‘Yellowstone’ Stars Talk ‘Perfect’ Series Finale Ahead After John Dutton Fate Revealed
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 premiere.]
The fate of Kevin Costner‘s John Dutton was revealed in Yellowstone‘s return on Sunday, November 10 on Paramount Network, nearly two years after its last new episode. The Dutton family patriarch was taken to the train station (so to speak, not literally), descending the family into a civil war that’s no doubt going to be brutal. There are just six episodes total in Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2, which until confirmed otherwise is believed to be the Western drama’s final season (there have been reports of a sixth season). TV Insider had spoiler-free conversations with Wes Bentley, Luke Grimes, and Kelsey Asbille about the upcoming final episode, and they say it’s a “perfect ending” for the show, an ending that Asbille says wasn’t drastically changed by Costner’s exit.
Part 2 opened with tragedy. John died by a gunshot wound to the head in an upstairs bathroom of the governor’s mansion in the middle of the night. Kayce (Grimes) and Beth (Kelly Reilly) both saw his body for themselves, but it was only partially shown to viewers (his face wasn’t shown — no surprise considering Costner’s exit). Beth quickly blamed Jamie, whose first scene of the episode showed him sitting alone in a meeting room receiving a phone call from someone saying that John’s death was believed to be a “10-56,” aka a suicide. Jamie announced it as such in a press conference even after Lynelle (Wendy Moniz) told him not to.
Beth didn’t believe the suicide story. She called Rip (Cole Hauser) and urged him to come home from Texas, and then the episode flashed back to six weeks earlier, just two days after the Yellowstone cowboys left Montana for their year down south with the cattle (these scenes also featured Jefferson White reprising his role as Jimmy). At that time, Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) was in New York hiring professional hitmen like she and Jamie discussed in the Part 1 finale, confirming they were the ones to kill John with this “suicide” plot. But the episode’s ending revealed that Jamie had no idea Sarah went through with their murderous idea. Sarah said he’s “completely shielded” from the fallout, but we’ll see about that, seeing as Beth and Kayce suspect them both and the security cameras at the governor’s mansion were suspiciously out due to a power outage in the area at the time of John’s death.
The Dutton siblings are officially at war. Where will they go from here? The details of this season were kept under tight lock and key even from cast and crew members. Only a select few cast members, like Grimes, Asbille (Monica), Bentley (Jamie), and no doubt Reilly and Hauser, got the full scripts. Everyone else’s scripts were redacted except for their own lines in their own scenes, and the episodes weren’t provided in advance to cast or press, so they’ll be watching the season along with viewers to see the final versions of what they filmed.
Asbille says that the final episode of Yellowstone will “definitely” be satisfying for longtime fans. “I really think that it’s the perfect ending for the show in every way, and I think Taylor [Sheridan, series creator] always knew the way he wanted to end it,” she tells TV Insider. “It really lives up to the hype.”
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“I haven’t seen [the series finale] cut together, I’ve just read it. And even just on the page, I was a mess,” adds Grimes. “I mean, it’s beautiful, it’s heartbreaking. It just felt so rewarding. It’s what you want at the very end of a show that you’ve loved so much for so long.”
“I do hope at some point they’ll release Taylor’s scripts for the show,” Asbille says, “because the writing, all the in-between moments that are not just the dialogue are written so beautifully and capture a spirit and an emotion that I think the show does a beautiful job of conveying. I think that would be a really cool treat.”
Bentley says he “wouldn’t assume to know how people are going to feel” about the show’s ending, but “for me, it was satisfying to read. I think a lot of fans will be [satisfied]. Everyone’s different.”
“One of the great things about this show and other great shows is, people come from it with different perspectives and different things they like about it,” Bentley continues. “So I couldn’t begin to know what every fan’s going to think, and in fact I’m really excited to see what they have to say about it because they’ve been my barometer for the show for the whole time.”
Grimes reveals why some cast members had to get the full scripts in order to pull off the show’s ending. “There’s a few of the core family members who were going to be in enough of the end that we needed to know everything,” Grimes explains. “We got the [finale] script, so we were able to read it, thankfully, because it’s so good. We were able to see everything that happened.”
“A lot of people only knew what their lines were, their scenes were, and some of the crew didn’t get scripts, which if you know anything about how films are made, I don’t know how you do that, but we figured it out somehow,” Grimes adds. “It was wild, and it wasn’t without some frustration by a lot of people.”
What did you think of how Yellowstone handled Costner’s departure? Was it a worthy end for the Dutton patriarch? And what do you hope will happen next? Given that Bentley previously told TV Insider that it’s “very possible” that Rip will find out what Jamie did to Beth when they were teens, we have a feeling Beth will have Rip kill Jamie or do the deed herself, especially if they find out for sure that Jamie killed John. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section, below.
Yellowstone, Sundays, 8/7c, Paramount Network
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Conversation22 Comments
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Comments are closed on this story.
