Yellowstone is finally back for the second half of its fifth and final season, depicting the final battle for the

Dutton Family Ranch. The production of the final six episodes of Taylor Sheridan’s popular Western

series has been infamously troubled, plagued most aggressively by Kevin Costner’s exit. The star’s

departure forces Yellowstone to continue without its protagonist, John Dutton III, who serves as the Dutton family patriarch and, more recently, the governor of Montana. Furthermore, the unamicable nature of Costner’s exit forced Yellowstone to explain John’s absence by killing him off, upending the entire storyline in the process.

In Season 5, Episode 9 of Yellowstone, it is revealed that John Dutton has been found dead of a gunshot wound in the governor’s mansion. After investigating the crime scene, the police determined that John committed suicide. However, the episode later confirms that John was murdered by a hired assassin who framed the scene to look like a suicide. This revelation, once made clear to the surviving Duttons, helps set up the final fight of the series. John’s murder also sets up Yellowstone’s real final fight–and it isn’t between Beth and Jamie.

Beth Dutton and Sarah Atwood Are on a Collision Course
Sarah Atwood Hired the Assassin Who Killed John Dutton

The midseason premiere of Yellowstone revealed that Sarah Atwood, a corporate shark working for Market Equities, hired the assassin who killed John Dutton. For years, the series has been setting up the final fight between Beth and Jamie, but this revelation could send Yellowstone’s final season in a different direction, with Beth directing her attention toward Sarah in the last few episodes. Although Jamie was involved in his adoptive father’s death, he was unaware that Sarah had hired the mercenary until after the assassination was complete, making him an unwilling accomplice to John’s murder. As such, he isn’t the one that Beth and the other Duttons need to get revenge on (though he will almost certainly die by the series finale). As the one who set up the assassination and the one vying to destroy the Dutton family legacy, Sarah Atwood establishes herself as Beth’s true enemy in the final episodes of Yellowstone.

The tenth episode of Yellowstone Season 5 teased the coming battle between Beth and Sarah when the former confronted Jamie in his office, trying to see if he was responsible for John’s death. While Beth ascertained that he was indeed involved, she also came to see that he couldn’t have done it alone, immediately (and correctly) deducing that his new girlfriend had been the one to push Jamie to patricide. It is at this exact moment that Sarah and her entourage arrive for a meeting with Jamie, only for Beth to physically assault her as she enters the room. Sarah laughs off this exchange, but it surely isn’t the last that she has heard from Beth Dutton, who will now stop at nothing until she gets revenge for the death of her father.

Going in to the back half of Yellowstone’s final season, Sarah Atwood establishes herself as the overarching villain of the series. The Duttons have faced off against many conniving antagonists in the past, from business moguls who want to take over their land to land developers who want to turn their ranch into an airport. However, very few of these villains have had any real effect on the Duttons throughout the series. Men like Dan Jenkins crumbled and faded away rather easily, whereas even tougher antagonists like the Beck brothers were killed off quickly. Corporate villains like the men and women behind Market Equities either disappear after being soundly defeated or are easily murdered in the woods (i.e., Roarke Morris), never to be heard from again. Even Thomas Rainwater, who was introduced as far back as season one, has become more of an ally to the Duttons than an enemy. Yellowstone lacks memorable villains who leave a lasting impact on the Dutton family, but Sarah Atwood finally fills this role.

For years, fans thought that Jamie Dutton might be Yellowstone’s main antagonist, as he slowly underwent a corruption arc that included murdering his birth father. However, the most recent episodes of the Western series prove that Jamie isn’t cut out to be the final villain. With only a few episodes left of the show, Jamie is still weak and ineffectual, unable to make a stand for himself without help. The one who pulls the strings is Sarah. It is she who pushes Jamie to do everything he has to hurt his family. While Jamie still needs to be dealt with by the end of the series, he is hardly the biggest threat to the Duttons. Sarah is the one who wears the pants in their relationship, and it is she who will stop at nothing to destroy Beth and her family.

While fans expect a bloody battle between the Duttons and Sarah Atwood in Yellowstone’s final season, the outcome of this fight is far less certain. Yellowstone isn’t necessarily the kind of show that needs to have a happy ending, nor do its main characters truly deserve one. The Dutton Family is responsible for more than its fair share of crimes, murders, and other reprehensible actions. Although audiences have been following the Duttons for years and are rooting for their victory, it can hardly be argued that they deserve to win in the end. It is possible, albeit unlikely, that Sarah Atwood will prove victorious in the end, finally separating the Duttons from their ranch and ending the legacy that John fought his entire life to preserve.

A far more likely outcome is that the Duttons will rally behind Beth to avenge their murdered patriarch. After orchestrating John’s assassination, Sarah and Jamie’s days are numbered. The series finale will likely culminate in their gruesome deaths, as is so often the case for individuals who stand against the Duttons. In the end, the Dutton family will most likely emerge victorious, though there is no telling who else they might lose in the final fight against Sarah Atwood.

Yellowstone is building up to an epic battle between the surviving Duttons, led by Beth, and their final enemy, Sarah Atwood. As the Duttons attempt to avenge their fallen father, blood will be spilled in the final episodes of the beloved Taylor Sheridan series.