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[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2.]
Yellowstone has almost killed off one character per episode in what’s presumed to be its final season. Out of four episodes released so far (and just two more to go), three have featured a major character death. The first was John Dutton’s, brought about by Kevin Costner’s shocking exit from the series. Viewers assumed the Dutton patriarch would be killed off to explain Costner’s absence from Season 5 Part 2. But the subsequent deaths have been more shocking.
Sarah Atwood’s (Dawn Olivieri) murder made sense for the story, given the hit she ordered on John didn’t go as planned in the aftermath. But the death of Denim Richards‘ Colby in Episode 12 was entirely unnecessary, if you ask us. Not only because the story didn’t need it, but also because it took time away from addressing the burning questions we still need answered before the show closes up shop (if Season 5 really is the end — the show is certainly keeping viewers on their toes).
Here, we lay out the remaining burning questions we need answered before Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 comes to a close, in no particular order. The biggest one is the one we’ve already addressed: When will Rip (Cole Hauser) find out what Jamie (Wes Bentley) did to Beth (Kelly Reilly), and will Kayce (Luke Grimes) find out? We lay out those possibilities here, but below, find our other lingering questions.
1. Where is Jamie’s son?
Wes Bentley as Jamie and Katherine Cunningham as Christine in Yellowstone (Paramount Network)
The last viewers heard about Jamie’s son was in Season 5 Part 1, when Jamie was driving Beth home from her overnight prison stint. Beth lashed out in rage at the sight of the car seat in the backseat, which revealed that Jamie was a parent. Learning that the child is a boy named after him made Beth even more angry. She threatened to take Jamie’s son from him like he took her ability to have children. The threat didn’t seem to be against the baby’s life, but rather that she would take his son and kill Jamie.
The attorney has had bigger issues to tackle this season thus far, like trying to renew the airport lease his father canceled, launch a campaign to be elected governor in the special election prompted by John’s death, and of course deal with the fallout of Sarah being killed by the hitmen agency she hired to take out John (an investigation in which he’s now a primary suspect). But still, where is his son? Viewers have heard nary a peep about the kid in Part 2. Will Episode 13 bring him back into the plot, along with his mother, Christine (Katherine Cunningham)? Perhaps part of Beth’s revenge on Jamie over his involvement in John’s death will entail finding the boy. That would be one way to get Jamie back under her thumb.
2. Will Beth kill Jamie instead of Rip?
Beth has long threatened that Rip would kill Jamie once he finds out that he had Beth forcibly sterilized as a teen. As much as Rip coming in to kill an enemy has made for some of the show’s more memorable moments (like the snake in the cooler), it does feel a little too obvious at this point to just have Rip involved in Jamie’s potential demise. It would be more intriguing and cathartic to see Beth do it herself or with Rip’s help — she’s certainly more emboldened to take the reins since she’s been convinced that Jamie planned their father’s murder (he didn’t, but it was his idea and she’ll never believe he isn’t responsible).
Beth is one of the few members of her family who hasn’t committed murder on Yellowstone. And in fact, she’s one of the only ones who is appalled by the tradition of taking enemies “to the train station” (she was kept in the dark about this until the Season 5 Part 1 finale). Beth would save her first kill for Jamie. But at this point, given the excessive deaths we’ve seen this season, we could also see the series going for the tragic shock value of flipping the switch on Beth and having her killed by Jamie in the end. That does seem less likely, as Yellowstone almost always only kills its villains. And Jamie has long been painted as a villain, but one with the potential to be redeemed. There’s hardly any time left for a redemption arc, though.
Paramount Network
3. Will Jamie take the fall for John’s death?
We’d be OK with Jamie and Beth both ending the series alive, but only if Jamie is in prison. He’s been on such a downward spiral and rejecting every opportunity to do the right thing for so long, becoming the fall guy for his dad’s homicide would be a twisted poetic justice. With Sarah dead too, he and the hitmen are the only people who could be held legally accountable for the murder. While Kayce has physically threatened Jamie in recent episodes, he’s clearly struggling with conflicting feelings of love for his big brother. What if the season ends with Kayce stopping Beth from killing Jamie, but helping her put him in prison for life to avenge John?
