Warning: The following contains spoilers for the final 3 of season one Yellowstone which are so colossal, there must be a better word than spoilers to describe them. If you will be surprised when you see (and have not yet done), giddy-up and away!
I’m good, damn! Nobody can say that Yellowstone does not know how to keep his audience on the edge of their seats – or, for that matter, how they beat the hell up. The finale of Sunday’s season 3 was one shock after another – to the point that, although I think we would all be great if season 4 started next week – it will probably take us until next summer to really to recover. What happened? What the net! Read on, and if the smoke disappears, we’ll discuss.
‘He is proof that only the good did young’ | When “The World Is Purple” started, tensions ran high in the bunk house. Not only was Mia worried that Jimmy would be branded, but Lloyd was understandably a little crested to see Laramie wake up in Walker’s bed. In Garrett’s place, Jamie’s biological father shared the gruesome story of the day he murdered his son’s mother. He had come home from a long way to find Jamie screaming, with a crack pipe for a replacement nipple, and his mother got screwed over the laundry. ‘I knew you had only one chance in life,’ said Garrett, ‘and that was without her. That I did what I did … – and looking at what Jamie had become, he did not regret it either. When conversation turned to Yellowstone and how Jamie was the place he was raised to run lost, Garrett told him it was not a place but an empire. One did not buy empire, he explained. One took it. But how? “Simplest thing on earth,” Garrett said. “You kill the king.” (Gulp.)
During a meeting with Rainwater, Angela mocked the boss and mocked him in hopes that one day their tribe would call Yellowstone home again. ‘Not with you [in charge], we will not, ‘she said. He tried to go about things in a moral way, and there was no room for morality in a war. ‘Winners are never judged by how’ they win, she pointed out. “They save that for the losers.” (She grows on me, that Angela.) When Rip returned home after his long, long night, Beth joked, “Who killed you?” only to realize that, oh, he hie killed someone. When he would not tell her the names of the deceased – perhaps he did not know the name of Wade’s son either – she decided that she did not care. A Nietzsche at the core, she believed in love with your whole soul and killing everything you want to destroy. Now, “if you will excuse me,” she said, “I must kill someone too.”
‘THAT TRAIN RUNS ALL RIGHT’ | Rip later reported to John that he had gotten back the ‘thing’ he wanted from Wade. Rip also reported that the dead man and his son had worked for a man named Roarke. Name means nothing to John – not yet. But the day was young. By crossing paths with Kayce, John expressed his delight that his plan worked so well for his son. And again, the day was young! On the way to the rodeo, Mia pushed and pushed Jimmy to explain why he had left himself as a brand of John’s brand. Laramie notes that Walker was brand too, but he was so fine, “he could have his a-hole on his chest, and I would not care.” (Laramie’s deep thoughts could develop into one of my favorite bits of this show.) At Jamie’s office, Roarke, Willa, and Team Market Equities gather with Rainwater, Mo and Angela, the mayor, and John and Beth to solve the fate of Yellowstone decisions. It did not go as planned – at least not as Roarke and Willa planned.
No sooner had Roarke started making his pitch to Lynelle when everyone got a breaking-news text: Willa was accused of harassment at work by a Jane Doe. “Problem, Willa?” asked Beth. “Take that, you f-king bitch.” Willa apologizes, Willa said Roarke could speak for her name. Roarke? Oooh, said John, a light bulb goes over his head. However, after Roarke made his presentation, Jamie exercised Beth’s power, due to the fact that she had submitted her paperwork in Utah, not Montana, and approved the Yellowstone sale to Market Equities, so the Land Commission owned the property. and the Duttons bankruptcy. He had no choice, he claimed. “There’s no choice, John,” Lynelle added. “There are only options.” Fortunately, Rainwater had a plan – to file a class action lawsuit against Angela for blocking the development because of the impact it would have on the local wildlife. “We’ve stopped wolf hunting for a decade,” she said, smiling at Roarke. “What do you think we’re doing to an airport?”
‘THAT COUNTRY IS MINE’ | Before Rainwater left, he asked John to join his trial – it would serve both their purposes and would not cost the rancher a penny. When the office began to disappear, John took a whip at Roarke over his “lost cap” (Wade). “You think you’re winning this game, you do not even know the divine rules,” mocked Dutton’s patriarch. “But do not worry, I will teach you.” On the way out the door he and Beth Jamie gave the opportunity to speak now as to keep his peace forever; after turning a corner and starting to buy into Garrett as his real family, he opted for the latter. “From now on,” he told Lynelle, “what I do is for me.” Yikes – methinks Bad Jamie has just become less. At the rodeo, Mia heard enough of a conversation to suggest that Jimmy was done bringing broncos. Was he just the sender of John Dutton? “When I saw your rodeo, I saw a really happy man – and I fell in love with him,” she said. ‘Be that man, and you can have me. But be this, and I’ll see you later. ‘Good Lord, that girl got Jimmy to vote to risk his neck (and all the other parts of him!) Again. Next thing we knew, he was back in the saddle at the ranch and was hit so hard, it left him consciously without.
On the way back to his office, Rainwater told Angela that he could and would defeat the Duttons and everyone else by playing by their rules. That was foolish, they repeated. They make rules for the slaves and rules for the masters – and he made the rules for the slaves. Maybe Mo would take matters into his own hands, she suggested, and looked at the driver. Maybe he would kill John, “make war on our people, and then … we’m going home.” (How many goals could John have painted on him? Sheesh.) Meanwhile, on chairman of Kayce were the chairmen of the Stock Growers Assoc. came to say they wanted him the next governor of Montana. He laughed, but they were as serious as a heart attack. Better get used to wearing a suit, mate! Elsewhere, Rip had exuded his mother’s body for the sweetest reason I think anyone cow dig a corpse – he wanted to take the ring from her finger to give it to Beth. Back at Roarke, a living Willa noticed that this s – t did not feel like a land division in Montana, “it feels like an oil company in Yemen – and from now on that is how we treat it.” Could Roarke do that? When Josh Holloway predicted for TVLine at the start of the season, you doubt he could.
‘THE WHOLE F – KING VALLEY’S DYING VANDAY’ | When the episode and season were nearing, Beth and her secretary were cleaning their office (and indeed all of Schwartz & Mayer) when the assistant began opening a box in another box addressed to their boss. Faster than Beth could get the word ‘Do not’, ka-freakin ‘boom! At the same time, gunmen burst into Kayce’s office and opened fire! And while John was helping a mother and her children change their flat on the side of the road, a delivery van pulled up. “You’re John Dutton, aren’t you?” asked the driver. “Yep,” he replied. With that, the back of the delivery van flew open, and another man filled not only John with lead, but the mother, too. (Probably the child would also be offended if he did not travel to find the lost hump nuts.) Panicking when he could not reach anyone on the phone, Rip Jamie, who was so far away at the time, called him said, “I do not think you need to call me anymore.” Oh, Jamie. At Yellowstone, Rip noticed a dying horse being grabbed by crows, and sadly, put it down. “I’d rather kill a thousand men,” he sighed, “then shoot another horse.” Finally we got one last look at John, significantly less for wear, but at least alive – perhaps due to the fact that his hateful phone had taken a bullet! “Didn’t that girl,” he grumbled. Man, had he ever been right when he told Kayce he was not having a good day!
So, what did you think of the Season 3 final? Rate it in the question below, and then skip to the comments. We know John’s alive, at least for now. But what about Kayce… and Beth?
