SPOILERS ABOUND: Taylor Sheridan just wrapped the Yellowstone saga — at least for now — with tonight’s just concluded final episode. Deadline offers our usual recap, followed by a back and forth discussion between Mike Fleming Jr and Lynette Rice, who has spent a lot of time covering the Taylor Sheridan Universe. First, Fleming’s recap:
“Congratulations, you just made the worst land deal since my people sold Manhattan.”
There are a lot of good lines in the finale of Yellowstone’s fifth and final season, but it’s hard to top that one spoken by Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), the chairman of the Confederated Tribes of Broken Rock. He says it to Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), the son of slain Yellowstone patriarch John Dutton as they find a mutually beneficial solution to safeguard the land from being split into parcels and developed. Branded as an unruly youth with the ‘Y’ symbol by his father, and scarred with PTSD from all he’d seen and done in the Middle East as a Navy SEAL killer, Kayce finally finds peace after coming up with a solution for how to keep the sprawling Montana ranch in its pristine form, which was the life’s mission of his father.
But there’s a lot to unpack here before we get to the graceful way in which Taylor Sheridan — who created the series with John Linson – ties up every loose end in “Life Is A Promise,” the final episode he wrote and directed. And we know going in that all of this is the undercard to the final brawl between warring step-siblings Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley).
The episode begins with Rainwater’s righthand man, Mo Brings Plenty, leading a group that sabotages the pipeline that was being constructed on the pristine prairie after Governor John Dutton was murdered. They take the pipes and lose them in water deep enough that they won’t be salvaged.
Cut to the Yellowstone crew, still coming to grips with John Dutton’s nightmare scenario, dismantling a ranch that cannot be kept because of the tax burden. Sheridan’s horse broker character Travis Wheatley was a focal point of the penultimate episode “Give The World Away” last week when he belied his playboy rep and lifestyle by brokering a $30 million sale of all the Yellowstone livestock for no commission. He’s back, ostensibly to give some good-natured abuse to his underling Jimmy Hurdstrom (Jefferson White). As Travis leaves, he’s asked by Teeter (Jen Landon) if she can have a job at his horse haven Bosque Ranch. Why? Too much sad history, said the woman whose lover Colby Mayfield (Denim Richards) was killed by a fatal kick from a “mankiller” horse a couple episodes ago. Ever the needler, Travis hands her money to buy a book to learn to speak English, because her hillbilly patter will drive him crazy.
Next, Beth (Kelly Reilly) shows husband Rip (Cole Hauser) a plot of land she found and asks can he find a way to make them a home and make a living as a cowboy with a modest stock of horses and beef. He says he would be able to pay the bills, but it’s isolated enough that she’ll be hard pressed to find a bar. She notes she’ll be glad to be free of the tourists, and he can build her a bar. He agrees. Good, she says, because she already bought the land that morning.
Things take a serious turn when Beth is told by the funeral home that her father’s body is ready for burial. This will be no festive send-off for the Dutton patriarch played by Kevin Costner; just the immediate family – not Jamie – the cowboys and Lynelle Perry (Wendy Moniz), the former congresswoman and state governor who was also Dutton’s most frequent romantic companion before and after the death of his wife.
First, the ranch’s fate must be decided. How to get around a crushing tax burden that only corporations interested in developing the land could afford? In a move that was kind of telegraphed in the previous episode, Kayce is prepared to sign the entire land over to Rainwater and his tribe for $1.25 an acre, the price he says 1883’s James Dutton (Tim McGraw) paid when the family settled there. The idea is that the tribe would only be taxed on the selling price, a pittance compared to the land’s current value. The sale is conditional: the sprawling land can never be developed, and Kayce, wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille) and son Tate (Brecken Merrill) will stay on a small parcel where they’ve built a house and will live quietly. The chief and Kayce seal the deal with a ceremonious blood pact.
Rainwater notes that he’d once promised John Dutton he would find a way to take the ranch and eliminate any evidence that the rancher and his family were ever there. The first part of the promise is realized, but now, John Dutton and his family will remained buried there, and they’ll forever be prized as the longtime caretakers of land that has been returned to its rightful owners, just as original buyer James Dutton (Tim McGraw) said when tribal elders met him and he did them a favor.
