Dutton Ranch Star Was Convinced He Was Being Killed Off In Season 1: 'It Was Fun While It Lasted'

With the first season of "Dutton Ranch" now behind us, every character on the Paramount+ drama can breathe a sigh of relief that they survived... for now. After all, unless your name is Beth or Rip, tomorrow is never guaranteed on the "Yellowstone" spin-off. Just ask Rob-Will, a seemingly pivotal character to the series, who met his untimely end in the finale.

Needless to say, the show's actors read every new script with their fingers crossed, hoping their characters would still be alive by the time they reached the last page. Juan Pablo Raba, who plays Beulah's scorned "son" Joaquin, tells TVLine he was certain that it was curtains for Joaquin in Episode 6 when Chet approached him with a whole lot of anger — and a gun.

"When I first got the episode, I had no idea what was going to happen," Raba recalls. "Cole [Hauser] and Kelly [Reilly] know because they're producers, but for the rest of us, every single script is a wild card. So I started reading the script, and when I saw Chet that pulls a gun and walks towards Joaquin, I was like, 'Well, this is it. It was fun while it lasted.'"

Fully accepting that Joaquin was being killed off, Raba admits that he was surprised he hadn't heard from one of the show's producers ahead of time. "I'm thinking, oh my God, I would have hoped that somebody would have called me to tell me, 'Hey, buddy, this is it,'" he says. "But I'm just like, damn it, it feels so soon."

Fortunately, Raba turned the page and realized that it wasn't Joaquin's time; instead, Chet was shot and killed by Miguel, who had been lurking in the shadows with a firearm of his own. Raba says the positive outcome for his character "was a big surprise story-wise."

And it's a good thing Joaquin did survive his encounter with Chet in Episode 6, or else we wouldn't have been left with that juicy finale cliffhanger.

When Joaquin's father Mariano returns to clean things up in the "Dutton Ranch" finale, he gives his son a game-changing order: "Kill your brother." Joaquin is horrified, but he's even more afraid of his father than he is of Rob-Will, so he doesn't refuse. Later that night, we see Joaquin agonizing over what he's about to do, just moments before Rob-Will is gunned down in the entryway of the Jackson family home.

But did Joaquin really kill Rob-Will, or could it have been someone else? Speaking with TVLine, Juan Pablo Raba is fairly adamant about his character's innocence.

"As I flip through the pages, I don't see an actual scene where Joaquin kills him," the actor points out. "All we see is Joaquin in his car giving some hard thought to something. And then we see him later, in the same car with the same gun, but did he do it?" Raba suggests that Mariano, sensing Joaquin's uncertainty, likely sent a "back-up" guy to make sure Rob-Will was taken out.

Regardless of whether Joaquin is the one who shot Rob-Will, Raba is very aware that his character remains on the proverbial chopping block: "I don't know how much longer Joaquin could live," he says. "Maybe it's 10 seasons, maybe it's one more season, you have no idea."

Are you surprised that Joaquin lived to see another season of "Dutton Ranch"? And do you think he's really the one who killed Rob-Will? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.