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Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the Yellowstone Season 5 finale.
Prior to the airing of Yellowstone‘s Season 5 finale, we weren’t sure how the Dutton saga would end. This author called the ending last week, believing that the only way for Kayce (Luke Grimes) and Beth (Kelly Reilly) to save their family legacy was to work together with Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) so that the Yellowstone and Broken Rock might coexist. With “Life Is a Promise,” that’s about exactly what happened. The moment is a stroke of genius by Taylor Sheridan, who played the long game with Yellowstone in order to pull this off. More than that, it further connects the flagship series to the expanding Yellowstone universe, and that’s certainly a good thing.
‘Yellowstone’s Ending Was a Perfect Bookend to the Universe
If there’s a better ending for Yellowstone, then we’re not quite sure what it would be. For so long, the series thrived on the conflict between John Dutton (Kevin Costner), the local Indian Reservation, and whatever new land development corporation was settling into Paradise Valley. This was the common plot throughout the series’ five-season run. While it looked different depending on the season, each new season felt eerily similar to the last. But with Season 5 Part 2, the series took a different turn entirely, not only in killing John Dutton but in forcing his children to venture on without him. No longer in control of his family legacy or destiny, John could not control how things were run. In many ways, John’s death echoes the death of the mythic American West, and the old tales held to so tightly. With John, his dreams of a cattle empire crumble under the harsh weight of reality, and his children are the ones left picking up the pieces. The Old West may be over, but what was once tamed is becoming wild again.
Here is where Taylor Sheridan ought to be given some extra credit. In interlacing Yellowstone‘s fourth season with flashbacks to James Dutton’s (Tim McGraw) time settling the Montana Territory (and later expanding upon that in the prequel, 1883), the filmmaker has been effectively foreshadowing this ending for years, right under most of our noses. I’ll be the first to admit that those Season 4 flashbacks often felt out of place or unnecessary, but looking back on the narrative now, and seeing how it all played out in the end, they’ve become paramount to Yellowstone‘s success. It only sticks the landing because that landing was so well-prepared for. Yes, 1883 can stand entirely on its own, but its place as “a Yellowstone origin story” cannot be denied. Without that story, we wouldn’t have gotten the prophecies that foretold how, in “seven generations” from the time of James Dutton, the land would be returned to the Crow people. But not only does the ending of Yellowstone connect back to the Dutton family’s past and their history with Montana, it also harkens back to the way the show began.
Related
‘Yellowstone Series Finale Is “Beautifully” Written, Says Star
The series finale airs on Sunday, December 15.
‘Yellowstone’ Sticks the Long-Awaited Ending
“Life Is a Promise” centers around a funeral, and the very first episode, “Daybreak,” ends with one — Lee Dutton’s (Dave Annable), to be exact. Here in the show’s super-sized Season 5 finale, we get a glimpse back at Lee’s grave. But what makes this particularly notable is that, during Lee’s funeral, John reflects on his family’s history. The way it’s framed, it’s almost like his ancestors began to live through him. He decides to fight “everyone” who would threaten the ranch simply because he meditates on those who bled and died to preserve it (some of which we still know nothing about).
There’s a poetry to the way “Life Is a Promise” concludes, with Elsa Dutton (Isabel May) — the first Dutton to bleed and die on the land — closing out the Duttons’ stewardship over Paradise Valley. “My father was told they would come for this land, and he promised to return it,” her spirit explains in a voiceover reminiscent of the end of 1883 or 1923. “Nowhere was that promise written. It faded with my father’s death but somehow lived in the spirit of this place.”
It turns out, that very spirit may have visited John Dutton, only to rest upon Kayce’s shoulders. Without his vision of a way out (which, coincidentally, was also during the show’s fourth season), the land may have been plundered and divided by Market Equities. But that was never how this story was going to end. Rather, the ending sticks the landing because, despite John Dutton’s hopes for his family’s future and legacy, his ancestors made a promise — and if Beth is any indication, for a Dutton, a promise like that is worth more than gold.
Yellowstone (Seasons 1-5A) is available for streaming on Peacock.
A ranching family in Montana faces off against others encroaching on their land.
- Release Date
- June 20, 2018
- Creator
- Cast
- Kevin Costner , Finn Little , Brecken Merrill , Gil Birmingham , Denim Richards , Ian Bohen , Danny Huston , Kelly Reilly , Forrie J. Smith , Cole Hauser , Kelsey Asbille , Wes Bentley , Jefferson White , Luke Grimes , Ryan Bingham
- Seasons
- 5
- Network
- Paramount
- Franchise(s)
- Yellowstone
- Story By
- Taylor Sheridan
- Streaming Service(s)
- Paramount Plus , Peacock
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