John Dutton is laid to rest in a small celebration, buried right next to the wife (Gretchen Mol) who long ago had been killed in a fall from a horse while the kids were small. Kayce tells his wife Monica that in his prayer over his father’s coffin, he forgave his father, the man who gave him such hardship as a youth and shackled him with killing and anything else needed to keep encroaching developers from taking Yellowstone — all this because of a promise John made to his father (Dabney Coleman). But the entire hue of the sentimental finale darkens when Beth says her farewell to the father she gave up so much to protect his interests. She lays her head close to the coffin, and whispers to her father that she would soon avenge his death. So even though Jamie was not invited to the funeral, he’ll be seeing her soon. Rip, who became a surrogate son to John Dutton, gestured his loyalty and respect by dropping the coffin in the hole in the ground he dug with his cowboys. Alone with his shovel, Rip covers the coffin with the loose soil, laying John Dutton to rest for good.
An hour or so later, Rip realizes where Beth went when she sped off in her Bentley: the inevitable collision between the sister and the black sheep brother viewers know was complicit in the murder of John Dutton. That clumsy murder staged as a suicide was exposed by Kayce based on his SEAL experiences. And that led to Jamie’s lover, Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri), being shot dead in her car to cover the killers’ tracks.
We first see Jamie in the finale as he stands before his mirror, and then in the shower, practicing a speech he’ll give in a press conference. He demands justice for his father, declaring to the press and people of Montana that this was an attack on their liberty. And that as Dutton’s son and the Attorney General of Montana, he would dedicate himself to seeking justice on their behalf.
To most anybody who has followed the episodes, this rang as hollow as acquitted murderer OJ Simpson’s pledge to find the killers of his ex-wife Nicole, leading many to wonder if the prime suspects were on the golf courses because Simpson spent almost all of his time there. Jamie’s impassioned speech seems to move the crowd of journalists. Driving back to his house and listening to a favorable radio report, it seemed Jamie thought he’d be getting a pass, a smug satisfied grin spreading across his face.
That was until Beth surprises him at home with the first of several salvos of bear spray in his eyes. What follows is a knock-down, drag-out brawl reminiscent of Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler. Why didn’t Beth bring a gun? Why didn’t she wait for Rip, who was speeding to the location but was hopelessly behind?
Things looked particularly bad when Jamie got enough of the bear spray neutralized with a dousing of milk to gain the upper hand over his sister, pummeling her as she lay helpless on the floor. He tells Beth she will be arrested, and charged with killing their father, and then will rot in an 8×8 cell while he oversees her father’s beloved ranch getting sold into pieces to be transformed into a recreational destination.
A bloodied Beth laughs through her pain, telling Jamie the family no longer owns the land, after the deal she and Kayce made with Rainwater. At that point, Jamie’s intent becomes murderous.
Before Jamie can kill his sister, Rip barrels in and throws Jamie through a sheetrock wall. Before Rip can tear the family’s lady-hitter in half, Beth intervenes. She shoves a blade right into Jamie’s black heart, demanding he look her in the eyes, so she can keep her promise that hers would be the last face he ever sees.
Then Beth’s carefully crafted plan becomes clear. Beth tells Rip to call 911, and that he and Lloyd (Forrie J. Smith) should take Jamie’s body to the train station, that infamous ravine just over the Wyoming border where there is no police jurisdiction and where bodies disappear with great regularity. Beth then calmly explains she’ll spin a story that Jamie assaulted her with the intention of pinning the murder on her, running off when she fell unconscious after a vicious beating.
By the time Rip and Lloyd dump Jamie’s body and set his car ablaze in a desolate field in Iowa, her cover story is validated, and warrants are issued against Jamie for aggravated assault and domestic violence.
A few other loose ends get tied up in the aftermath. Loyal ranch hand Ryan (Ian Bohen) tells Rip he is going to wander awhile before figuring his next move. Distraught after losing best friend Colby, he regains his footing by tracking down the one who got away. That would be the C&W singer Abby (Lainey Wilson). Playing a club and clearly on her way to stardom, the singer sees Ryan in the crowd, and after exchanging pleasantries, she tells him to take care of himself. It’s clear she still hurts from when he spurned her offer to leave Yellowstone and join her. Ryan stops her, and says he’d made the wrong choice when he chose the cowboy life over her. She kisses him and it is clear Ryan’s ranching days are over and a more promising future beckons.
