Spoilers ahead of the season 5 finale. Stop reading if you don’t want to know.
Patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) got the touching funeral he deserved in Sunday’s “Yellowstone” Season 5 finale. Montana’s tarnished former governor can rest in peace in his polished wooden casket because the ranch he fought to preserve will remain intact and never be turned into a dreaded real estate project.
In the apparent “Yellowstone” series finale, there were a lot of cowboy goodbyes as the Yellowstone Ranch is sold to the original Native Americans who owned it generations ago.
But no farewell is as dramatic as the violent death of Attorney General Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley), who finally receives harsh justice for his part in the death of his father in a way that is surprising only in its level of brutality.
It may not be the end: Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) and John’s daughter Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) will reportedly star in their own spinoff series. But this is how the Paramount Network OG series said goodbye.
John Dutton was buried on the Yellowstone ranch with his ancestors
The final six episodes opened with John Dutton being murdered by professional hitmen and his body being examined on a morgue table after Costner left the series following a long-running feud with creator and executive producer Taylor Sheridan. But this small funeral is the perfect “Yellowstone”: only his family, the lodge crew and two close friends attend. Jamie isn’t invited and has no idea it’s happening.
Rip and company even dig John’s burial hole on the property surrounded by generations of Duttons and next to John’s wife. Each participant places a white rose on the casket to say goodbye. Beth, planning her final move, leans close to her beloved father’s casket and whispers, “I will avenge you.” Then he stumbles away.
Rip got the best funeral lines and dismissed the preacher saying, “I think we’ve said our prayers. If he’s not in heaven, then he’s not going. Or there isn’t one.”
Beth kills her brother Jamie after her father’s funeral
Jamie seems to be in the clear after giving the speech of his life to assure the public that he will find the governor’s killer and that he had absolutely nothing to do with his father’s death and that his lawyer/friend Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) hired hitmen. But Jamie can’t even pour himself a victory drink at home because Beth is waiting. He hits his brother with a tire iron and sprays his face with bear spray. It’s a Wild Battle: Jamie once again gains the upper hand in the battle and stupidly lets it go in typical villainous fashion.
Just before Jamie can kill Beth, Rip bursts in and opens a big ol’ can of what’s on Jamie. But Beth claims the final honor of killing her long-time enemy: she stabs her brother in the chest.
“Look at me,” cursed Beth says to the dying Jamie. “I’m the last thing you’ll ever see.”
Dead Jamie is dumped at the family “train station” where generations of Dutton’s enemies have been cast into eternity. Rip soaks Jamie’s car in gasoline and throws a match into it. It’s the perfect “Yellowstone” revenge when Beth convincingly tells the police that Jamie beat her up and ran after she confronted her brother about his role in their father’s death.
The police will be looking for Jamie for a long time. But both Jamie and Atwood’s firm, Market Equities, will take the fall for everything.
Kayce sells Yellowstone Ranch for $1.25 an acre and declares victory
It was Kayce who mysteriously suggested selling Yellowstone at the end of last week’s episode, and hard-nosed financial diva Beth loved the idea. In Sunday’s episode, Kayce sells the largest ranch in Montana to Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), chairman of the Broken Rock Confederated Tribes and leader of the Broken Rock Reservation.
So the land will be returned to the Indian tribe from which the Dutton family took it. In another ironic twist, Kayce sells it for the ridiculously low price of $1.25 an acre, which was the original price paid by his ancestors. Kayce and his family take a small piece of land to live peacefully.
Rainwater promises that the land will never be developed and that the Dutton family buried there will be protected. “Your people are buried on that ground and so are mine. It is sacred and we will treat it as such.” Rainwater says. “So your family has a forever home here.
Rainwater turns the land into a wilderness area where nothing can be built and where no motorized vehicles are allowed. Dutton’s ancestors are happy with the decision. Elsa Dutton (Isabel May), doomed narrator of the “1883” prequel series to “Yellowstone,” makes a surprise return to bless the decision. “People can’t really ‘own’ the land,” he says, noting that the Duttons were just caretakers.
Where will Rip and Beth end up in ‘Yellowstone’?
Beth recovers from her injuries and meets Rip, who is working on their new ranch in Texas. Avenged by her father’s death, Beth suggests the two head to town where there’s a cool new bar completely free of dreaded tourists.
The two head out for drinks to celebrate their new life – and most likely a new series.
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: ‘Yellowstone’ finale: What happened in the series finale