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C
Beth will kill Jamie, Tate now owns the land and will give it back to the Indians, with the exception of the actual ranch.
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P
Ding, ding … winner, winner. This to me would the “satisfying” end the cast seems to allude too.
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G
Taylor Sheridan should be ashamed of himself. Not working things out to continue keeping. Kevin Costner on the set.
15 1
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O
Agreed.
Two very large egos killed a great show with intriguing characters.
The co-creator, Sheridan, coukd have killed John Dutton off in a plane crash to gain time to get Costner back on payroll. Dutton could have been wandering in the remote areas for months of episodes.
I don’t believe this show will be as successful going forward.
11 1
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O
There were so many options. I think this was spiteful.
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O
I'm desperately hoping that John Dutton caught the gunman and poised him to take his place. If they actually killed John Dutton off, there is no ending to the series that will satisfy me. Doubt I will even watch the last few episodes if John is really dead.
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B
Same here
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G
I don’t think Beth will have Rip kill Jamie. She’s going to want to do that herself and watch him die.
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B
True
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O
Not satisfied at all. Not a befitting end to John even if it was a hit man! To me that was a slap in the face of Costner who repeatedly said he wanted to work things out. Sheridan can’t continue to blame him for the writers strike and taking 2 yrs to film 6 episodes!! Just like 2 yrs to finish 1923. He’s been putting out other shows and not releasing those!! Losing respect for him not Costner!
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O
Without Costner, the show has lost the thing that holds the narrative together. His character was what defined the actions of the others . Beth’s outrageous actions are directly tied to her relationship with her father . That’s also true with her brothers . Without that unifying figure, what do you have? The show needs to put a period on the final episode . It was fun while it lasted .
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G
I, for one, am glad to see the end of John Dutton because it means the end of Costner also. The way he pulled out of the show left a bad taste for me. Good riddance.
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B
Cryed very sad he made the show could took him off differently
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R
Beth is awful, but Jamie's become awful too. Jamie's awful mostly because he's so easily manipulated. A Harvard educated lawyer shouldn't be so easily manipulated by someone like Sarah to the point that he's surprised she went through with the idea. He should've known better than to put the idea of hitmen in her head if he didn't definitively want his father dead. Now he's connected to it whether he was actually involved or not.
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C
Jamie knew exactly what he was doing when he asked her about a hit man.
He's evil, thru and thru.
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G
I feel bad for Costner. I loved "Dances With Wolves" but part one of Horizon leaves much to be desired. Too much going on to figure out who's good and who's bad. And the ending was so confusing I have no desire to watch part two other than for maybe curiosity
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O
Jamie never meant to have his father killed, it was always going to be a standoff with Beth. When they realized Costner was out, the writers had to call an audible. Now each character is going through a regression, Jamie is being written weaker than ever and Beth is back to her normal crazy, psycho, uncontrollable self.
Best way to salvage at this point is to give Jamie a redemption arc. While he will never have his father’s approval, he can do the one thing that his father would have approved of…saving the ranch. Because his feud and bad intentions were always toward Beth, when Dawn had his father killed, something triggered him to finally stand on his own two feet and not be steered and manipulated by anyone else. How you ask? By kidnapping Beth and taking her to the train station (with Dawn at his side). Only, when they get there, Jamies tells Beth that he only ever wanted the approval of their father. He then reveals that he fixed it so Market Equities deal will never go through and the ranch will be conservation land forever, right before he kills Dawn and tosses her in the ravine. He gets a smidgen of respect from Beth right before Rip shows up to save Beth from what he believes is an attempt by Jamie to kill her and shoots Jamie dead. Beth and Rip move to Texas to start a new life (and sequel) and Kayce and family stay on their portion of the ranch, while the natives reclaim the their land according to the agreement of the Dutton ancestors (in 1883).
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R
I didn’t mind the ending for John Dutton. I’d like for the series to continue. Costner and Sheridan have huge egos. Looks like Sheridan’s ego won this battle as Costner’s project failed. Sheridan is a very talented writer. Costner is a talented actor.
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G
Egos & money......a combination that will ruin great entertainment quicker than anything else I know of. It's ashame because at the end of the day, nobody really wins and the fans get the short end of the stick.
Costner & Sheridan should have sat down in a room, by themselves and worked things out like adults do, with neither one having an "If I don't get my own way I'm going to pick up my toys and go home!" attitude.
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O
Taylor Sheridan and Costner both should be ashamed of themselves. As far as I'm concerned the series is over period. I will not watch anything by Sheridan again nor Costner.
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B
Costner had rights how John Dutton dies
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R
Oh yeah, forgot to add to my complaints on Sheridan. This thing with Beth & Jaimie; do you think we're all ignorant? The clinic would have informed Beth of the sterilization policy, prior to the abortion. As the patient, her consent would have been required. That battle is like beating a dead horse.........
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