Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) has been promising to kill Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) for practically all of Yellowstone. Will she finally make good on that promise in the final season? Their conflict will have to come to a head in Season 5 Part 2, premiering Sunday, November 10. And with a rivalry so strong and deeply embittered on a show known for violence, a deadly end to this face-off seems not only imminent but necessary.
Leveling up their conflict is the fact that Kevin Costner will not be back in Yellowstone‘s final season — a fact Costner himself confirmed in June. John Dutton will now either be killed off in the new episodes or his absence will be explained by some other story, but killing off the family patriarch would serve the final season’s narrative best. If the show were to continue beyond Season 5 Part 2, then there would be time to create a slow burn about the fallout of his departure. Since this season is the last, the Part 2 premiere will hopefully kick off with a bang by revealing that John was killed by an adversary, perhaps even Jamie himself (he’s killed a father before…). There’s no better setup for Beth to kill Jamie than for him to be responsible for their father’s death.
Yellowstone Season 5 Part 1 ended with John and Beth planning to go to war with Jamie after he doubled down on his commitment to impeach John from his position as Governor of Montana. Now that John knows that Jamie had Beth sterilized without her knowledge or consent as a teen, John shares Beth’s disdain for him. And Jamie has dug his heels into siding against his family for his own personal gain — and out of a deep resentment for not knowing he was adopted until adulthood.
Yellowstone has one big-bad villain every season, and it’s fitting that Jamie would be the show’s last. The difference between him and the other Dutton adversaries, however, is that he is a Dutton, one who’s proven time and again that he has the gumption to go to dark depths to get what he thinks he needs. The family has beaten its enemies season after season, but Jamie will be their greatest challenge yet. And watching Beth and Rip (Cole Hauser) spend the final episodes taking him down feels like the best way for the show to go out.
Taylor Sheridan could take a darker route by having Jamie kill Beth, who said earlier in the series that Dutton women don’t live long. Her own mother died at 40, and Beth is around 39 in the show currently. This provides a foundation to make killing off Beth make sense, but let’s be real, no one wants to see Beth lose to Jamie. If she is killed by her brother, the only suitable ending after that would be for Rip to kill Jamie and become the leader of the Dutton ranch. (Luke Grimes‘ Kayce Dutton and his family seem to be leaning towards leaving the ranch behind.)
Recent rumors about the show’s future could actually hint that Jamie will die in the final season. There are currently a couple of Yellowstone spinoffs in the works, one set in the modern day and one a prequel like 1923 and 1883. At first, the modern-day spinoff was being called 2024 and had Matthew McConaughey in talks to star. Now, that spinoff’s title has reportedly been changed to The Madison and McConaughey no longer seems to be involved. Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, and Patrick J. Adams are now the rumored stars. The prequel spinoff is titled 1944 and set in that year. It is said to follow another generation of Duttons like the other prequels and flagship series, but The Madison may not have Duttons as the focus.
The Madison reportedly centers Stacy Clyburn (presumably Pfeiffer’s role), who moves her family to Montana from New York City after her husband and brother-in-law are killed in a plane crash. Since these franchise extensions were announced in 2023, there have been reports that Reilly, Hauser, and Grimes could reprise their roles in the modern-day spinoff (according to entertainment industry newsletter Puck, the trio was asking for a pay raise in order to reprise their roles).
Notably, Bentley’s name has not been included in that rumor mix. Is that because Bentley isn’t interested in reprising his role, or because Jamie isn’t needed for cameos, or because Jamie can’t be available for cameos? Time will tell, but I’m on Team Beth.
Yellowstone, Season 5 Part 2 Premiere, Sunday, November 10, 9/8c, Paramount Network
