there's Jamie (Wes Bentley), who seems to have decided his adoption at three months old means he's no longer associated with the Duttons. He was certainly not included in the attacks on the rest of the family, and that gave Bentley some serious "mixed feelings."

"I was partly relieved, and partly I'm like, oh, it's coming at some point," he says, but just because Jamie wasn't under immediate attack doesn't mean that he's off the hook. "I will just say that Jamie is both dangerous and he's in danger."

Bentley describes the opening scenes of the Season 4 premiere as "fire." "I mean, it's high energy. It's right where we left off, and more intense because the hunt's on, and it gets crazy and fun," he teases. "We don't know everything yet, but we learn a little bit right away. It's gonna be fun for everybody." 

Maybe not everybody, but that depends on your definition of fun. 

Jamie is certainly about to have some "fun" this season as he pursues a relationship with his biological dad Garrett (Will Patton), who, in a roundabout way, advised him to kill the king and take over the empire in their Season 3 finale conversation. Bentley says Jamie is searching for a "life of acceptance and love" and hoping to "cut himself off from the pain behind him," which may seem like a weird thing to hope for when your real dad murdered your real mother. Sure, it was apparently a murder meant to give Jamie the life he deserved, but it was still a murder. 

Everything to Know About Yellowstone Season 4: Trailer Premiere Date, Cast, and More

"Well, when we're desperate and lost, we make the worst decisions and we think we're making good ones," Bentley says. "I think he's a little wary of Garrett. He does believe what happened was wrong, and he's aware of that feeling. But you know, he's been a part of wrong for a while and he's been wronged on top of it. Maybe this guy won't wrong him." 

And no, the other Duttons are not going to be so thrilled about his choices. 

"They're understandably ready for revenge, and that's what I would say this season is really about. They're out for revenge, and they're definitely in a corner now," he explains. "They're definitely lashing out, and we know how dangerous that is. It's not good, and it doesn't get much better as we go on." 

Of course, none of the people in immediate danger were made available for interviews, so you'll just have to tune in on Sunday to find out how all that danger plays out, and by whom.

Yellowstone premieres Sunday, Nov. 7 at 8/7c with a two-episode special event.