Final ‘Yellowstone’ Season 3 asks the question, Who shot John Dutton? – Deadline

SPOILER ALERTS: Do not read further if you do not want to know the content of Final 3 of season.

If the Dutton family’s spearhead of the Beck Brothers and their hired militia of extremist rapists and kidnappers from Season Two was not deadly enough, it’s close YellowstoneThe third season brought some of the most shocking developments that co-creator Taylor Sheridan has scripted to date.

A mystery was also created for what an eternally anticipated fourth season will be: who shot John Dutton (Kevin Costner)? And he’s still alive, and for that matter, his daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly), whose office was set on fire with her there. And for that matter, Kayce Dutton last saw his office upside down for protection when gunmen entered his office.

This was a well-woven build-up to a chaotic climax that revolved around the Duttons who hung around alive on the largest farm in Montana. The episode for last night’s finale ended with two bad cowboys hired by Market Equities’ Roarke (Josh Holloway) being chased by the Dutton posse for nearly killing two Dutton ranchers. One cowboy fell off his horse and died, and another is hanged after revealing who hired him, and the mark “Y” has his chest cut off in a hunk. And then John Dutton’s son told Kayce about her enemies, ‘You can not reason with evil, son. Evil wants what it wants and will not stop until it has won or you kill it. To kill it is to be leaner than evil. And then the challenge is “that you can be leaner than evil and still love your family and still enjoy a sunrise.”

It seemed that the Duttons could face a dilemma similar to the Byrde Family in Ozark – you can keep the wolves out of your door without becoming the wolves, but that’s not how the finale worked out. It already became clear that there were players on this board much more angry than the Duttons realized.

First a series of subplots: black sheep son Jamie (Wes Bentley), bundled rap with his newly found killer father Garrett (Will Patton). Jamie becomes a quick study under his father, reminding him that “You’re a Randall and kill is our only gift,” this after describing in graphic detail how he found the baby Jamie – hungry and addicted to a discarded crackpipe while his mother prostituted herself for more drugs, and then murdered his wife and Jamie’s mother because the boy had his best chance at a life.

Jamie expresses his frustration at having built the Yellowstone ranch into a vibrant business, but not being part of his succession plans. “Yellowstone is not a farm, it’s an empire and empire you take,” Garrett said. When Jamie asks how, Garrett simply says, “You’re killing the king.”

Next we see the honorable tribal leader Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), who has become an ally of mutual convenience for the Duttons, is advised by a ruthless adviser who warns that he will never return the Yellowstone Ranch lands to their people , unless he stops propelling the Duttons up and, yes, kills the king. Rainwater does not throw them out of hand.

The other possible killers were the most obvious. Working for Market Equities, the gruesome company bends the land of Dutton away. All of them come to an important meeting to decide whether this billion-dollar company will get Dutton’s run to build an airport, houses and retail stores in the middle of its unspoiled paradise. And then Market Equities Willa Hayes (Karen Pittman) is shown a viral report that she’s accused of “workplace abuse”, and when she leaves office, Roarke’s identity is revealed to John Dutton who was previously from Rip had learned that it was the man who hired the two bad men who chased the Duttons’ livestock and were sent out at the end of the last episode.

Roarke goes mano a mano in the mockery of Dutton’s retort that it’s his land to sell and that he’s not selling. Dutton whispers to him, ‘Do you think you’ll win this game? You do not even know the goddamn rules. But do not worry. I’ll teach you. ‘

Son Jamie, who fully respects his father, draws a total blindside backstab by declaring that he actually has power of attorney, not his sister Beth, and he will approve the sale because it’s the only way the ranch will not be condemned through eminent domain. As governor and sometimes John Dutton bed partner (Wendy Moniz-Grillo), Jamie tells her that once his father realizes that he is acting in the interest of John Dutton, he gives her his patented ghostly appearance and says that is not true. He did this for himself and that will serve Jamie from now on. He appears to be the son of his biological father.

A brief meeting between Hayes and Roarke of Market Equities raises the ante when, deviating from the false accusations of unusual workplaces, she tells him that this is no longer a land sale in Montana, but a takeover of oil in Yemen. She gives him license to take off the gloves. The disarmed avid fisherman schtick he displayed earlier this season is gone. This man is a stone killer.

And then the mayhem begins.

Beth clears her office when her assistant brings in a box aimed at Beth. When she says it’s a box inside a box, Beth cries for her not to open it. Too late and the resulting explosion blows out the windows, and up the street.

Kayce, who has been begging powerful catmen to run for governor, is fired from all rumors when gunmen enter his office and begin firing. He turns his desk over and behind it, but we can not see if he survived the attack.

Finally, John Dutton is shot several times by a passing van as he helps a motorist and her son with their flat tire. She shoots the woman, and Dutton is left with a lack of self-service, which has clearly helped make it impossible in his quest to keep the country around him pristine. In a tie, it looks like something a fatal shot would have been picked up by his cell phone.

There was other interaction with the Dutton edge hands, but at this point what mattered most was the finale that ended with Dutton unsatisfactory and difficulty breathing, with the life-saving Rip (Cole Hauser) nowhere in sight.

In a previous scene, Rip actually digs the decomposing body of his mother, murdered by her husband when the boy was a teen, because he wanted to preserve her memory by giving Beth her marriage. An unusually gruesome but touching moment and the whole courtship between Rip and Beth – two tough and fractured people making a whole lot together – was one of the most compelling stories of the season.

All this was forgotten when the massacre took place. Could not reach anyone, cried Rip Jamie, who coldly advised him not to call him again. There will be some major buybacks, with life on the line and the fate of the Dutton ranch in jeopardy. We have seen that the clumsiness that Rip is capable of when he has to protect his surrogate father, and his future wife. Despite being shot, he tore with both hands the thugs who tried to rape and murder her last season, leaving little to be desired. Wait until he finds out that his sweetheart has been bombed in her office.

And if Kayce has a breath left in him, the former soldier will drop the aw shucks pleasries and return to being the deadly killer, skills he has shown throughout the series and especially last season when the Beck Brothers kidnapped and terrorized his young son Tate.

How long until season 4? Next June? Arrgh. It will be worth the wait. How the TV Academy continues to sniff this hit show, and this performance and superb writing at the Emmy era is perhaps the biggest long-running mystery of all.