10 Biggest Unanswered Questions After Yellowstone’s Series Finale

The Beth vs Jamie rivalry was at the heart of every season of Yellowstone. Despite Beth appearing childish and volatile, most fans sympathize with her because of the abuse she suffered at her mother’s hands as a child. After the trauma of losing her mother at a young age and blaming herself for the accident that caused it, Beth looked up to Jamie as her elder brother. However, Jamie betrayed that trust by tricking her into having a hysterectomy when she confided in him about being pregnant with Rip’s child.

Finding the love of her life in Rip Wheeler is by far the best thing that ever happened to Beth in the show. As expected, after their impromptu marriage in Season 4, Beth was always upfront with Rip. Surprisingly, she never tells him about the pregnancy and the hysterectomy. Rip would want to know why they can’t have any biological children and finding out that Jaime was responsible would have made Rip hate Jamie even more. Rip eventually helps Beth kill Jamie, but ending the show without the conversation about their baby and the hysterectomy leaves their storyline hollow.

Thomas Rainwater is the ultimate winner in Yellowstone as he gets to keep the ranch he has been eyeing since the first season. Just like Dan Jenkins and Market Equities, Rainwater attempted to develop the valley by building a casino and a hotel, something the Duttons opposed. While Rainwater’s chieftaincy appears unchallenged towards the end of the show, he isn’t so invincible in Season 3 when Angela Blue Thunder challenges his leadership of the tribe and later tries to oust him.

After the short cameo in Season 3, Angela appeared again in season 5 to help the tribe fight against Market Equities. She was still opposed to Thomas Rainwater though. Unfortunately, the second half of Season 5 totally ignores her storyline. The ending puts the fate of the Yellowstone in Rainwater’s hands without any contigency.

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Caroline Warner (Jacki Weaver) hired Sarah Atwood to ensure that Market Equities secured control of the Dutton land through all possible means. She quickly discovered Jamie’s weak spot and exploited it to smoothen legal hurdles while plotting John Dutton’s assassination to ensure the governorship fell to someone her employer could control. However, Warner is nowhere to be seen in the second half of Season 5 and Sarah seems to be loyal to Jamie all of a sudden.

With the assassination plot unraveling, Sarah is killed by what seems to be the very hit men she hired. However, it is unclear where her loyalties lie by this point as she seems to be lying to everyone. Beth also discovered that Sarah wasn’t even her real name, leaving even more mysteries around the character who was so vital to the ending of the show.

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The show ends quite predictably as Kayce hands over the majority of the land to Thomas Rainwater after the Duttons hastily sell off their property. The tribe then wipes out all trace of the Duttons ever having been on the land, except for their gravestones. It is largely the very thing that John Dutton and five generations before him have fought to avoid. This ending is in contrast to the show’s narrative earlier in the fifth season when the patriarch became the governor and vowed to secure the family’s legacy.

Not only did John promise to use his power to fortify the ranch forever, but he also started buying and breeding racehorses in a bid to make Yellowstone too big and famous to be threatened. However, the show’s ending doesn’t credit John Dutton with any master moves that would protect the ranch other than leaving it in Kayce’s hands. Surely, John Dutton had a plan, power, and foresight that could prevent the shambles that make up the ranch’s fate.

Lloyd Pierce was one of the most important members of the bunkhouse. He was so important to the storyline that he was the first person to take an errant cowboy to the Train Station. He clearly knows all the dark secrets of the Yellowstone seeing as he is there to the very end when he helps Rip get rid of Jamie’s body.

His position means that no single member of the Yellowstone will be safe if Lloyd becomes loyal to another brand whose owner is an enemy of the Duttons. Funny enough, the show’s finale doesn’t clarify Lloyd’s future after he declines Rip’s offer of a job on his and Beth’s new ranch in Texas. The uncertainty leaves a dark cloud hanging over everyone.

