The Season 4 finale of "Yellowstone" is a doozy, but is it really just a big "reset"
to the status quo of seasons past? And what's up with Kayce's visions?
On January 2, 2022, 10.4 million viewers tuned in for the Season 4 finale of Taylor Sheridan's
hugely popular contemporary Western, "Yellowstone." Despite its popularity, the season has garnered
its share of criticism, as it gradually evolves into a kind of "Yellowstone Extreme": three
times the fist fights and roping, three times the Beth one-liners, three times the Coors
Light and Dodge Ram product placement, and three times the "John Dutton bemoaning the
ever-looming loss of his way of life."
"I am the opposite of progress. I am the wall that it bashes against, and I will not be
the one who breaks."
Although the vast majority of Season 4 plays out more like a succession of "Wild West meets
modern TV trope" vignettes, as opposed to a story tethered to any overarching narrative,
the Season 4 finale represents a return to the series' roots.
With Episode 10, "Yellowstone" continues to own this collage-like approach, but uses it
to focus on some of the series' more compelling themes. In addition to highlighting its focus
on the tension between progress and "old school" conservation, "Grass on the Streets and Weeds
on the Rooftops" gives viewers some much-needed reminders about the psychology that drives
the three remaining Dutton children, as well as the larger-than-life father figure whose
approval dictates their every move.
Season 4 received some criticism for turning one of the show's most compelling characters,
Beth Dutton, into a bit of a caricature. However, the series finale finally gives viewers a
glimpse into the tragedy that drives her, while also reminding them of the shark-like
instincts and two-steps-ahead intellect that served Beth so well in previous seasons.
After angering her father in Episode 9, Beth is so devastated by his disapproval that she
begins packing to leave the ranch. For a moment, it looks as though Beth's childish obsession
with earning her father's approval will win out over the love and stability she has with
Rip, but John insists she stay.
After losing her mother at a young age, Beth became determined to make up the loss to her
father, and that tragic mentality has stayed with her ever since. Later on, Beth walks
past her new tween charge, Carter, and lashes out at him when he tries to call her "Mama."
She projects her own feelings of loss and guilt onto him, and it's difficult to decide
who is sadder — the rejected Carter, or the broken little girl speaking from the 35-year-old
woman's mouth.
Finally, in the midst of her triumphant manipulation of her long-hated adoptive brother, Beth reminds
both Jamie and viewers why she sees him as a man capable of nothing but betrayal and
cowardice. Beth has never dealt with the abortion and sterilization she underwent at the age
of 15, and she'll forever see her pain as the result of Jamie's actions. The finale's
repeated spotlighting of Beth's psychological wounds could mean a return to the nuanced
character that so compelled audiences in previous seasons.
In Season 4, Episode 4, "Winning or Learning," Jamie explains to Kayce that he's been fighting
for the Dutton family from behind the scenes. He's the reason, he reveals, why neither Kayce
nor anyone on the ranch faces any charges for the vengeance they enact upon the militia
men in Season 3. When Kayce defends their actions by saying "those were the men that
attacked our father," Jamie says it doesn't matter.
"There is what's just, and there's the law. They are not the same thing."
In the season finale, John Dutton repeats Jamie's mantra in his conversation with the
judge following Summer's over-the-top sentencing.
"There's a difference between what's legal and what's just."
This strongly implies it's John who teaches Jamie the notion in the first place. The difference,
of course, lies in the two men's understanding of which of these often contradictory ideas
should ultimately win.
For John, justice takes precedence over legality. For Jamie — a lawyer, as opposed to seasoned
rancher — the law wins out over any one individual's understanding of justice. When
the law happens to align with John's version of what's right, he can accept Jamie. When
the law prohibits John from effectively or efficiently seeking out vigilante justice,
he can't.
It's a potentially irreconcilable difference, and one made all the more complicated by Jamie's
own actions. While John may have piles of bodies and gallons of blood on his hands,
it is Jamie, not John, who personally commits two murders in order to protect himself by
way of protecting the Dutton's interests.
