This is the way the Yellowstone Ranch ends — not with a bang, but with a whimper. After years on air, many shows find themselves at a crossroads where they must figure out how to end, either by bowing out gracefully with their characters still intact or taking a left turn down dead-end roads full of messy plot lines and pointless drama. Though there have been plenty of bangs heard across the beautiful mountains, back roads, and endless plains of Yellowstone, Montana, the Paramount+ series Yellowstone has finally found itself a final whimper to go out on. Taylor Sheridan’s epic Neo-Western family drama is preparing to debut the final half of Season 5, titled Part 2, with an unknown number of episodes.
If you find yourself questioning why the series is still hanging out in the now rotting, beautiful Montana spots that used to be full of life, you are not alone. The shootouts have lost their meaning, the speeches about what this land has gained and lost have become a tiring spiel that makes our ears itch, and not even Kevin Costner can save the reputation of the series by playing a noble cowboy trying to do the right thing. At this point, Sheridan has begun to do a disservice to the ravaged, beautiful world he created in Yellowstone, and as the final stretch of episodes prepares to air, it has never been more apparent that the series should have ended years ago.
In the wake of the Yellowstone Season 1 premiere, the show quickly became the most popular series on television, and with good reason. The series contained one of the biggest and brightest ensemble casts in recent memory, starring Costner, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Luke Grimes, Kelsey Asbille, Cole Hauser, Forrie J. Smith, and Gil Birmingham. Obviously, the star attraction when the series kicked off was Costner, an Oscar winner for directing Dances With Wolves and a modern-day cowboy compared to the likes of John Wayne, in the role of the show’s patriarch. John Dutton and his three remaining adult children run the massive Yellowstone Ranch in Montana, and together they fend off various business tycoons and vigilantes who want to steal the land, alongside the neighboring Broken Rock reservation that wants to reclaim the land that was once their home before it was stolen away by white men.
‘Yellowstone’ Season 1 Will Always Be the Show’s Best
Yellowstone Season 1 will always be Sheridan’s crowning jewel in the entire five-season run of the Dutton saga. Every character introduction during Season 1 offered a complex Dutton family member battling demons of their own, and Reilly’s tortured businesswoman Beth Dutton was the name on everyone’s lips. Fearless and cunning, Reilly’s performance as Beth was a revelation among the dated cowboys rotting away on the ranch. The other siblings also offered complexities of their own, with Luke Grimes playing the once prodigal son turned black sheep Kayce Dutton, Wes Bentley as the haunted, big-shot lawyer Jamie Dutton, and Dave Annable as the golden boy in the family Lee Dutton. Lee’s death at the end of Season 1’s first episode, was shocking, devastating, and the fire that fueled the beginning of Yellowstone. Sheridan let viewers know that no one in the series was safe, and this brutal land held no sentimentality for the men and women who tried to control the unforgiving fate of nature.
Now, all the complexities that once made each of the Dutton children so special have become their chains. Beth, in particular, has turned into the stereotypical cool girl male fantasy, thanks to strange idealizations of what a woman should be while trying to belong as a member of the boys’ club. She throws tantrums each episode, gets into catfights that serve no valuable narrative purpose, and has become a soap opera caricature of a once intelligent, fascinating addition to the series. Beth’s character demise is just one prime example of how the series has failed its fantastic actors as plotlines get more ridiculous with each passing season. As Yellowstone continues to sink, it’s becoming more evident that there’s more investment being put into spin-off series such as 1923 as the franchise moves beyond the aging ranch.
‘Yellowstone’ Spin-Offs Are Getting More Attention Right Now
When word broke that a Yellowstone prequel series starring Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, and Faith Hill, titled 1883, was on the horizon, everyone held their breath to see if the show would be a success. The origin story reveals how the Duttons came to land on the Yellowstone Ranch, with newcomer Isabel May starring as 16-year-old Elsa Dutton battling her way down the Oregon trail with her parents and younger siblings. 1883 was an instant hit and lauded across the board for its treacherous journey across the vast American West. Written in its entirety by Sheridan, it was his first insight into the possibility of turning Yellowstone into a marketable franchise, and from there he ran with it. Another acclaimed spin-off series,1923, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, was later released, and that’s not even in addition to the upcoming 6666 spin-off and another newly-announced prequel series, 1944.
The curtains on Yellowstone came down long ago, but the series has been allowed to continue to breathe thanks to its bankability and popular status among devoted fans. Yellowstone has become little more than a soap opera in its old age, and it is nice to imagine how great the series could have been if it had ended a couple of years ago, perhaps in Season 3. It was an ideal chapter to end on, as the question of who shot John Dutton was whispered in front of millions of television screens across America. All audiences needed was one final scene to tie up some loose ends, but unfortunately, those ends have become deliriously messy as the series has continued. It’s clear that the flagship series’ spin-offs are now getting the royal treatment, but hopefully, with these last few episodes, Sheridan will give Yellowstone the respect it deserves to bow out gracefully.
Monica Dutton Has Experienced the Worst Treatment of All in ‘Yellowstone’
The most glaring aspect that has been let down in Yellowstone as the focus has shifted to spin-offs are the Native American voices that were at the forefront in Season 1. Highlighting the growing tensions between the Yellowstone Ranch and the neighboring Broken Rock Reservation, Sheridan made it clear he was telling a new kind of Western story that would not wind up being another series with a white savior complex. Unfortunately, that promise has been broken. Native American characters have once again been written into supporting roles that serve the white characters’ storylines, missing a major opportunity to put underrepresented voices at the forefront. It’s the latest example of telling these types of stories from the perspective of white characters, which Sheridan has been called out for since his directorial debut Wind River.
It is undeniable that the character of Monica Dutton (Asbille) continuously sees the most brutality in each passing season of Yellowstone compared to her white counterparts. She’s been turned into a pawn for the series, rather than have any active voice of her own, and in the Season 5 premiere, undergoes one of the show’s worst tragedies. The continued choice to make Monica a suffering victim in comparison to the other Dutton family members does nothing but detract from the Native American voices that have attempted to take control over their own narratives on television within the past several years (like with the groundbreaking series Reservation Dogs). This setback is glaring, especially as Yellowstone remains the most popular network series on television.
For a show about justice, the material within Yellowstone at this point is an injustice to the great actors cast in the series. As the time to say goodbye to the Yellowstone Ranch nears, it’s more apparent than ever that Yellowstone should have ended a few seasons ago. Audiences will always remember and love the characters that found their way into living rooms every Sunday night, and the epic battles and romances that blossomed then died. Sheridan caused a renaissance within the Neo-Western genre in television and film, but he, unfortunately, missed one of too many opportunities to end Yellowstone with the dignity it deserved. As we prepare for the final showdown in the last upcoming episodes of the flagship show, there are sure to be plenty of clashes within the ranch, but at this point, Yellowstone seems destined to go out with one prolonged whimper before mercifully being put out of its misery.