What You Need to Know About the End of ‘Yellowstone’

Spoilers: Here's what happened on the hit show's finale — and what fans can watch next

Tim Appelo,

AARP

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Published December 16, 2024

a scene from the finale of 'yellowstone'

Paramount

The fifth and final season of Yellowstone, whose first episode Nov. 13 had a record-breaking 12.1 million viewers, ended with a bang on Dec. 15.

Spoiler alert: Ranch patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner, 69) got buried (necessary, since Costner had quit the show to concentrate on his own Western movie Horizon, as he told AARP).

Don't miss this: Kevin Costner tells AARP about his western Horizon

Also in the Yellowstone finale, the Dutton Ranch got bought by the Broken Rock Reservation, which will never sell it to wicked developers; and the show’s most beloved character Beth (Kelly Reilly) stabbed her hated brother Jamie (Wes Bentley) in the heart, and sent him off to “the train station” (the place in Montana where Duttons famously bury dead people they don’t want found).

The finale was controversial

“It was an emotional rollercoaster!” raved critic David Hookstead. “Everyone got what they wanted in life, tweeted @Judy80sforever. Everybody except dead John and Jamie Dutton, and the Yellowstone ranch's disappointed would-be developers, that is. “It was the perfect ending."

But AARP contributor Kristine Froeba mourned, “YellowstoneTV finale was a letdown that never should’ve happened. [Creator Taylor] Sheridan ruined the best series on TV.” Critic Ben Rosenstock was more equivocal: “it’s bad in a comfortable, predictable way, rather than bad in a way that makes you feel like you’re going insane.”

But fans love the idea of Beth and Rip's spinoff series

There’s no official word on the deal Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser reportedly have to star as Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler in their own upcoming Yellowstone spinoff series, but Deadline and other industry sources say it’s in development, will likely costar other Yellowstone cast, and (duh!) it’s apt to have a title including the word “Yellowstone.” Until the season finale, the studio has kept mum about the show’s post-Costner plans, because it would’ve been a spoiler to reveal that Beth and Rip survive in the finale. And it makes business sense for their show to be not a sixth season of Yellowstone, but its own show, because NBCU’s Peacock owns the rights to stream the original show, and Paramount gets to own all rights to the new Beth and Rip show.

What 'Yellowstone' fans can do now: Get ready for the new series of spinoff 1923

AARP favorites Helen Mirren, 79, and Harrison Ford, 82, return Feb. 23 on Paramount+ with the second season of 1923, the show about the Yellowstone clan’s forebears Jacob and Cara Dutton in the 1920s. The teaser trailer was recently released, and you can catch up by reading AARP’s recap of the first episode of Season 1, and read what Mirren told AARP about the show.

Learn Dutton family history in 1883

In the prequel spinoff 1883, the grandparents of Costner’s John Dutton (Tim McGraw, 57, and Faith Hill, 57) escape the east to seek their fortune in the West, with a hand from Shea Brennan (AARP’s favorite cowboy actor Sam Elliott, 80).

Prepare for Michelle Pfeiffer’s Yellowstone-related debut The Madison

Right now, Yellowstone auteur Taylor Sheridan is producing a show set to premiere in 2025 called The Madison, with Michelle Pfeiffer, 66, as a Manhattan widow who flees Madison Avenue for Montana’s Madison River valley. Matthew Fox, 58 (Lost, Party of Five) costars as “a self-reliant bachelor who loves the outdoors.”

Check out Taylor Sheridan's Billy Bob Thornton show Landman

While awaiting more Yellowstone spinoffs, creator Sheridan hopes fans will discover his other Paramount+ hit, Landman, starring Billy Bob Thornton, 69, as a crisis executive in a West Texas oil boom. Plus, hear what Thornton told AARP about his credo: "Dream and stay young."

Note: Paramount+ pays AARP a royalty for use of its intellectual property and provides a discount to AARP members.

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Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.