4. Will Kayce become his father?
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In this context, that wouldn’t be a good thing. We’ve seen Kayce slowly descend into a darker mental state in the episodes since John’s murder. Every revelation about the death makes Kayce more and more lethal. In Episode 12, he held a child at gunpoint to threaten Grant Horton (Matt Gerald), the man who runs the agency that carried out the hit on John.
Costner’s character could justify just about anything to defend his family’s legacy and ownership of the ranch; he spent decades killing foes in secret to help on this front. The lengths to which John would go to protect the ranch used to make Kayce and Monica (Kelsey Asbille) rebel against the family; it was only in recent years that this relationship was mended and Kayce and Monica felt comfortable associating themselves with them again. That comfort has transformed into full-blown support, and Kayce’s in a dark mindset as he attempts to avenge his father.
How does the veteran come back from holding a child at gunpoint? Is he becoming the violent man who can defend any detestable action that he once feared? And moreover, how will Monica react if/when she finds out that Kayce threatened to kill a kid? We can’t imagine that she would be OK with that, but she’s also shown great concern for Kayce’s mental well-being in Season 5 Part 2. She may take the threat against that child and her father as a sign for her to step in and bring Kayce back from the edge.
5. Will the Duttons lose the ranch, or at least part of it?
Beth and Rip were selling off the horses and cattle in Episode 12 in an attempt to raise the money needed to keep the ranch’s land instead of selling off a piece of it. Beth revealed in talks with Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) that she has resigned herself to losing at least some of the family’s acreage that they’ve owned for a century. While the plan to undo John’s actions as governor that protected the land and canceled Market Equities’ airport lease doesn’t seem likely to succeed — especially not with Senator Lynelle Perry (Wendy Moniz) and Clara (Lilli Kay) determined to thwart Jamie’s efforts — the walls still are closing in on the Duttons. The show has said that selling some of the land is inevitable, but hopefully whatever they end up selling (if they sell) is given to Rainwater and the reservation or perhaps made into a national park.
6. What’s up with Rainwater?
Speaking of Rainwater, why does he have so little to do this season? He seems primed to compromise with the Duttons after an entire series of fighting to get the land that once belonged to his people back. That leads us to our next and final question…
7. Will Tate inherit the ranch, as potentially foreshadowed in 1883?
In 1883, Spotted Eagle (Graham Greene) told James Dutton (Tim McGraw) that his people would rise up and regain control of the Yellowstone ranch’s land in seven generations. Earlier on Yellowstone, Kayce said he saw “the end of us” in a vision and, in Season 5 Part 2, added that that “end” will be a choice. Kayce told Tate (Brecken Merrill) that if it’s his dream to run the ranch one day, he would make the ranch his life to preserve it for his son. But Tate more so envisions living a simpler life on the family’s land while someone else runs it, although he still wants to keep the land in the family.
Every Yellowstone spinoff has questioned if the Duttons can maintain control of the ranch’s land. If Spotted Eagle’s prophecy wasn’t meant to be a true foreshadowing for the Dutton’s fate and Yellowstone‘s ending, then it would just be a pointless throwaway line. The 1883 prophecy and Kayce’s vision would easily combine by having Tate inherit the ranch. Kayce knows that his son doesn’t fully desire running the family business himself, and perhaps knowing that but having him inherit the ranch anyway is the choice the vision foresaw.
Our ideal Yellowstone ending is the indigenous people getting their land back. Perhaps Tate will inherit it and then give it to his community on the reservation while still living on the grounds, bringing everything full circle. This would open things up to keep the current ranchers employed for a while longer as well (their fates are also still up in the air as control of the ranch hangs in the balance).
Do you have other burning questions? Let us know in the comments, below.
Yellowstone, Sundays, 8/7c, Paramount Network