The Yellowstone Series Finale has come and gone, and while a number of fans have been outraged at the final season, arguing that it was rushed, it was lazy, there was too much dead space and too much Travis, it really did bring the show full circle.
By the time viewers got around to the finale, I think most of us knew how it was going to go. In the series finale of the first prequel series, 1883, a Native American elder named Spotted Eagle offers land in Montana’s Paradise Valley, for Tim McGraw’s character, James Dutton, to bury his daughter and build their home. However, he says his people will take it back in 7 generations… an Tim says “in 7 generations, you can have it.”
Knowing that, and knowing the massive tax burden the Duttons were facing, plus Kayce’s connection to the people of the Broken Rock Reservation through his wife Monica, it all made sense that the land would return to the Native Americans.
However… here’s the kicker, Taylor Sheridan revealed it all in the 3rd episode of the entire show, titled “No Good Horses.”
Chief Thomas Rainwater is in jail for stealing cattle from John Dutton after the first episode in the entire series kicks off with a fight between the Yellowstone and the Reservation. It ends in the death of Lee Dutton, as well as Monica’s brother.
Donning an orange jumpsuit, Rainwater tells John Dutton (Kevin Costner) that it was never about the cattle, and that he was going to own the land again:
“This was never about cattle, John. It’s about you, and everyone like you. After I interned at Emerson I worked for Merrill Lynch in mergers and acquisitions. I figure it will take about 14 billion to buy it all… The Valley.
I’m going to buy your ranch first, right after you die and your children can’t afford the inheritance tax. And then I’m going to pull down every fence, and every evidence that your family ever existed will be removed from the property.
It will look like it used to, when it was ours. I will erase you from the future. And then I’ll do it to the next ranch, and the next, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I’m the opposite of progress John, I am the past catching up with you.”
Pretty wild, eh?
Of course, it didn’t quite cost 14 billion. The Duttons essentially gave it to them for free with a price of $1.25 an acre (fulfilling the 1883 agreement). And we all saw Mo go off on the people who were knocking down the gravestones so Rainwater isn’t going to remove their legacy from the land like initially threatened.
We saw a more hospitable transfer of the land, but it just goes to prove once again that Taylor Sheridan always had that ending in mind, and was working towards it from the very beginning.
Check out the full clip:
