We could have had a ‘Yellowstone’ finale. Instead we got this.

After five seasons of epic family drama—betrayals, estrangements, impossible choices, and countless murders, all in the service of keeping Yellowstone Ranch in the Dutton family— Yellowstone limped its way to a lackluster and unbelievably dull conclusion. (Probably. The Paramount bug in the corner of the frame insisted it was the season finale rather than the series finale, despite a long closing sequence in which people literally dismantle the ranch board by board.)

If the goal was to wrap up any of its many dangling storylines and themes, the second half will Yellowstone‘s fifth season didn’t use its time efficiently. For example, the Dutton family has been dumping its murder victims into a super-secret pit full of corpses in Wyoming for decades. Maybe someone discovers that hole of bodies? And there may be interesting consequences for their crimes? Instead of showing any of that, much of season five’s back half is devoted to killing the patriarch, John Dutton, then retelling how he died and occasionally killing him again for good measure. Meanwhile, Beth, Kayce and Jamie Dutton have been squabbling over the family’s future with the ranch, and in the past the show has offered fairly nuanced, fraught portraits of the futility of trying to fight against encroaching modernity. As another option for the finale, the essential tensions between family vs. profit and modernity vs. tradition might have been expressed through a plot? Something that might have finally shown how these binaries are unmanageable, intractable, typically American swamps? But no, because it would have taken the necessary time to tell us that Bella Hadid plays the girlfriend of Travis, a very cool cowboy played by Taylor Sheridan. Another possibility: A Yellowstone The finale could have handled the incredible burden of loyalty Yellowstone employees are forced to feel for the Dutton family, thanks to the fact that many of the cowboys have literally been branded as cattle!

Instead, creator, writer, director and actor Sheridan bravely charted a new course, a striking and impressive rejection of what you might reasonably expect to be the primary responsibilities and possibilities of this finale. He could have written a big exciting ending! But at pretty much every time, he chose to…not do it. So here are all the things Sheridan chose to do with the finale Yellowstonestuff that took up time in the nearly 90-minute episode so he didn’t have to produce a plot or character development or dramatic tension.

The opening dialogue in the finale is of course spoken by Travis, who sits around the table in the bunkhouse and tells funny stories about cowboy exploits from the past. The ranch employees and the remaining non-stranger Dutton family members are lined up around him, smiling and laughing and marveling at how cool Travis is. He offers the odd, misfit ranch hand Teeter a job, which means Travis’ story is over and there’s no possible reason for him to appear in this episode again.

This is an important one. Of course, most of the narrative momentum is about the end of Yellowstone was supposed to revolve around the fate of the ranch, which has been the single biggest question of the entire series. How does one sustain this unprofitable business (excuse me, lifestyle) against the onslaught of progress? How can the Dutton family’s wishes be negotiated with the Broken Rock Reservation’s traditional right to this land? You would assume that some dramatic tension would be almost inevitable here, but no. Early in the episode, Kayce and Beth announce that the Duttons will simply sell the ranch to the reservation at a greatly reduced and historically symbolic price, allowing them to avoid paying inheritance tax somehow. Everyone is fine with it right away. No regrets, although John Dutton made Beth promise never to sell it, and she said, “Okay, Dad.” No one thinks anything else should have happened at any point, except Jamie, who wants to sell the land to make an airport and also a mall and some luxury resorts. But he is evil and no one cares about him, and he will soon be sent away.

John Dutton has to be buried, so there’s a whole scene where Rip tells the cowboys to dig the grave themselves, presumably as a gesture of appreciation, even if they don’t say it directly. An excavator is mentioned.

When the goal is to fill time in as plotless and gratuitous a way as possible, a useful device is to play a ceremony in its entirety without cuts for time or actions. We will have to hear the whole “Ashokan Farewell”. We will have to watch each rose being placed on the coffin one by one. Sheridan undermined himself here by having Beth insist that there be no speeches or religious setting; a sermon could have eaten three to four minutes, no problem. Still, he had Beth lean over the casket and whisper promises to her dead father in two separate scenes, first to tell him that she’s taken care of everything and that he can now rest in peace, and then to completely contradict the previous message by promising to avenge him. Plus, Rip got ripped off by the poor preacher who suggested saying a prayer. (Why was the preacher even there?!)