The finale climaxes as Yellowstone signage is removed by the tribe, and Mo Brings Plenty follows a group of tribal kids into the woods. When he sees them toppling Dutton family headstones, he scolds them. This is hallowed ground that must never be disturbed, he tells them. One of the headstones he puts back in place belongs to Elsa Dutton, the narrator of 1883 and the precocious daughter of James and Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill) played memorably by Isabel May. We hear her familiar voice as narrator, tying together the final knots in Sheridan’s deftly plotted finale. These connect all the way back to the family’s first wagon train trek from Texas to Montana.
Mike Fleming: Yellowstone has become a cultural touchstone, and it has launched the Taylor Sheridan Universe that has kept the Paramount Network and the Paramount + streaming service afloat. He has become one of the most prolific storytellers ever seen in the modern TV landscape. Lynette, I think Sheridan stuck the landing pretty good here in the Yellowstone finale. What say you?
Lynette Rice: Mike, I’ll admit I began this season with lots of pent-up frustration. Kevin Costner was Yellowstone to me, and I was annoyed that these two powerful men — Sheridan being the other — couldn’t work out their differences and continue to give fans the great ride they’ve we’ll all grown accustomed to when it comes to this series. I just miss him, man.
That said, the only way that Sheridan could proceed without the big guy was by killing off John Dutton. This gave Sheridan the organic story he needed to wrap up the tale, and I was deeply moved by the memorial and the way everyone said goodbye. I do have a few lingering questions: wouldn’t the state of Montana take issue with how the land was not sold at fair market value? And someone is going to have to eventually find all those bodies piled up at the train station, right? But I completely agree with you; this wrapped up beautifully and I loved how the camera pulled away from Reilly’s Beth standing there next to her new horse pen.
Fleming: I loved the journey of Beth and Rip, these imperfect halves who together became something to behold. Telling their stories in flashback and in the present was some of Sheridan’s best stuff. You understood why Rip would kill for the rancher – John Dutton took him in after he killed his own abusive father as the man was murdering Rip’s mother — and how Beth grew from this timid girl into a corporate warrior who pledged everything to her father to keep his ranch. But they’ve fought and won their wars. The only compulsion to continue would be that Yellowstone continues to get such high ratings that, how can you stop?
As for what you said about Costner, I agree. When Yellowstone started, nobody was making westerns, but here was the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves star pledging high might to this series. And nobody looks better in a cowboy hat than Costner. I closely covered the fallout between Costner and Sheridan, but when I saw John Dutton’s body and brain splattered on that bathroom wall in the first of the final episodes, it bothered me greatly. I felt Costner and his fans deserved something more respectful. Coming through the subsequent episodes, I think it was a ruthless creative decision by Sheridan that gave the final half season fabulous propulsion and a tremendously gratifying conclusion.
Beth and Rip’s story was concluded as gracefully as was Kayce and Monica’s arc. But the ratings have been so huge that the impulse to continue from a financial standpoint is undeniable. And Sheridan seems to have no shortage of ideas. Have you noticed how good Billy Bob Thornton’s Landman is, right out of the gate? Or the just completed season of Lioness? And Mayor of Kingstown and Tulsa King? And 1923? These shows are so different and he writes most of them.
For a guy who took up writing after realizing he had to make a career change after being stiffed on a pay hike on Sons of Anarchy, he is on a run I have never seen before. The likes of Greg Berlanti, Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes run a lot of shows, but Taylor hates writers rooms and writes most everything himself. I am a fan of every one of these shows. Paramount is lucky to have him and they work him like a rented mule.
Rice: I absolutely adore Billy Bob Thornton in Landman. I was expecting another Sheridan ensemble drama, so I was a bit blown away at how it’s really Thornton’s show; the rest are just players in his crazy little oil world. When I talked to Thornton last week about his Golden Globe nomination, he recalled how Sheridan wrote the role of Tommy the fixer especially for him. And my God, he’s so damn funny! Do I wish the women of Landman weren’t so one dimensional? Yes. Would I like to see Demi Moore do more than just swim in the family pool? Absolutely. But I love Landman more than Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown combined (no slight to Jeremy Renner, who’s truly a man among men). And speaking of the tireless work of that rented mule, I can’t wait for the return of 1923. Though I was impressed with young Isabel May in 1883 and thought the combo of Tim McGrath, Faith Hill and Sam Elliott was straight-up fire, 1923 really blew me away and introduced me to a new male star who I didn’t know I needed — Brandon Sklenar. I love him almost as much as I do Beth and Rip.
