'Yellowstone' Wraps As Well As Possible Given Creator's Show-Altering Hubris

by Julian Spivey

Photo: Paramount

Paramount Network’s hit “Yellowstone” came to an end on Sunday, Dec. 15, after five seasons of often thrilling, often eye-roll-inducing drama with the series finale, “Life Is A Promise,” which provided both, as well as some predictability and excess in a bloated nearly two-hour episode (NOTE: I've been told it was 83 minutes without commercials but it felt longer, which isn't great).

This was never how "Yellowstone” was supposed to end, with showrunner Taylor Sheridan's massive ego and “my way or the highway” stubbornness having run off the show’s star, Kevin Costner, during a layoff between two parts of season five. This resulted in a rushed final six episodes of the series that served as a way to figure out who killed John Dutton and what would happen to the Dutton Ranch as a result.

Working with what they had, the show came up with a finale that was mostly satisfying for all the remaining characters. Beth (Kelly Reilly) avenged John Dutton's death in a moment with her adopted brother Jamie (Wes Bentley) that we’ve known has been coming for years now. This moment served as the most predictable moment of the series finale, putting an end to one of the most cringeworthy relationships on television of the last decade, one that was always far too weighted toward Beth. That moment came about halfway into the finale, and the show went on far too long after the big moment.

I can’t speak for all “Yellowstone” viewers, as I know most still feel more highly about the series than I do after five seasons, but I didn’t need the extended farewells for some of the cowboys/cowgirls who worked at the ranch, like Ryan (Ian Bohen), who got his dream girl in return guest Lainey Wilson, or Teeter (Jen Landon) showing up at Travis’s ranch in Texas, the character had already told us she’d be leaving for that job, so we didn’t need to see it. I guess it served to let us see Travis one more time and get more asshole quips into the episode.

Speaking of Travis, played by the show’s auteur Sheridan, I didn’t need to see him at all, especially after seeing so much of him in mostly pointless scenes in the penultimate episode the week before. Again, the ego on that guy.

The most satisfying storyline of the finale was the ending for Kayce (Luke Grimes) and his family. If there was one good person in the Dutton family (because, let’s face it, no matter how much folks want to heroize the rest of the family, they’re shitty people), it was Kayce. The character spent a lot of the series trying to do his own thing while being pulled back into the family drama time and time again, and in some ways – as horrible as it might be – the murder of his father allowed him to do what was best for him, his wife and son.

Kayce is the only character I’ll genuinely miss.

I don’t think “Yellowstone” was ever going to end the way it did before Sheridan’s hubris got in the way and ran off Costner, but the idea of one of the most conservative-friendly shows on TV ending with the white man having to give land they took from the natives back to the natives turned out to be the best possible ending for me.