“How does this work?” Rip asks about the coffin lowering mechanism. “I think the rods rotate and you lower the straps with the crank,” replies the preacher, proving his point after all. Rip removes the bars, lowers the straps with the crank and stands there for 56 seconds as the coffin descends. Then he picks up a shovel. Then he moves the small fake grass mat away from the grave. Then he tells the preacher that he wants to use the shovel. Thrilling stuff.

Gator, author of The Official Dutton Ranch Family Cookbookattends the meal after the funeral. “What are you doing?” Senator Perry asks. “Rib eyes,” he says. “Beans, sourdough biscuits. Blueberry cobbler.”

Like the fate of the ranch, this sequence carries a high risk of being inherently interesting. Beth vowed to get revenge on her brother Jamie, and finally end their fight over… honestly, the exact contours of what they’ve been fighting over have been pretty hazy. Someone always wants to do something with the land, but who wants what exactly keeps changing and then they throw it all away because John Dutton died (not sure if you’ve heard). At least they are donea line has been crossed! In the past, Yellowstone Characters have performed relatively complicated acts of subterfuge and schemes with multi-layered plans that require lots of shenanigans and surprise twists and time — like several episodes’ time. Instead, Beth simply drives straight to Jamie’s place and stabs him in the heart with a knife. Rip dumps the body in the same place the Duttons have always dumped bodies. No one finds Jamie’s body or any of the bodies. No one is asking about the flimsy cover-up move of setting fire to Jamie’s car. A newscaster announces that Jamie has disappeared, and that’s pretty much the end of the story, even though Jamie was the attorney general for the state of Montana.

That’s it, that’s the scene.

After dispatching Jamie, the Dutton ranch, and every other thing that could create a reason for this episode to continue, Yellowstone finale moves back to a scene at Travis–Taylor Sheridan’s ranch in Texas. Travis yells mean things at Jimmy, Teeter arrives to start his new job, and Travis makes a horse turn in circles. Every time Travis says something, everyone shakes their heads with grudging fondness.

At no point do either of them say, “Wow, it’s going to be weird to have this giant ‘Y’ branded on my back for the rest of my life. I promise not to say anything about that huge hole of murder victims, by the way!”

Respectfully, why is Lainey Wilson here?
Photo: Paramount Network

A cowboy named Ryan, who we’ve barely spent time with, who doesn’t have a last name and has never had a major plot on this show, attends a Lainey Wilson concert. Wilson plays a full song, which takes three minutes and 14 seconds, not including applause. Finally, Ryan goes backstage and tells Wilson that he is in love with her and that they can be together forever. Wilson is thrilled.

The sale of the Dutton ranch goes smoothly without negotiation. Members of the Broken Rock Reservation begin taking it apart immediately. There is a picture of the Yellowstone Ranch sign being removed from the road leading up to the ranch. Then there is a shot of a stained glass door being taken off its hinges with a close-up of the door’s large Yellowstone Y. So there is a shot of the great Y will be taken out of the stable if you missed the first two shots. Members of the Broken Rock Reservation drum and sing. It’s like the end of Killers of the Flower Moon except the exact opposite in every way.

He goes to an auction to buy a cow. Probably he buys more than one, but we only see one.

The woman doing the voice-over at the beginning played over drone footage of mountains and ranchland. 1883 emerges with some key takeaways.

101 years ago my father came to know about this valley and here we stayed for seven generations. My father was told that they would come for this land and he promised to return it. Nowhere was that promise written. It disappeared with my father’s death, but somehow it lived on in the spirit of the place. Men cannot really own wild land. To own land you have to cover it in concrete. Cover it with buildings. Stack it with houses so fat people can smell each other’s dinner. You have to rape it to sell it. Raw land, wild land, free land can never be owned. But some men pay dearly for the privilege of its management. They will suffer and sacrifice to make a living from it and live with it and hopefully teach the next generation to do the same. And if they falter, find someone else willing to keep the promise.

Both Kayce and Beth now have their own ranches made up of land they own. Presumably they have not violated it, nor do they seem to suffer or sacrifice much for it, because they are actually very happy! Beth finds a bar. Rip agrees to go with her to the bar. Everyone who has seen this episode also decides to find a bar. The ending.