Fleming: Sklenar has Harrison Ford potential, which makes sense since Sheridan cast him to play his son in 1923. This guy is Indiana Jones. Sheridan is great at finding talent – nobody quite knew what to do with Cole Hauser, whose reddish hair and light complexion Sheridan told his makeup crew to darken, and suddenly he’s the best character in a western that we’ve seen since the salad days of westerns. He also found Isabel May as the anchor of 1883, and LaMonica Garrett, who was Sam Elliott’s traveling partner and moved seamlessly from 1883 to Lioness, and so many other actors he uses over and over.
On Beth and Rip, when I saw her dressing for John Dutton’s funeral, I noticed that facial scar and was trying to recall if that came from those brutal mercenaries sent by the Beck Brothers in season 2 or the following season, when her office was firebombed with her in it. That character has been through the gauntlet and what is wrong with the TV Academy that Kelly Reilly hasn’t been nominated? She is as overpowering as any actress on TV. As for Rip, his moments of righteous rage have been a highlight of the series. Terrific actor who found his wheelhouse after being in the ensemble of Dazed and Confused and the fourth guy in the car with Matt Damon and Ben and Casey Affleck in Good Will Hunting.
Rice: I will always be grateful for Hauser’s character in Good Will Hunting; he helped to build the engine for the beat-up car that took Will back to Skylar in California. I’m also right there raging with you, Mike, when it comes to the Emmys constantly snubbing Reilly; I wonder if Yellowstone’s initial red state reputation kept her from getting the attention she and the show deserved come awards time. (Kurt Sutter and just about every one of his magical stars suffered the same fate with Sons of Anarchy). As for the spinoff, I’d be giddy to see what Rip and Beth do on that remote land they bought, though I miss her days as a corporate shark. How wonderful would it be if we saw her splitting her time between the corral and the C-suite? I have to think Birmingham’s Rainwater and Mo Brings Plenty will be asked to play in the new version, and I’m certainly crossing my fingers that we’ll see more of Grimes, Jefferson White, Forrie J. Smith (as Lloyd), and the beloved Teeter. Any drama needs its stakes, so my guess is that Beth and Rip will help Rainwater to maintain control of the Yellowstone land. I mean, where else do they go in a new version?
Were you sad to see Wes Bentley’s Jamie offed? We had to suspend a little disbelief there in that bloody sibling battle; Beth is hardly a big girl, and Jamie really could have (and should have) killed her. It certainly helped to advance the story, Jamie’s death, but I will miss Bentley’s chiseled cheeks and dastardly ways.
Fleming: Jamie was always the weak link in the family chain. He was resentful his father pulled him off the ranch and sent him to an Ivy League school to be a lawyer, then didn’t tell him that Dutton took in Jamie who was the son of a drug addict mom killed by her husband. In the words of Livia Soprano, ‘Oh, poor you.” Think of how many times Jamie was able to blame others for his wormy misdeeds. He gave that interview about his father to a journalist and then he killed her to stop her from publishing. Then there was the extremist militia guys hired by his biological father (Willl Patton), which left Beth blown up in her office, Kayce in a gunfight, Monica and Tate fighting off killers and John Dutton left for dead by the side of the road. Jamie then killed his own father to cover that trail, with Beth memorializing the moment in an incriminating photo as Jamie prepared to dump dad’s corpse in the Train Station. And finally the last act where Jamie’s passive aggressiveness led to his adopted father being killed. And how about that thing he did to young Beth, when she asked help handling an abortion and he took her to a free clinic and okayed the hysterectomy that was a mandatory part of the procedure given mostly to poor Native American girls? That planted the seed of their blood feud. Bentley was a great and complex villain, but he got what was coming to him.
