After five glorious seasons, it has all come down to this. Last week on Yellowstone, we ended off with the million-dollar question of who are they going to give the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch away to. The end of the Jamie and Beth Dutton feud had to come to a close. The end of the greatest Dynasty in Montana history, a 7th-generation ranch that has captured our hearts from the very beginning. Now who will be given the keys to the Kingdom?
The finale of one of the greatest shows in television history starts off with the Native Americans taking a stand against the pipeline. With a stampede of horses, they march over to the pipes as if they are at war and carry them away. That should sure put a wrench in the pipeline project. Together they drop the pipes one by one and let them sink into the bottom of the lake.
Back on the ranch, Travis, Beth, and the bunkhouse crew are celebrating the big win. Travis begins telling a story about Ryan and Rip. Travis and Jimmy are headed back to Texas and Teeter runs out before Travis gets on the road and asks him for a job. At first, he tells her to ask Jimmy what working for him is like. Teeter avoids the warning about working for such an asshole but decides to go to the 6666 anyway. Looks like we haven’t seen the last of this cowgirl just yet.
Beth shows Rip a property in Dillon. Asking him if he could make a life work there. It’s a gorgeous property far away from town and bars. Beth ironically says she is not a city girl anymore and that Rip can simply build her a bar. Unbeknownst to him, she already bought it. It seems Beth Dutton is quick to let the Yellowstone go and start a fresh new life elsewhere. Whenever the Beth and Rip spinoff commences we now have a location, which allows fans to speculate for the next year.
Yellowstone: Daddy is coming home
With a cigarette in her mouth, Beth pours some coffee just as the phone rings. After some painful heavy breathing, she tells Rip the funeral home has called. Daddy’s coming home. There will be no service. Just Kayce, Rip, and the cowboys. She wants Rip to bury her father beside her mother, immediately.
Ryan starts to pack up and gives Teeter a quick glance just before Rip walks in. He wants to know where everyone is headed after this. Ryan is just going to wander for a bit, he’s not sure about his next stop. Rip gives them all an envelope of money, and their one last job together is burying John. It’s the least they can do to honor the man who gave them this life.
Mo knows this won’t stop the pipeline from happening. Rainwater knows what they did was not a resolution but it will make enough noise to get people to pay attention. That was the task.
Kayce invites Mo and Rainwater out to their place on the east property. He wants to make a life on the East Camp and hang up his livestock agency hat. He knows they cannot afford the inheritance tax and Rainwater surely can’t afford it either. Kayce tells Rainwater he is the one who’s able to save his family. He offers the Yellowstone ranch at a price that’s nearly giving it away in exchange for Kayce and Monica keeping the East Camp, and he can never sell it or develop the land. But he can never sell the land anyway, they have laws that forbid it.
“Your people are buried on that land and so are mine.”
Rainwater will treat it as sacred land and they perform a blood oath together. Just like that, the legacy of Yellowstone and the Dutton Ranch has been given away. Together, Kayce and Rainwater are bonded as brothers and as a family to the land. Now they are free. Free to live as Kayce always wanted.
The prophecy set forth in 1883 has now come true. When James promised the native elder that after generations he would give the land back. We just didn’t know it would be Kayce Dutton to fulfill that. At the end of the day, it’s Kayce, the one who wanted nothing to do with running the ranch who ends up being the one who saved the kingdom. But it won’t be theirs anymore, it belongs to the ancestors. Which is way better than a corporation taking their home and turning it into a city or ski resort.
The bunkhouse boys have dug out the grave for the patriarch of the family and Rip and Lloyd have a moment together. There’s a falcon that flies above them. A sign of John.
If Lloyd can’t cowboy at the Yellowstone he’d rather no cowboy at all. Rip let him know that their door is always open at their new ranch in Dillion. Lloyd wants to take on work on the west side of Yellowstone and talk some sense into the city folk. He appreciates Rip’s offer though.
Yellowstone says goodbye to John Dutton
Jamie Dutton practices his speech in the mirror as Kayce, Monica, and the rest get ready for the funeral. His speech is nearly word for word of Christina’s advice. Beth puts on some earrings knowing she’s about to go and do the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life.
Beth is full of anger, already pushing away those she loves the most. Walker strums the guitar as Beth speeds up in the car. Kayce and Beth share a hug and then she walks up to her father's casket that is sitting in the barn. She knows he would have liked that. With an uncontrollable wave of emotion, she walks all the way up to her father and wants him to go in peace with her mother. She tells her father that she kept her word and never sold an inch of land. There won’t be cows on it, but there won’t be any condos either.
The casket is carried out by the men ready to be lowered. Beth cannot even watch this part but she forces herself to go stand by Rip and Carter. The wind begins to blow with more force as a bird lands on a branch. Beth knows it is him, a falcon has always held a high significance for the death of a Dutton ever since Elsa had her last breath. Beth promises she will avenge her father as her last words to him. Before her happy ending, she must take care of one more thing.
Kayce’s last words to his father were that he forgives him, words he wanted to hear in life for so long. Rainwater told John he would protect this place for him and for all their relations. One by one everyone put a white rose on John’s casket. It’s still surreal to know John Dutton is gone. Rip is the one who lowers John into the ground and then takes the symbolic shovel and dirt to bury John himself. The entire event still seemed more rushed than it should have been.
After the funeral, Gator gives them all one last meal. Kayce and Monica are quick to head home and Beth is a woman on a mission. Quickly she gets into casual wear and grabs bear mace and a knife.
