Yellowstone Finale Review: A Sweet but Mildly Anticlimactic Send-Off for TV's Biggest Show

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Yellowstone Season 5, Episode 14, "Life Is a Promise."]

Yellowstone could only have ended one way, and that's exactly how it went. There were no surprises in "Life Is a Promise," the feature-length finale-for-now of creators Taylor Sheridan and John Linson's megahit Western series: just a string of neatly bow-tying events that found happy endings for all characters. It arrived at them in a predictable, very simple way that feels right for the show, for better or worse. It was a sweet but mildly anticlimactic ending for a show that has always been better at exciting beginnings than satisfying endings. But still, it's pretty remarkable that Yellowstone made it to the end at all. 

For nearly two years, since news broke that Kevin Costner was leaving the show, Yellowstone's behind-the-scenes soap opera has overshadowed the on-screen one, especially because there was no show until the contractual stalemate got resolved. There's no need to rehash the details of the Costner vs. Sheridan scheduling conflict/battle of Montana-sized egos, other than to say that Sheridan decisively won. Yellowstone ends its Costner-less final run with more viewers than ever, while Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2, the second entry in the planned four-part Western film series that Costner left Yellowstone to make, has been shelved after the first part bombed in its theatrical run. The six episodes of Season 5B have been something of a victory lap for Sheridan, as he celebrates the Manifested Destiny of his ever-expanding TV universe by writing a large, self-aggrandizing part for himself in the show's second-to-last episode and stretching the finale to nearly two hours with commercials. And honestly, he should pat himself on the back, because Costner's exit handed him a problem, and he solved it. Maybe not perfectly, but adequately. 

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Looking at the last six episodes in total, it seems clear that Costner's character, Montana rancher-turned-governor John Dutton, was always going to die, whether Costner was physically present or not. The way it shook out was the natural, seemingly inevitable end for the John Dutton saga, and it required that Dutton die. It would have been better if Costner had been there so John could have gone down fighting instead of getting shot in his sleep, and there could have been some better setup, but, like on Succession, Yellowstone's New York City shadow, the patriarch had to die early in the final season for the story to happen as it needed to. 

Both of the two biggest events in the finale had been set up previously — a very long time ago, in one case — and they happened as Sheridan foretold. Earlier this season, John's hell-raising daughter, Beth (Kelly Reilly), told her tragic, traitorous adopted brother Jamie (Wes Bentley) that her face would be the last thing he ever saw, and that's exactly what happened, as she stabbed him in the heart to avenge her father (a murder he was only sort of responsible for). Then, her husband, Rip (Cole Hauser), and the bunkhouse's most loyal ranch hand, Lloyd (Forrie J. Smith), took Jamie's body to the "train station" — the euphemistic dumping ground for people killed in the name of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch — and that was that. It seemed like the authorities weren't even going to look for him that hard. That's how disliked Attorney General Dutton is in the world of Yellowstone. 

The other big event was John's favorite child, Kayce (Luke Grimes), selling the ranch to Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingam), the chief of the Broken Rock Reservation, for $1.1 million, which is less than the price of a two-bedroom house in many of the California cities Yellowstone loves to denigrate. The ranch returning to the tribe was foretold way back in 1883, when ranch founder James Dutton (Tim McGraw) borrowed the land from Rainwater's ancestors on the condition that Dutton's descendants return it seven generations later. For a moment, 1883's posthumous narrator, Elsa Dutton (Isabel May), returned to explain that the deal had been forgotten over the years, but it happened anyway because it "somehow lived in the spirit of this place." Elsa's voiceover made explicit the conservationist ethos present at the heart of Yellowstone. "Raw land, wild land, free land can never be owned, but some men pay dearly for the privilege of its stewardship," she said. "They will suffer and sacrifice to live off it, and live with it, and hopefully teach the next generation to do the same." 

Elsa's return and environmental statement of purpose was one of the most emotionally affecting moments of the episode, at least for people who watched 1883. Other powerful moments include the images of John's house and the bunkhouse emptied out, and the expression on the face of Gil Birmingham, the best actor on the show after Costner left, as the magnitude of what has happened for Rainwater and his people washes over him throughout the episode, including while they disassemble the house log by log. The legality of selling the ranch at an extreme below-market rate for tax avoidance purposes might be questionable in real life, but reality has never been Yellowstone's thing. Yellowstone is about emotion over everything, and narrative coherence is secondary, which has always been a double-edged sword. When the emotional storytelling clicks, it's thrilling and distinctive; it's the currency on which Sheridan has built his empire. When it doesn't, it creates frustrating, baffling TV, like the episode before the finale. The finale is right at the midpoint between thrilling and frustrating. Everything that happens makes sense for the characters, which is satisfying, but it happens in such a neat way that it's not particularly exciting to watch. And there's so much of it that it feels overly indulgent. There's no way that a TV writer-director without Sheridan's clout would get away with having a funeral scene where almost every character gets to give a little goodbye speech to the deceased's coffin. 

Everyone who survived gets a happy ending. Kayce and Beth are free from the burden their father placed on them to protect the ranch and can finally live the peaceful lives they want, on ranches of a more manageable size. The resolution for the question of what to do with the ranch was resolved so simply and easily because it was simple and easy. The way to save the ranch was to stop fighting to hold on to it and instead let it go. Yellowstone, again like Succession, is a show about a father who psychologically destroys his children by forcing them to devote their lives to his goal. The difference is that Succession is explicit about the fact that Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is the villain, while Yellowstone plays it more ambiguously. It's never been clear exactly how much Taylor Sheridan wants viewers to sympathize with John Dutton, but this episode concludes once and for all that, ultimately, John was wrong, and his stubbornness and ego were what led to his downfall. 

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Even dedicated fans of Yellowstone will tell you that the show got worse each season. It grew narratively unfocused as Sheridan added more and more shows to his portfolio and seemingly stopped prioritizing Yellowstone over newer, shinier projects, including spin-offs 1883 and 1923. Hopefully, the Beth and Rip spin-off that's reportedly in development will also enjoy being free from the weight of the ranch. Beth's hatred of Jamie became so one-note and repetitive over the course of the show that it felt oppressive, and the resolution of that plotline leaves Beth nowhere to go but up. Beth and Rip seem to have found an idyllic life out there in a part of Montana where tourists don't go. It will be a shame if something disturbs their peace and forces the need for a new show, but at least they'll get a year or two to relax before the story picks up again. 

Overall, Yellowstone died as it lived, with melodramatic moments, bloat and excess (typified by country singer Lainey Wilson showing up as Abby, a long-forgotten side character who dated one of the lesser ranch hands, to perform an entire song), and gorgeous, sweeping cinematography. It was never perfect, but it was always grand and weirdly compelling, even after it lost a movie star. 

Yellowstone Seasons 1-4 and the first half of Season 5 are now streaming on Peacock.