I did want to note what this show meant as a cultural phenomenon. When it started, they had Costner but just nobody was making westerns and if Paramount had any confidence it would never have sold off streaming rights. The show became the biggest thing on cable and built a lifestyle brand. Taylor and 101 Studios bought the famed Four Sixes horse and cattle ranch in Texas where they will shoot some of the Yellowstone spinoffs and prequels. They have a direct-to-consumer upscale meat business, a liquor brand and these are baked into the storylines of the shows. As long as Taylor Sheridan doesn’t run out of ideas and energy, this could become a billion-dollar business. Not bad for a creator who quit acting and took up writing because he knew he would only descend on the call sheet and would not be able to feed his family in LA.
One more thing: I have lost two of my fave shows in the span of one weekend with the end of Blue Bloods, another long running show anchored by an iconic actor. Makes you long for the days when shows like Bonanza ran forever. By the way did you know that Jen Landon, who played Teeter, is the daughter of Bonanza star Michael Landon? I could have seen Yellowstone go another five years if not for the falling out between Kevin Costner and Sheridan.
Rice: Mike, I’m with you on Blue Bloods. I just don’t get why that show is over. Sure, every broadcast network show has to come to an end; in fact, that’s one of the things the execs said when trying to explain why it was time to shut down Blue Bloods: everything has to come to an end. But I don’t hear anyone over at CBS saying that about NCIS.
Fleming: What is troubling is, everybody on Blue Bloods wanted to continue, including Tom Selleck. I was complaining about this to someone in the business and they said that every network exec would kill to have been involved in Succession. Even though shows like Blue Bloods and Yellowstone bring much higher ratings and pour off far more cash and have far more of an afterlife in reruns. After a long week, Friday night with the Reagan family was like a bowl of warm chicken soup. And don’t get me started on SWAT. Feels like sports is the only reason to watch linear network television anymore.
Rice: As for Teeter, I just learned about her real-life pa last month! It truly makes me love her more. I agree that the House of Sheridan is an impressive one, but I’m not quite ready to canonize the guy just yet. I have mixed feelings about the way he writes for women (yey for Reilly, Helen Mirren, Aminah Nieves, Zoe Saldana and Laysla De Oliveira; thoughts and prayers for Ali Larter, Demi Moore, Michelle Randolph and Kelsey Asbille). And the mythologizing that he did of himself — excuse me, of his character — in the penultimate episode of Yellowstone made me want to upchuck into my fictitious cowboy boots. It will be interesting to see what kind of auditing Skydance Media does on the 101 Studios books once it takes full control of Paramount. A lot of money pours through that operation, and the continued trend of contraction that is currently plaguing Hollywood has to eventually find its way to Sheridan’s Texas ranch, right? It’s only a matter of time. Just don’t touch Thornton and Sklenar, Skydance people.
Fleming: I got a different view of Sheridan, after spending time on two of the ranches and watching him divide between the cowboy and showrunner stuff. They couldn’t get me on a horse, but at a holiday party for staff, I was coerced into eating a fried bull’s testicle. They take them off the steers all the time, I guess to calm them down, they fry ’em up and it’s considered a delicacy. I was actually presented with two (naturally), but could only choke down the one. It tasted like a clam and reminded me of my days as a clam digger in the Great South Bay on Long Island when I was in high school and college. People loved these little necks but not me; I saw them as big dimes in a shell, because that’s what they were each worth in the summer when a hard day’s work could bring you $100 cash or more on the day. I wouldn’t advise eating bull’s balls to anybody.
Rice: If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say they ate a fried bull’s testicle … I would, um, have a dollar. Dang, Mike!
Fleming: Now, I’ve digressed. On Sheridan: Costner once told me he made this his first full series after reading the pilot and feeling there was gold dust sprinkled all over that pilot script. I agree with him. It rarely happens, but then again Sheridan’s first scripts included Sicario and Hell or High Water, when he quickly emerged as a Cormac McCarthy of screenwriters. This guy can flat out write, and he remains a good actor. He told me the only reason he played a character on Yellowstone was he was the only actor on the premises who could do those tricky maneuvers with a horse. I’m skeptical, after his turn as an elite soldier/sniper in Lioness, but he was damn good in that role also. I know you bristled about his character’s narcissism in last week’s episode, and that he hired supermodel Bella Hadid to play his character’s girlfriend. But when I was at the ranch, I spent time with his longtime wife Nicole, who encouraged and supported his transition to writer. He is certainly the boss when he’s on set. But when he’s home, believe me, she is. Great lady. Taylor was playing a character in Yellowstone; it had no bearing on who he is at home.