“141 years ago, my father was told of this valley, and here’s where we stayed. Seven generations. My father was told they would come for this land, and he promised to return it. Nowhere was this promise written. It faded with my father’s death but somehow lived in the spirit of this place. Man 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 will 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 way to keep the promise.”
Yellowstone began with a lot of that there promise five years ago. Taylor Sheridan pretty much built his television empire on the foundation that was Yellowstone. It was a grand design, but something happened along the way.
Kevin Costner, who plays the family patriarch John Dutton, decided he had a not-so- little dream of his own. In order for him to see his dream, he had to destroy what was left of Yellowstone. Season 5 was always going to be the finale with a spin-off here and there. It was split into two parts. Sheridan used Part 1 to build toward his big finale. John Dutton becomes the Montana Governor, and his family has the state by the short hairs. Beth (Reilly) was the muscle behind the operation, and even Jamie (Bentley) found his way back inside to become Attorney General, but he had plans of his own. Beth had him by his own short hairs, because last season she set him up for a little blackmail, and the fact that it took him a year to figure out she had no leverage takes away a ton of the drama. John killed all of those development plans that would have hurt his own land, and there was a big battle coming. Sheridan got us all revved up and ready to go. That’s when Costner’s big dream became Sheridan’s nightmare.
They spent months fighting over when he was supposed to be back for the second half. Why all this fighting? Because Costner decided to gamble his entire fortune on an epic series of Western films. They were four films collectively called Horizon. He told his kids he was gambling with their inheritance. It didn’t go so well. The first film tanked really badly. The second was pretty much finished but never made it to wide release. I doubt we will ever see the third and fourth film. Costner threw a monkey wrench into Yellowstone, and it was all for nothing.
If you are a regular here, you know my spin for years on Taylor Sheridan. I always said he was horrible as a storyteller, but he more than made up for that with incredible attention to detail and authenticity. He also has an instinct for creating compelling characters. I think the last half of this season of Yellowstone is the proof in the pudding. It was all built on a man who suddenly wasn’t coming back. So they killed him off and tried to run this conspiracy stuff for the remaining episodes. Jamie gets into bed both figuratively and literally with an attorney trying to sue the state and get those billion-dollar projects back on the table.
These final episodes are going to be disappointing to fans of the show. They ramble on with contract killers and trying to save the ranch from complete ruin with everything from horse auctions to finally giving it up to keep it in its purest form. There’s nothing compelling about any of this, and you might just rather pretend it all ended after Episode 9. You get all of the final episodes and the usual Sheridan extras, with the most fun being those moments in the bunkhouse with actors Jefferson White, who isn’t in this as much, Denim Richards, and Ian Bohan.
I’m sure the idea will move on, and I’ve heard plans to have Cole Hauser’s role of Rip return. He’s pretty much the most compelling character remaining. They should have leaned into him more and less on his relationship with Beth. The actress is great, but she’s just an annoying character and brings down the Rip stuff when she’s the focus. Spoiler alert. She’s the focus of Rip’s life in these final episodes. As for Kevin Costner? “You’re gonna have to choose to miss him or to be mad at him.”
