He gets one more this week, after one conversation with his ex-con biological father convinces him to go rogue.Īll too predictably, Jamie acts according to his nature in the finale, telling Montana’s governor that it’s he (not Beth) who has the state-sanctioned power of attorney to approve the sale of Dutton tracts to the hostile interlopers from Market Equities. Always a semi-outsider in the family, Jamie has been given plenty of narratively contrived reasons over the past few episodes to abandon his adoptive family. A few days before that, Beth spilled the beans to John about how Jamie’s carelessness led to her getting sterilized during an abortion. The only Dutton spared is Jamie - but maybe Jamie shouldn’t be classified as “a Dutton.” A few days ago he found out he was adopted. John? Also felled by machine guns, while helping a stranded Californian change a flat tire. Kayce? Masked thugs charge into his office with machine guns blazing. Beth? A bomb goes off while she’s cleaning out her office at Schwartz & Meyer. This chapter - titled “The World is Purple” - ends with nearly every member of the Dutton family at death’s door. How you feel about this episode, this season, and perhaps even Yellowstone in general may be tied to how you feel about those final scenes. Everything just goes sour for the Duttons in a hurry. By my calculations, the time between last episode’s climactic murder-spree and this episode’s explosive cliffhangers is about 36 hours at most. It’s not like Sheridan pulls one of those Battlestar Galactica or Parks and Recreation switcheroos where suddenly the story jumps way ahead it’s three years later. Several storylines from this season jump straight ahead to their next phase, with minimal setup. (Watching this show is a little like sitting in the passenger seat during a driver’s ed class.) His mode for the season-three finale? It’s a whole lot of lurch. That seems like the kind of dynamic that creators John Linson and Taylor Sheridan might like to explore.Earlier this season, I wrote about how Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan’s plotting style seems to have two modes: nothing much happening, and then suddenly lurching forward. ![]() If the generational torch is truly passed in season 4, this shift sets Jamie up as a primary antagonist to his siblings. After turning his back on the family during their meeting at the governor's office with Morris, Jamie even left Governor Perry herself unsettled by confirming that - from now on - he's only out for himself. The black sheep of the Dutton clan not only learned that he's adopted this season, but also delivered the most chilling declaration of the finale. But we're putting his odds of survival at the lowest of the low. It would be a shame to see Kevin Costner go, after all. Anything can be explained away by a medical miracle in TV world. This kind of generational passing of the story torch is a classic device that seems in line with the Shakespearean form of Yellowstone. Of course, John could survive, as well. By removing the father, the children are forced to stand on their own and forge a new path. John's death would also serve a necessary story function. Hard to imagine an old man with health issues walking away from that. John Dutton took several machine gun rounds to the chest. The Dutton patriarch is another matter entirely. Death by mail bomb isn't a satisfying end to Beth's arc. ![]() Rip's morbid, emotional scene telling his mother's corpse about his plans to marry Beth was likely a red herring meant to lead viewers down the path of suspicion that Beth might bite it just to motivate Rip. While Beth is certainly in the most danger, we suspect she's going to crawl away from the wreckage of that explosion with an epic grudge worthy of her character's temperament. There's just too much unexploded tension lurking there, and their backstories remain to be explored. The Dutton children will survive their brush with death - all of them. ![]() Nothing in those last few minutes confirms the fate of the Duttons, but here's what we suspect. ![]() While season 3 comes nowhere near resolving the land war at the center of this violent conflict, we are certainly left to grapple with some casualties. The coordinated execution all goes off without a hitch. Beth receives a mysterious package containing a bomb, which her new assistant stupidly opens. Kayce is attacked in similar fashion inside the office of the Bureau of Land Management, which he currently runs. A van pulls up beside John as he's working on the tire, and guns him down in cold blood. We cut between John, Beth, and Kayce (Luke Grimes), as each one weathers an attack we should assume came directly from Morris.
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