We Could’ve Had a Yellowstone Finale. Instead, We Got This.
Ghost wolves????
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After five seasons of epic family drama — betrayals, estrangements, impossible choices, and countless murders, all in service of keeping Yellowstone Ranch within the Dutton family — Yellowstone limped its way to a lackluster and unimaginably boring conclusion. (Probably. The Paramount bug in the corner of the frame insisted it was the season finale rather than the series finale, despite a long closing sequence in which people literally dismantle the ranch board by board.)
If the goal were to wrap up any of its many dangling story lines and themes, the second half of Yellowstone’s fifth season did not spend its time efficiently. For instance, the Dutton family has been dropping its murder victims into a supersecret pit full of bodies in Wyoming for decades. Perhaps someone might discover that pit of bodies? And there might be interesting ramifications for their crimes? Rather than show any of that, though, much of season five’s back half is devoted to killing the patriarch, John Dutton, then retelling how he died and occasionally killing him again for good measure. Meanwhile, Beth, Kayce, and Jamie Dutton have been arguing over the family’s future with the ranch, and in the past, the show has offered fairly nuanced, fraught portraits of how useless it is to try to fight against encroaching modernity. As another option for the finale, maybe the essential tensions of family vs. profit and modernity vs. tradition could have been expressed through a plot? Something that might have ultimately shown how these binaries are intractable, unsolvable, quintessentially American quagmires? But no, because that would have taken away from the time necessary to tell us that Bella Hadid plays the girlfriend of Travis, a very cool cowboy played by Taylor Sheridan. One more possibility: A Yellowstone finale could have dealt with the incredible burden of loyalty Yellowstone employees are forced to feel for the Dutton family, thanks to the fact that many of the cowboys have been literally branded like cattle!
Instead, creator, writer, director, and actor Sheridan bravely charted a new course, a striking and impressive abnegation of what you might reasonably expect to be the main responsibilities and opportunities of this finale. He could have written a big exciting ending! But at basically every turn, he chose to … not do that. Here, then, are all the things Sheridan did choose to do with the finale of Yellowstone, things that took up time in the nearly 90-minute episode so he did not need to produce a plot or character development or dramatic tension.
Make Sheridan’s character, Travis, look cool in front of everyone.
The opening dialogue in the finale is of course spoken by Travis, who sits around the table in the bunkhouse and tells fun stories about cowboy exploits from the past. The ranch employees and the remaining non-estranged Dutton family members are arrayed around him, smiling and laughing and marveling at how cool Travis is. He offers weird misfit ranch hand Teeter a job, which means Travis’s story line has wrapped up and there is no possible reason whatsoever for him to appear in this episode again.
Avoid any potential drama whatsoever regarding the fate of Yellowstone Ranch.
This is an important one. Naturally, most of the narrative momentum about the end of Yellowstone was going to revolve around the fate of the ranch, which has been the single biggest question of the entire series. How to maintain this unprofitable business (excuse me, way of life) against the forward march of progress? How to negotiate the desires of the Dutton family versus the Broken Rock Reservation’s traditional right to this land? You’d assume some dramatic tension would be almost unavoidable here, but no. Early in the episode, Kayce and Beth announce that the Duttons will simply sell the ranch to the reservation at a much reduced and historically symbolic price, allowing them to avoid paying inheritance tax somehow. Everyone is fine with this right away. No one has regrets, even though John Dutton made Beth promise never to sell it and she was like, “Okay, Daddy.” No one thinks something else should’ve happened at any point except Jamie, who wants to sell the land to make an airport and also a strip mall and some luxury resorts. But he’s evil and no one cares about him and he’ll be dispatched shortly.
Let Rip figure out how to dig a grave.
John Dutton needs to be buried, so there’s a whole scene in which Rip tells the cowboys they have to go dig the grave themselves, presumably as a gesture of appreciation, though they do not say that outright. An excavator is mentioned.
Shoot unedited funeral sequence for John Dutton, who is dead.
When the goal is to fill time in as plotless and unmotivated a way as possible, one useful device is to play out some ceremony to its full length with no cuts for time or elisions of action. We’re gonna need to hear the entire “Ashokan Farewell.” We’re gonna need to see each rose get placed on the casket one by one. Sheridan undermined himself here by having Beth insist there be no speeches or religious framing; a homily could have eaten up three to four minutes, no problem. Still, he had Beth lean over the casket and whisper vows to her dead father in two separate scenes, first to tell him she has taken care of everything and he can now rest peacefully and then to completely contradict the previous message by vowing to avenge him. Plus, Rip got to ream out the poor preacher who suggested doing a prayer. (Why was the preacher even there?!)
Let Rip figure out how to fill in the grave.
