Here are the five Yellowstone characters most likely to die in the final season. Because we can’t go a day without theorizing on how the biggest drama series on TV right now will end, we’ve naturally spent a lot of time thinking about the characters that occupy the Dutton ranch and their fate.
Of course, if you exist within the world of Yellowstone, then you probably deserve to go. Even the best Yellowstone characters aren’t exactly good people, and every Yellowstone series is known for knocking off a couple of people. Or two. Or a hundred. Basically, if you cross John Dutton and his clan, you’ve gotta go.
Yellowstone season 5 part 2 will mark the end of the best Taylor Sheridan TV series, and we think that more than a few heads are on the chopping block. We’ve seen every episode, every spin-off, and we’ve even plotted out our predictions for John Dutton’s Yellowstone fate, so here’s our breakdown of who we think will be the 5 Yellowstone characters most likely to die in the final season, in order of probability.
The 5 Yellowstone characters most likely to die in the final season
5. Kayce Dutton
Of all the dastardly Duttons, Kayce Dutton is the one who’s struggled with his morality the most. He’s pushed himself away from his family, been pulled back in, and done the whole damn dance again and again. But there’s one very important element in Kayce’s storyline that has yet to be addressed: his vision quest. After spending days alone, seeking answers from the Hanbleceya ritual, he returns to Monica and tells her that he saw “the end of us.”
Of course, this could all just be thrown aside in a classic Sheridan plot never to be picked up again (like those infamous dinosaur bones), but we think there’s something important here. It might not be completely out of the realm of possibility that Kayce’s going to die, and he knows it.
If you think about it, the series really begins in earnest in the first episode when he witnesses his brother Lee’s death and is riddled with guilt. A full circle moment, maybe? We’ll just have to wait and see. How dead are they? It’s about 50/50 on Kayce, but we have our expectations that he won’t come out unscathed. Which leads us to…
4. Monica Dutton
Equally, Kayce’s vision could perhaps allude to the fact that Monica is the one to die, not Kayce. And honestly, this wouldn’t be a super surprising twist. If we didn’t know any better, we’d say that Taylor Sheridan hates Monica. He just won’t leave the poor woman alone! Brain trauma, kidnapped children, car accidents, and miscarriages are all events that Monica has had to live through. She’s pretty much always the first one to go down, as a matter of fact.
We don’t approve of this treatment of Monica, but we will say that it all makes for a build-up of what could be an untimely end for her. How will it happen? We couldn’t say — at this rate, literally anything could happen to her.
Do you remember that moment in The Walking Dead when Carl has to kill his own mother, and it’s a turning point for his previously innocent worldview? Well, we think the same shift could be in the future for Tate. We don’t think he’ll end up having to kill Monica, but perhaps her death would mark the moment when he truly becomes a Dutton through and through.
How dead are they? We’d be willing to put money down on this. Just…not a lot.
3. Rip Wheeler
Ah, man, not Rip! We’ve spent five seasons questioning the logic and virtue of one Rip Wheeler, and we’ve landed on the opinion that, although he’s a bad man, we quite like him. He adores Beth Dutton, would do anything for John and the ranch, and keeps everyone else in order around them. He’s the most useful person around.
But with all his past wrongdoings (our earliest memory of Rip in the Yellowstone timeline is of him just hav ing killed his father), it stands to reason that he’s going to have to meet his maker sooner or later. He just can’t get away with the amount of times he’s taken a trip to the Train Station or disposed of John’s human trash.
What’s more, he’d be an easy write-off. He’s mentioned to Beth that he has no legal standing and essentially doesn’t exist in the eyes of the government. He lives under the radar and has never been or done anything else aside from working on the Yellowstone ranch. It’s perfectly possible that Rip would sacrifice himself to save John or Beth — the only thing that’s saving him for now is his trip to Texas.
How dead are they? Probably more than we’d like to admit.
2. Jamie Dutton
We can’t really see a future in which Jamie Dutton isn’t a guaranteed kill by the show’s end. The final few moments of Yellowstone season 5 part 1 prove as such, with Beth and John discussing how they’re going to have to get Jamie out of the picture in order to make sure he doesn’t leak everything he knows about the Dutton’s dirty doings. Realistically…he’s a goner.
That said, there have been plenty of opportunities to rid the world of Jamie until now, and he’s managed to avoid every single one of them. Why? Well, it all boils down to John. Although there have been times when even he seems to hate Jamie’s guts, there’s always a small part of John that’s reluctant to hurt him for good.
Ultimately, Jamie is just as much his child as the rest of them, despite his birth certificate saying otherwise. We envision John will be the only thing that saves Jamie from being buried in the dirt by the end of Yellowstone. Do we agree with this? Hmm, not so much. Jamie has been the biggest threat to the future of the Dutton family, even with all their countless political enemies.
In this sense, he’s probably the dumbest one of the bunch, fully knowing how unlikely it is that he’s going to get the best of them at any time. And yet he keeps trying.
How dead are they? Pretty dead. And, honestly, out of everyone, Jamie is the one we’d be least upset about. Nasty little boy!
1. John Dutton
This is all assuming that John isn’t killed off-camera even before the continuation of the season, anyway. With the Kevin Costner-Yellowstone debacle kick-starting the demise of the best drama series around, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if he didn’t return at all. We think it’s very likely that Sheridan will find the means to erase his character from the series entirely.
Whether this happens in passing mention, during the opening sequence of the next part of the season, or in an emotional and dramatic series finale, we’re not sure. But we can almost guarantee that John is going to go. And, to be frank, we wouldn’t be mad. The series began with John experiencing health woes and becoming acutely aware of the potential future of the ranch. All this formed the basis of what Yellowstone was about: legacy.
With that in mind, it seems fitting that the show should end with his demise. Of course, we’d much rather have Costner in the final installment of the show than not (we need the closure!), but at this point, we’ll have to take what we can get. We only hope that what we get is an ending befitting to the best cattle rancher in Montana.
How dead are they? Oh my god, so dead. No character in the history of television has ever been this dead.
Well, there you have it: the five characters we think are most likely to die in the final season of Yellowstone. If you want to find out more about the best Western series around, check out our guide to the Yellowstone cast, the best Yellowstone episodes, and the 6666 release date and 1923 season 2 release date.
You can also read more about our predictions with our feature on what we think will happen if Taylor Sheridan can’t bring Kevin Costner back. We also have features on what to do now that Yellowstone is breaking up with you, and why the Western has always been a genre for women, too. Don’t forget about everything new on Paramount Plus this month!