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This article contains spoilers for Yellowstone season 5 episode 11.
After such a highly-anticipated return, it’s disappointing to see how often Yellowstone continues to drink from one specific well. Co-creator and showrunner Taylor Sheridan, who has written every episode in this latter half of season five, has predominantly treated it like a commercial for his 6666 Ranch, at one point even deploying blatant product placement. Only a couple episodes ago, a Texas bartender serving Rip (Cole Hauser) and Beth (Kelly Reilly) lets the couple know that the ranch doesn’t just make vodka, but it in fact, “makes everything”.
It felt as if Sheridan was merely using these last six episodes to make the nostalgia factor Texas-sized, and show audiences again and again that the cowboy way of life is dying. Episode 11, entitled “Three Fifty-Three,” changes all that.
Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) was arguably the most effective antagonist to ever face off against the Duttons, and now she’s dead. Violently assassinated in broad daylight, not at the hands of a Dutton or their clan as an ice cold revenge plot, but essentially by her own doing.
There are undoubtedly several fans who don’t want to admit that she is that successful, but it really comes down to one factor – she succeeded where others have failed. How many people over the years have tried to kill John Dutton? In the early going it was Dan Jenkins (Danny Huston) but all he got was strung up. The Beck brothers, Teal (Terry Serpico) and Malcolm (Neal McDonough) got close, hiring an armada, but made the major mistake of going after Tate (Brecken Merrill) and that meant the Duttons were going to raze the ground and erase the name Beck from the history books. Perhaps Garrett Randall (Will Patton) got the closest, severely wounding John, incapacitating Kayce (Luke Grimes) and blowing up Beth (just a little), but the only thing he proved is “close enough” is not “good enough.”
Atwood was able to actually kill the Dutton patriarch using black ops hitmen, and while granted, it does neatly coincide with Kevin Costner finally leaving the show, Sheridan did give her that impressive feat before unceremoniously killing her off.
Yet look at what has happened almost immediately after John’s death. The woman who ordered the hit is then hit only days later. The show could have allowed her to live a little while longer, but it went for a major blow to prove a point – when you take out John Dutton, it is a nexus event in the Yellowstone universe. Nothing can ever be the same. What many fans undoubtedly appreciated about the events of “Three Fifty-Three,” is that yes, it gave John’s killer a major dose of karma, but it also has now set up a dark vision for the final three episodes.
Sarah’s demise gives audiences just a taste of what is to come, because as of now, the show is really honing in on the major conflict between Jamie (Wes Bentley) and his siblings Beth and Kayce. There’s only one last bit of karma to come, and it’s coming Jamie’s way. This writer has often theorized as to what could happen with the adopted Dutton son (or perhaps should have happened to give past seasons a real jolt). Jamie could have killed Beth, or Rip might have gone off on a fit of rage and taken him out, but Sheridan has been nothing if not consistent when it comes to the lack of growth within Jamie’s character. Jamie has done the right thing perhaps only once in his life, when he killed his biological father, but in every other instance, he has squirmed his way out of difficult situations.
What’s different about this time, however, is Jamie is out of options. He can’t go crying to Rip like he did when he murdered Sarah Nguyen (Michaela Conlin). He’s recently lost Senator Perry (Wendy Moniz) as an ally. The only member of his family who truly loved him just threw him across a desk, as Kayce essentially knows Jamie was also behind their father’s death. Now, Sarah is gone. The puppet-master shaping what Jamie does is no longer around to shape him. Which makes Jamie a caged rat with very little problem-solving skills, no allies, and his back against the wall.
Jamie could do anything. He has nothing to lose. He is probably the most dangerous he’s ever been. Let’s not also forget, those forces who Sarah hired who took her out, could very easily now be after Jamie. It’s safe to say that several people could end up having a violent end in the next three episodes. The fans have earned it after a rather slow start to this second half of the season, and it looks like Sheridan could give fans what they want.
It may not be a foregone conclusion that Beth will literally be the cause of Jamie’s death. Maybe she’ll just sit back and enjoy seeing what he’s reaped? Perhaps Jamie will take his life, ironic after playing a part in John’s fake suicide. Regardless, the blood we’ve been waiting for, five seasons in the making, is coming, and it means Jamie is in for a very dark and probably violent swan song.
New episodes of Yellowstone season 5 premiere Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on Paramount Network, culminating with the finale of December 15.
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