Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Part 2 on Paramount Network, The Concluding Run For Taylor Sheridan’s Large-Size Western Drama

As Yellowstone returns to Paramount Network for the six-episode second part of its series-concluding fifth season, it’s with all of its real world Kevin Costner drama having overtaken the show’s actual storylines. But with Costner officially out as Yellowstone figurehead John Dutton, and only six eps to finally wrap everything up, it’s now a matter of how creator, writer, director, and occasional co-star Taylor Sheridan will do that, and which Duttons – if any – will make it out of this thing with breath still in their lungs. Kelly Reilly, Luke Grimes, Cole Hauser, Wes Bentley, and Dawn Olivieri all return, and as Yellowstone picks back up, you’ll recall how Jamie Dutton was scheming to get Governor John Dutton impeached when he wasn’t trading threats to murder each other with his sister Beth Dutton.

YELLOWSTONE SEASON 5 PART 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: Welcome back to the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, where cowboy Lloyd Pierce (Forrie J. Smith) is in the crisp of pre-dawn, checking on the horses at the start of his day. 

The Gist: It’s a little lonelier on the ranch, since the outbreak of cattle disease forced Rip Wheeler (Hauser) to take half the herd and a bunch of cowboys down to leased land in Texas. But the quiet of the morning is shattered when Beth Dutton (Reilly) and Kayce Dutton (Grimes) arrive at the Governor’s residence in Helena to discover a massive police presence and the terrible reality of what has befallen their father. On the morning his impeachment hearing was set to begin, Governor John Dutton (Costner) apparently committed suicide. 

Yellowstone will use flashbacks to set up the events of its series conclusion, and when we go back five weeks, Rip and cowboys Ryan (Ian Bohen), Teeter (Jennifer Landon), and Walker (Ryan Bingham) are just arriving at 6666, the enormous Texas cattle ranch owned by Travis Wheatley (Sheridan). In Montana, Kayce, Monica, (Kelsey Asbille) and their son Tate (Brecken Merrill) are settling into their new home on the Dutton ranch. And Beth is completing the community service bit that Jamie, her hated brother and the Attorney General of Montana, stuck on her after an earlier-season barfight.

Other issues to contend with as Yellowstone gets back to the action is the conflict between the government and Chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) and the Broken Rock people, whose land is getting co-opted for pipelines, ongoing land use disputes concerning the Yellowstone ranch and which of the Duttons are in its financial driver’s seat, and of course, Jamie Dutton’s relationship with Market Equities corporate mercenary Sarah Atwood (Olivieri). “What if I wanna play offense?” Jamie asked Sarah, an opposing counsel to the state of Montana but also his illicit lover, before Yellowstone Season 5 entered its lengthy hiatus. What if Jamie didn’t just wait for John Dutton to either legislate or simply give himself more power, and instead he took it from his father, along with his actual life?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With Yellowstone ending and Succession already gone, shows like Territory – about a cattle family in Australia, and featuring Longmire star Robert Taylor as a bad guy – have stepped in to try and fill a void. And within the sprawling hierarchy of Taylor Sheridan-branded shows, Landman, his new Texas oil drama, features Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Jon Hamm, and Demi Moore.

Our Take: Season 5 of Yellowstone had a lot going on even before the show’s hiatus, its raging behind-the-scenes squabbles, and the ultimate announcement that it would soon be done for good. So with its return, it’s a matter of sorting all that out. What’s with the Duttons going into debt to maintain the status quo of the ranch and its livestock? How dangerous are the pipelines the state forcibly built beneath the land of Chief Rainwater, Mo (Moses Brings Plenty), and the Broken Rock people? Is Kayce and Monica’s son Tate the true heir of the Dutton empire? And how long can cowboying even remain a thing, in a world that has moved on economically, environmentally, and even philosophically from what that way of life represents? 

Kevin Costner removing himself from the show he’s been at the center of for five seasons connects the fate of John Dutton the character to every storyline mentioned above. And that’s even if Costner doesn’t appear as Dutton in Yellowstone’s final episodes, whether through archival or unused footage. It’s gonna be a trip to watch how Taylor Sheridan brings this thing out of high pasture and back to operating on flat ground, where the governor’s adopted son is conspiring to kill him, John Dutton’s daughter Beth remains a volcanic force unto herself, and the fates of everyone in the immediate employ of Yellowstone Dutton Ranch hang in the balance. Given that Yellowstone has made such a habit of murdering people that the “Train Station,” the Dutton fam’s in-house receptacle for unwanted corpses, also exists in series prequel 1923, it is our contention that major blood will be spilled as Sheridan reaches for the series conclusion. 

Sex and Skin: We see more of Sarah Atwood and Jamie Dutton’s continuing sexcapades. And if you’re Beth Dutton, calling your husband Rip while he’s on the road with a bunch of cowboys, you’re not worried about what they might overhear. (“I’m gonna fuck you like I won you in the State Fair.”) 

Parting Shot: When Beth told Rip the news about her father and his mentor, he made the 18-hour drive from Texas to Montana in one stretch. Once her husband arrives at the ranch, her sorrow finally lets loose.  

Sleeper Star: The back end of Yellowstone Season 5 is giving Jefferson White some more time to shine as longtime series favorite Jimmy Hurdstrom, who these days is a cowboy with the 6666 Ranch in Texas. 

Most Pilot-y Line: “That gutless piece of shit can’t do anything on his own. But he sure as hell found somebody who could.” Beth Dutton is already in Destroyer of Worlds mode. 

Our Call: Stream It! Even when it wasn’t on the air, Yellowstone was making its own drama. Now that the flagship series in the Sheridan-O-Verse will conclude with this second part of its fifth season, all that’s left for the sprawling drama to determine is how explosive things will get, and who will be the last Dutton standing.

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.