“How does this work?” Rip asks about the casket-lowering mechanism. “I believe the poles rotate and you lower the straps with the crank,” the preacher answers, proving his purpose after all. Rip removes the poles, lowers the straps with the crank, and stands there for 56 seconds while the casket descends. Then he picks up a shovel. Then he moves the little fake-grass matting away from the grave. Then he tells the preacher he will be using the shovel. Riveting stuff.
Cook meat with Gator.
Gator, author of The Official Dutton Ranch Family Cookbook, shows up for the post-funeral meal. “What are you making?” asks Senator Perry. “Rib eyes,” he says. “Beans, sourdough biscuits. Blueberry cobbler.”
Ensure Beth carries out one final revenge plot that requires zero prep, plotting, inner conflict, or narrative obstacles.
Like the fate of the ranch, this sequence carries a high risk of being inherently interesting. Beth vowed to get revenge against her brother Jamie, finally ending their battle over … honestly, the exact contours of what they’ve been fighting about have been pretty murky. Someone always wants to do something with the land, though who wants what exactly keeps changing and then they throw it all away because John Dutton died (not sure if you heard). Anyway, they are done, a line has been crossed! In the past, Yellowstone characters have pulled off relatively elaborate acts of subterfuge and scheming with multilayered plans that need lots of arguing and surprise twists and time — like, several episodes’ worth of time. In lieu of that, Beth simply drives straight to Jamie’s place and stabs him in the heart with a knife. Rip dumps the body in the same place the Duttons have always dumped bodies. No one finds Jamie’s body or any of the bodies. No one asks about the flimsy cover-up move of setting Jamie’s car on fire. A newscaster announces that Jamie has disappeared, and that’s pretty much the end of the story, even though Jamie was the attorney general for the state of Montana.
Show Kayce throwing away his badge, then a wolf running up to bury it, and a guy from the Reservation telling Kayce it’s a ghost wolf.
That’s it, that’s the scene.
Make Sheridan’s character, Travis, look cool in front of everyone again.
Having dispatched Jamie, the Dutton ranch, and every single other thing that could create a reason for this episode to keep going, the Yellowstone finale moves back to a scene at Travis–Taylor Sheridan’s Texas ranch. Travis yells mean things to Jimmy, Teeter arrives to start her new job, and Travis makes a horse turn in circles. Every time Travis says something, everyone shakes their head with begrudging fondness.
Dismiss the remaining Yellowstone Ranch employees with a wad of cash.
At no point do any of them say, “Wow, it’s gonna be weird having this giant ‘Y’ branded on my back for the rest of my life. By the way, I promise not to say anything about the huge pit of murder victims!”
Concert scene!
A cowboy named Ryan we have spent almost no time with, who does not have a last name, and has never had a major plot on this show attends a Lainey Wilson concert. Wilson plays an entire song, which takes three minutes and 14 seconds, not counting applause. At the end, Ryan goes backstage and tells Wilson he’s in love with her and they can be together forever. Wilson is thrilled.
Dismantle Yellowstone Ranch one board at a time.
The sale of the Dutton ranch goes smoothly with no negotiation. Members of the Broken Rock Reservation start taking it apart immediately. There’s a shot of the Yellowstone Ranch sign being removed from the road leading up to the ranch. Then there’s a shot of a stained-glass door getting taken off its hinges with a close-up on the door’s big Yellowstone Y. Then there’s a shot of the big Y being taken off the barn just in case you missed the first two shots. Members of the Broken Rock Reservation drum and sing. It’s just like the end of Killers of the Flower Moon except exactly the opposite in every way.
Let Kayce buy a cow.
He goes to an auction to buy a cow. Probably he buys more than one, but we see only one.
Voice-over thesis statement.
Playing over drone shots of mountains and ranchland, the woman who did the voice-over at the beginning of 1883 shows up with some important takeaways.
A hundred and forty one years ago, my father was told of this valley, and here’s where we stayed for seven generations. My father was told they would come for this land, and he promised to return it. Nowhere was that promise written. It faded with my father’s death but somehow lived in the spirit of this place. Men cannot truly own wild land. To own land, you must blanket it in concrete. Cover it with buildings. Stack it with houses so thick people can smell each other’s supper. You must rape it to sell it. Raw land, wild land, free land can never be owned. But some men pay dearly for the privilege of its stewardship. They will suffer and sacrifice to live off it and live with it and hopefully teach the next generation to do the same. And if they falter, find another willing to keep the promise.
Ending scene that fundamentally contradicts the closing thesis statement but no matter.
Both Kayce and Beth now have their own ranches made up of land they own. Presumably, they have not raped it, nor do they appear to be suffering or sacrificing much for it because in fact they are very happy! Beth finds a bar. Rip agrees to go with her to the bar. Everyone who has watched this episode also decides to find a bar. The end.
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