[This story contains major spoilers from the season 5B finale of Yellowstone, “Life Is a Promise.”] Yellowstone circled back to the beginning in order to deliver its ending.
Heading into Sunday’s season 5B finale, the mega-hit Taylor Sheridan series had not confirmed if the supersized episode would, in fact, be the series finale.
But to those who tuned into what Paramount Network described as a special season finale event, the ending certainly felt like an ending.
Raw land, wild land, free land can never be owned.
And you look like a man who plans,” Spotted Eagle tells James of what would go on to become the Yellowstone ranch and heart of the present-day Yellowstone series.
There are significant spoilers in this story from Yellowstone’s “Life Is a Promise” season 5B finale. ”].
Yellowstone returned to the start to present its conclusion.
Before Sunday’s season 5B finale, the wildly popular Taylor Sheridan series had not revealed whether the oversized episode would actually be the series finale. The conclusion, however, felt like an end to viewers of what the Paramount Network called a special season finale event. However, it also paved the way for the future of the Yellowstone-verse.
Important spoilers ahead.
The one-hour-and-26-minute episode, “Life Is A Promise,” which was written and directed by Sheridan, showed the fate of the Yellowstone. It was the sale of the Dutton family’s ranch back to the Broken Rock Reservation, which allowed Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) to finally be free of his father’s legacy and provide a future for his own family. In the most startling scene of the episode, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) fatally stabbed her hated brother Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) in the heart, revealing her grand scheme.
As her late father John Dutton (played by the late star Kevin Costner; who is not shown) is laid to rest on Yellowstone land, Beth addresses the coffin bearing him, saying, “You made me promise not to sell an inch, and I hope you understand that this is me keeping it.”. It might not have cows, but it also won’t have condos. We triumphed. “.”.
Later, she mumbles, “I’ll get even with you.”. “.”.
By orchestrating the ideal murder of Jamie, who is likely to be held accountable for the death of his father, the former governor of Montana, and who is reported missing to conclude the series, Beth capitalized on her father’s last words.
After telling her husband Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) that “making this promise—I’m gonna keep it” was the last thing she would ever say to her father, Beth asked him to take her brother to the Dutton “train station,” where their enemies disappear and are never seen or heard from again.
Beth is battered, bruised, and concussed after the attack on her brother. She quickly recovers, though, and the episode starts to hint at what might happen to the group and perhaps the entire Yellowstone-verse by setting up the rumored Beth and Rip spinoff (more on that, below). Beth and Rip purchase a new ranch 40 miles west of Dillon, Montana, which is conveniently located for the airport, tourists, and any land developer’s fantasies. Additionally, the conclusion establishes a new legacy for Kayce, who states that he wishes to launch his own company and is spotted buying cattle with his son Tate (Brecken Merrill).
After the sale of the Yellowstone and the untimely death of cowboy Colby (Denim Richards), the former ranch hands all move on. Teeter (Jennifer Landon) finds work at Bosque Ranch, which leads to Sheridan’s subsequent on-screen appearance in the finale as horse trainer Travis Wheatley, and Ryan (Ian Bohen) reunites with the woman who escaped (played by country music icon Lainey Wilson).
At the end of the episode, the Broken Rock Tribe, who are fictional, move into Yellowstone and demolish the ranch. However, Mo (played by Mo Brings Plenty, who also serves as the franchise’s American Indian coordinator consultant) stops them when they start to remove the headstones of the Dutton family ancestors buried on the property.
In a surprise voiceover cameo, Isabel May connects the entire series and franchise, and that’s when Elsa Dutton from 1883 comes back to life. The hypothesis regarding John Dutton’s grandfather might also be addressed by her “seventh generation” revelation. This is what she says:.
For seven generations, we stayed in this valley, which my father had been told about 140 years ago. When my father was informed that they would be pursuing this land, he pledged to give it back. That promise was never written. Although it diminished after my father passed away, it somehow persisted in this place’s spirit. Wild land cannot be genuinely owned by men. You have to cover your land with buildings and concrete if you want to own it. People can smell each other’s food if you stack the houses so densely. Rape it in order to sell it. You can never own raw land, wild land, or free land. But for the privilege of stewardship, some men pay a high price. In an effort to survive and teach the next generation to do the same, they will endure hardship and sacrifice. If they don’t follow through, find someone else who will.
In the closing scenes, which show Kayce and Beth settling into their new lives while seeking fresh starts—Kayce in the former Yellowstone’s East Camp and Beth with Rip in their new home—the sweeping Montana landscape is captured.
Understanding the conclusion of 1883 is necessary in order to comprehend this full-circle ending.
A pivotal exchange between an elder Dutton, James Dutton (played by Tim McGraw), and Spotted Eagle (played by Graham Greene), the then-Chief of the Crow Tribe, was part of the first Yellowstone prequel series, which ran as a limited series in 2021–2022.
Elsa Dutton (May), the heroine and narrator of the 1883-set prequel that described how the Dutton family settled what would become their Yellowstone ranch, is the daughter of James and Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill). She dies over the course of a week at the end of the series due to a poisoned arrow. Given that she will soon pass away, James decides to take his daughter west on the Bozeman trail to Montana’s Paradise Valley on horseback. He assures Spotted Eagle that he will settle the family where his daughter is buried so she can be with them forever.