Rip poured the last dirt on John’s grave and thanked him. Promising he’d take care of his daughter. “I’ll try and love her the same way that she loved you.” A little strange to say to a father. We know their relationship was closer than most. Too close at times.
Time to face the wrath
Ryan says his goodbye to the bunkhouse boys and Teeter. “You suck at cards.” Teeter’s final farewell to the love’s best friend. Ryan really deserved a better ending, and I hope Rip gave him his check back.
Beth is racing to take care of her justice. Rip figures out where she’s going and he and Lloyd get in the truck and race to her. He screams at her to pull over, but she won’t. She made a promise to her father. A promise to Jamie. And she’s going to keep it.
A promise is fulfilled when Beth is on the rampage and bursts into Jamie’s place, hitting him with a tire iron and spraying his eyes with the bear spray. She hits him over and over repeatedly, but she’s not done yet. Finally, Jamie fights back and beats Beth to the floor. He keeps giving Beth threat after threat even pining John’s murder on her, and she’ll have to comply or he reveal all of the Dutton secrets. She amusingly lets Jamie know they sold the ranch for $1.25 an acre to the reservation. When their fight continues Beth stabs him in the foot but he overpowers her and starts to choke her out. Rip rushes into the house just in time to save her and before Rip can finish the job she tells him to stop and stabs him fatally in the chest. Beth really was the last thing he ever saw. Mission accomplished.
Yellowstone will be declared a wilderness area. Nothing can be built. The land can only be walked on or ridden on by men and horses. It’s the worst land deal of all time, but the ranch will never change. It will stay pristine and untouched by the selfishness of man. When Kayce signs the last page and gives Yellowstone over to Thomas Rainwater you can physically see the weight of the world off his shoulders. Kayce got everything he wanted and saved the ranch in the process.
Beth called 911 and said that Jamie got away after a brutal fight after her father’s funeral. A funeral he chose not to attend. Detective Dillard came to the scene of the crime and Beth gives him tips on how to find the ones responsible for John’s death. There will be wire transfers to an offshore account, and this detective already had questions about Jamie ever since he wasn’t forthcoming with his questioning. She let him know he was the yes man behind it all.
Lloyd and Rip take Jamie Dutton on one last ride. To the train station. A place he threatened to reveal and ruin the Dutton family legacy is the place he will reside for all eternity.
To hide the rest of their evidence Rip and Lloyd set his car aflame. Jamie got exactly what he deserved in the end. So did Sarah Atwood. Together they can burn in hell for the rest of time.
After all of the events, it ends up being vanished Jamie Dutton who will go under impeachment proceedings as attorney Journal. Teeter is now taking it all in at Texas. Nobody can understand the poor girl and Jimmy is extremely happy to have a familiar face around, if anyone deserves some happiness and a fresh start in life it’s her.
Ryan goes and tracks down Abby performing in Texas. For the first time since Colby’s death, he looks happy again. Walker has become his girlfriend’s cheerleader on the road. Now Ryan looks to do the same with Abby. He tells her he made a mistake by not picking her. Ranching used to be his Super Bowl, but now suddenly it is Abby. Which I still think is only because he lost. Abby seems like nothing more than a consolation prize. But I guess Ryan had to fall back on something. West Texas living isn’t really the life he dreamed of.
Yellowstone series finale ending explained: Goodbye is the saddest word
Rip takes a final walk through the only home he’s ever known, the land that saved him. In a silent goodbye, he shuts the barn door forever. Beth steps through the empty lodge. No furniture. No memories left after seven generations of hard work and love. No chair by the fireplace. No logs inside. Just a dusty reminder of what once was. The only ones carrying the legend of this family are those still left alive to remember it.
Kayce takes the last of his things and heads off to his home. The famous Yellowstone Dutton ranch sign is taken down. Rip offers it to Kayce, but he’s thinking of making his own brand. Creating his own legacy the right way.
Tate and Kayce go to a horse auction again and bid on some cattle. Together they start their life and begin a new livelihood for themselves. The Indians come and cleanse the lodge and the land. All that John Dutton fought so hard to keep has been given back to the people who had it first, and though we always knew the prophecy was bound to happen, it’s sad to see it go.
A group of rowdy kids knocks over the Dutton graves and, Mo being Mo, races out to teach them a lesson of respect for those who protected this land. Mo has always been a man of honor. The headstones visible the he pushed back up were Elsa and John Dutton.
Kayce lives out his ranching dreams with his family by his side. There’s a pureness to it. No lies. No murders. No dangers or pain. Beth stares out at her own family’s ranching dream watching her husband and adopted son gather the herd. It’s a perfect place for her, no tourists and a bar she can’t cause much trouble in. Two families. Two happy endings. Till we meet again.
Is this the end of Yellowstone as we know it?
No. Rip and Beth will continue to ride off into the sunset. What will that look like? We don’t yet know at the moment. The season finale may be over the future does not look bleak for the favorite romantic couple.
Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser have inked deals to reprise their characters in a future spinoff according to the Deadline exclusive. It makes perfect sense for the most popular characters of the hit series, (next to John Dutton of course) to continue on in the immersive Yellowstone universe. While there is no timetable for this spinoff, fans are excited about the future to see what is ahead for Rip Wheeler and Beth Dutton.
If you have not had your fill on Yellowstone, season 2 of 1924 premieres exclusively on Paramount+ Sun. February 23, 2025.