Besides John Dutton becoming the governor, the other storyline in Season 5 Episode 2 is the investigation into a pack of wolves killed by cowboys on the ranch. The wolf pack, which had strayed from the national park, was killed after attacking the cattle. Unfortunately, they had GPS trackers in their collars, but the cowboys couldn’t see them in the dark. Killing the wolves is a federal crime and would result in a huge scandal for John Dutton and the Yellowstone Ranch.

Rip attempted to absolve the ranch from blame by attaching the trackers to driftwood and dumping them in the river, but the ploy failed failed when Fish and Wildlife officers eventually retraced their steps to the ranch. The investigation clearly put Rip on the hook which meant he faced significant jail time. The storyline was also a great opportunity to integrate Summer Higgins into the daily running of the ranch. Unfortunately, the second half of Season 5 totally ignores the entire storyline and simply kicks Summer out of the show.

While Jamie’s death was a welcome ending for most fans, the way it was executed leaves many questions. First, Rip and Beth kill Jamie, and then Rip drags out his body wrapped in his own blood-soaked carpet in broad daylight, before driving to the Train Station to get rid of the evidence. However, the writing ignores many real-world factors, the top of them being that Jamie was already being investigated for two murders, meaning Beth and Rip’s grand arrival at his house wouldn’t be missed.

Modern security systems also wouldn’t miss all that activity happening right in the middle of the day at the state attorney general’s residence. The show also reduces the investigation of John Dutton’s death to the nod of a small-town detective, which just doesn’t add up. With the level of scrutiny that would go into the investigation of John Dutton’s death, Beth’s little trick to blame Jamie for the murder and fake his escape would never be the end of that investigation.

When Sarah and Jamie first discussed killing a member of the Dutton family, Beth was their target. Jamie was always more scared of Beth than John and hated her even more after John gave her the power of attorney over the ranch. Beth was also Caroline Warner’s top target when she hired Sarah Atwood as a fixer. Beth was clearly the biggest threat to both Jamie and Market Equities since she knew Jamie’s deepest secrets and also knew the inner workings of Market Equities, having worked there before.

The show’s final episodes don’t explain why the two eventually decided to kill John instead when they were just about to get him impeached anyway. Killing Beth would actually have been a lot easier and attracted far less attention as compared to the sitting governor. The obvious reason is that Kevin Costner had left the show, but it still doesn’t explain such a big gap in the story. Killing John instead of Beth makes it seem as if Sarah and Jamie suddenly forgot who their greatest enemy was.

Inability to raise enough money to keep up with expenses as well as taxes was one of the reasons why the Duttons struggled to keep hold of the ranch. John Dutton insisted on only breeding and selling cattle like his ancestors, a buiness model that was clearly out of date. Since cattle don’t fetch as much revenue as branded beef, race horses, mining rights, coffee and other profitable ventures, it was obvious that the Yellowstone would have to shut down at some point.

John Dutton expresses his interest in building a legacy for the Yellowstone throughout the show. He even mentions the King Ranch and the Four Sixes in Texas as his examples of thriving ranches. Interestingly, John Dutton refused Beth’s proposal to sell beef instead of cattle as the ranches he admires do, which is puzzling. The whole resistance to adopting revenue-generating ventures, even when they wouldn’t destroy the land, is never fully explained.

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Jamie’s former campaign manager and lover, Christina, turning up with a baby was one of the biggest plot twists of the fourth season. It saw Jamie leave the Yellowstone and secretly move onto his own ranch with his newfound family including his father. It is at the new ranch that Jamie and his father, Randall, plot their revenge against the Duttons while he plans to run against his adoptive father in the gubernotorial elections. Eventually, Randall asks Jamie to kill him in a twist that ruins Jamie’s campaign.

Beth discovered Jamie’s secret and recorded him as he got rid of the body, eventually using the evidence to blackmail Jamie into abandoning his political ambition. Beth also vowed to go after Christina and Jamie’s son if he ever betrayed the Duttons again. Interestingly, Beth never mentions Jamie’s family again, even when she discovers that he was involved in John Dutton’s murder. The show’s ending leaves the entire Christina storyline hanging, meaning Beth’s revenge isn’t complete.