Winters can be harsh. However, the summers are abundant, and a man who makes plans can prosper. Regarding what would eventually become the Yellowstone ranch and the focal point of the current Yellowstone series, Spotted Eagle tells James, “And you look like a man who plans.”.
He goes on to say, “But know this: my people will rise up and reclaim it from you in seven generations.”. “”.
“You can have it in seven generations,” James responds. Additionally, he guarantees the Crow Tribe the right to hunt in his Paradise Valley, which is how the relationship between the Duttons and the Indigenous people of the area they settled on began.
The penultimate episode teased the plan when Kayce (Grimes) told sister Beth (Reilly) that the only way they could save the ranch was to give it away. The Yellowstone finale showed Kayce (Grimes) carrying out that promise made over a century ago.
Kayce sells his family’s ranch to Broken Rock tribe Chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Burningham) at the end of the season, which may be the flagship series. Rainwater’s ancestry can be traced back to 1923, the second Yellowstone prequel series about the early Duttons, and his ancestor Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves). May also tells the story of 1923.
In order to cover the cost of the land when his ancestors arrived, Kayce sells the ranch to Rainwater for $1.25 per acre. The low offer removes their financial barrier because, had the property been sold at value, neither Rainwater nor the Dutton family could have afforded an inheritance tax.
“Congratulations on the worst land deal since my people sold Manhattan,” Rainwater remarks in reference to the $1.11 million purchase of Montana’s largest (fictitious) ranch.
There are two requirements attached to Kayce’s offer: Rainwater must sign the East Camp deed back to Kayce so that he and his wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille) and their son Tate (Merrill) have a permanent residence, and he must never develop or sell the Yellowstone. Rainwater feels the same. The deal is finalized in a ceremonial scene where Mo (Brings Plenty) sings a song in his native tongue and Rainwater and Kayce shake hands in blood. Rainwater assures the family, “I will protect this for you and for all our relations.”.
When Grimes read the final script at the beginning of the season, he told THR that he was a “mess.”. “Until I could take it no more, I kept the final one [of season 5B] for as long as possible. Taylor had stated from the start that he didn’t want me to know the ending until we arrived because he thought it might force me to play things a little differently [quoting Sheridan]: “Probably best that you don’t know; I know how it ends.”. “So it felt like I had already waited so long that I wanted to put it off and not read it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Reilly hinted to THR that a scene outside of Beth and Rip would be included in the finale that would explain the entire series. “It’s a scene in the final episode that, in my opinion, sums up the entire series, and it has nothing to do with us,” she stated. I believe that the entire series was created because of this scene. “”.
Everybody has been watching Sheridan to see where the co-creator, writer, and director would take TV’s No. 1 and his flagship Western saga. Since his star Kevin Costner left and it was revealed that season 5B would be Yellowstone’s last season, there has been one series. The announcement of Season 5B as the final season was made back in May 2023. However, rumors circulated during the summer that Reilly and Hauser, two fans, were negotiating a potential sixth season for Yellowstone.
Then, new reports surfaced a few days before the finale, claiming that the two had signed contracts for their own spinoff series. In order to avoid giving away that Beth and Rip would be alive when season 5B ended on Sunday night, Paramount Network did not confirm the news.
“If Taylor wants to, he can definitely figure out how to go on. However, that is just Taylor’s exceptional writing. When season 5B began, Hauser told THR, “I’m not telling you that it’s continuing; it’s just that he’s smart enough as a writer to do that if that’s something that he is passionate about.”. Regarding their potential series future, Reilly continued, “I trust him with wherever he takes her; whether we’re leaving her where we’ve left her, or we’re going to find her somewhere else, I trust him.”.
Reilly, who is currently working on her next role, said goodbye to the series on Instagram ahead of Sunday’s finale. “The show we have been producing for the last seven years is coming to an end, regardless of what the future brings,” she wrote.
Throughout this season, Christina Voros, the director and executive producer of Yellowstone, has stated in interviews with THR that the season 5B finale will feel like a conclusion, but she has left the possibility of a continuation somewhat open. “I believe that the level of secrecy involved gave the impression that we were safeguarding a conclusion,” she stated. “Any show that is ending always carries a burden. Like you, you want others to adore it. The way Taylor has kind of stumbled into a show ending that always leaves one wondering, “What happens next?” is what makes the season finish so exciting.
Voros had skillfully hinted that “Taylor has taken Yellowstone and he has turned it into an intergenerational story” when I asked her to specifically consider a potential 1883 callback following the penultimate episode. I believe that the world of the Dutton story is made much richer and more fascinating by the complexities that result from doing that. It is sort of the focal point of the historical narrative that Taylor has been writing about Yellowstone. However, the storylines are branching out from it in a variety of ways. “”.
Even if this finale was the flagship series’ last-final, those threads will still exist in the Yellowstone-verse. In February, the second prequel series, 1923, will premiere. Production is now underway on the 23 and current spinoff, The Madison.
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