Season 5 promises to be even worse for the intelligent but emotionally stunted Jamie.
After Beth visits the inmate who is hired to kill the Duttons and discovers that Jamie
was there, she seeks him out and gives him an ultimatum.
She believes that even if Jamie didn't know his biological father, Garrett, was behind
the hit, the reason he didn't "blow his head off" as soon as he found out is that he also
wants the Duttons dead. Beth gives Jamie two options: one that ends with him and his biological
father in prison for life, or one that ends with the two dead.
But as Beth's leaving, she offers him a third option. Jamie can cut out the middleman, do
what he should have done from the beginning, and kill his own father. Jamie ultimately
kills Garrett by shooting him in the head after they share a touching moment. When Jamie
disposes of the body, Beth follows him and snaps a picture.
"You should have picked options one or two."
When Beth returns to the ranch, John demonstrates some semblance of concern for his adopted
son Jamie, thinking Beth hurt him. Jamie is a disappointment, he says, but he still "loves"
him — though, apparently, not enough to try to stop Beth from killing him.
Just when it looks as though Jamie might wriggle out from underneath the Dutton's thumb, he's
pulled back under. Of course, it's unlikely he would ever fully betray them — even without
Beth having this leverage — since Jamie's main problem (much like Beth) is that he lives
for the approval of John.
Season 4's finale may not be the explosive cliffhanger of Season 3, but it leaves viewers
with plenty of questions. For starters, although Monica and Kayce's relationship only occasionally
punctuates the background of a handful of the season's episodes, Kayce's vision on the
mountain hints at bigger things to come for the couple.
In addition to having flashbacks to his traumatic time serving as a Navy SEAL, Kayce interacts
with three different people during his spiritual journey: his deceased brother, who represents
all things Dutton; Avery, who represents temptation and infidelity; and an unknown woman, or the
human representation of the wolf that sparks his spiritual inquiry in the first place.
Kayce follows the wolf to a crossroads, though the audience isn't shown what lies beyond
either path.
"What did you see?"
"I saw the end of us."
While it's clear that Monica thinks the "us" refers to her and Kayce, we don't actually
know. So much of Season 4 hints at a destruction of the Duttons' way of life that it could
just as easily point to something outside their marriage.
Audiences are left to wonder what exactly Kayce sees after reliving his time as a soldier
and denying the first two "temptations" in his vision. Kayce has repeatedly been posited
as the most redeemable member of the Dutton family, so it's likely that whatever decision
he makes on the mountain will have major consequences for Season 5.
Jimmy returns to the ranch after finding both love and himself in his temporary reassignment
at the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas. For some reason, fired barrel racers Laramie and Jimmy's
ex-girlfriend Mia are at the bunkhouse when he returns with his new fiancée Emily.
In keeping with Season 4's fist fights-before-storylines style, Emily and Mia throw down, and the latter
leaves distraught. It's tempting to see the fight as yet another macho, "that's just how
it is here" scene, but Jimmy's exhaustion with all the drama of the Dutton ranch is
key to his decision to leave it behind.
Jimmy's mentor on the ranch, Lloyd, struggles to cope with his young friend's decision.
Jimmy is leaving behind a life that's imprisoned Lloyd for years, and although he's happy that
Jimmy has been able to find happiness, it's a reminder to Lloyd that for him, that ship
has sailed. Audiences watch Lloyd spiral into a deep depression in Season 4, and the contrast
between his own circumstances and those of the young ranch hand in whom he once saw himself
only adds to this.
While Jimmy is able to evolve and see the harm in attempting to hold on to a way of
life that doesn't really exist, Lloyd is not. In their opposing understanding of what the
Dutton ranch represents, Jimmy and Lloyd illustrate a major theme in "Yellowstone." It's the series'
main conflict, and one the finale drives home in both its title and John's conversation
with the judge — progression, evolution, and pragmatism vs. tradition, nostalgia, and
romanticism.
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