For a show like “Yellowstone,” where storylines have always been explosive and sensational, Sunday’s Season 5 (series?) finale was more of a whimper than a bang.
The nearly two-hour episode found the whole Dutton clan wrapping up their business — selling the ranch, burying their father, killing their brother and so on — but the action seemed to come and go fairly quickly in favor of more cowboy glorifying, beautiful shots of endless vistas and long, lingering stares.
In a way, it makes sense that “Yellowstone” ended this way. John Dutton (Kevin Costner) never seemed to be one for drama, so it’s possible creator Taylor Sheridan wanted to wrap up this show with “Saturday night sitting quietly on the porch” vibes rather than rodeo hubbub. He certainly wanted to get some of his own jabs and japes in, with Sheridan’s Travis delivering not just supposedly knee-slapping stories about Rip (Cole Hauser) but also both a job and a dressing down for Teeter (Jennifer Landon). There’s something a little eerie about the way “Yellowstone” has always glorified putdowns, like these cowhands should feel proud to work in a place that would absolutely never pass any sort of HR muster.
Here’s How ‘Yellowstone’ Ended
I’d say I won’t miss all that cutting language, but Sheridan made sure to lay all sorts of groundwork for his promised “6666” spinoff series, from Teeter’s move to Texas, his own chatter about horse training life and whatever Jefferson White’s Jimmy is up to at any given time. There was plenty of groundwork laid for the just-announced Rip and Beth (Kelly Reilly) spinoff too, though it’s a little less clear what the plot of that will be, given that they seem to just be hanging out with each other in a ranch far, far away from civilization.
What it won’t be is a prison drama, since Beth finally took out Jamie (Wes Bentley) after the funeral, in an all-out knockdown brawl that Rip stepped into at just the right time. Given that Beth is consistently written as the smartest and wiliest character on the show, it should come as no surprise that, despite going into kill Jamie with just a knife, a tire iron and some bear spray, she still managed to come out of the whole thing scot free, save a concussion and some broken ribs. While Rip’s off disposing of Jamie’s body (How did they get it out of the house mid-day with no questions asked? Does no neighbor have a Ring cam?) Beth tells the cops that she merely went to Jamie’s to confront him about not attending the funeral and that he snapped, banging her around before fleeing to God knows where. The cops — bless their hearts — seem to buy it hook, line and sinker, despite a ton of evidence that would fall apart with just a passing glance, additionally taking Beth’s advice about looking into LLC accounts held by Sarah Atwood. (Again, you’d think the cops would have thought of this, but in the “Yellowstone” world, only the Duttons are smart enough to do really anything.)
Speaking of smart: Kayce (Luke Grimes) sells the Yellowstone land to Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) for $1.25 an acre, making the tribal leader promise to return it to nature, save the east camp which he asks to have deeded back to him so he can start his own family outfit. Rainwater tells Kayce that he’s made the worst land deal since the Lenape people supposedly sold Manhattan for some beads, but Kayce seems fine with that. Rainwater promises to return the land to the state it was in long before any Duttons started building, something we see near the end of the episode as tribe members dismantle the barn, the Dutton home and anything else that was built with human hands.
What we knew as the Yellowstone ranch is now going to be a nature preserve able to be traversed only by horse or foot, and that’s pretty fitting.
Mid-episode, amidst all of this drama, the Duttons also managed to bury John Dutton, with Beth flouncing and wailing like a wounded widow. He was buried in a grave dug by his cowboys, with barely a service, all watched by a U.S. senator wearing a very tight skirt. Afterwards, there was steak, beans, biscuits, and cobbler, which seems about right. John Dutton got the funeral he would have wanted.
It came too soon — just like the end of “Yellowstone,” some might say — and it wasn’t on his own terms, but there was beauty in his end all the same. It was time for a change at the ranch, and if it took a full reset for it to happen, that’s alright with me.
Past episodes of “Yellowstone” are available to stream on Peacock. Season 5 will stream at a later date.
