With the latest episode, Yellowstone has finally revealed the full context of John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) mysterious death. The eleventh episode of Season 5 and the third installment of Part 2, “Three Fifty-Three,” pushes the main narrative forward, and makes us wonder what hope the Duttons have for preserving their future — especially their ranch. There’s a lot in this week’s episode, so let’s get right into it as we continue to devour Taylor Sheridan’s flagship Paramount drama.
‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 11 Replays the Night John Dutton Died
After first flashing back to the end of Beth’s (Kelly Reilly) time in Texas with Rip (Cole Hauser), and then showing the home that Kayce (Luke Grimes), Monica (Kelsey Asbille), and Tate (Brecken Merrill) have all made together, “Three Fifty-Three” lives up to its name and takes a much darker turn. Here, we discover that the same night that Beth returned from Texas, and the same night that Kayce and Monica finished their home improvements, John Dutton was killed. We watch as three assassins break into the Governor’s mansion, use military-grade moves and resources to sedate him (they inject John between the toes to keep him from resisting), and then carry him across the hall and into the bathroom. There, they use his own service pistol to shoot him in the head. Even though a body double is used in place of Kevin Costner, Yellowstone makes it feel like we’ve watched John Dutton himself killed before our very eyes.
The moment John is killed, Beth feels an ache in her chest while on the road. Though she calls Rip, she knows it’s something else. Likewise, Kayce has a nightmare that wakes him from his sleep, followed soon after by a call from the Helena Police Department. But now that Yellowstone has caught us up on the past, it pivots back to the present as Jamie (Wes Bentley) and Senator Lynelle Perry (Wendy Moniz-Grillo) continue to grieve John’s death. Jamie agrees to meet with the new Governor, Steven Rawlings (Gareth Williams), hoping he will revoke the conservation trust that John had the Dutton land placed in. Rawlings agrees, hoping also to restore the lease originally provided to Market Equities. Jamie wants the state to forcibly take the Dutton land under “eminent domain,” but Perry doesn’t believe they should. In fact, she’s had a real change of heart.
Despite having been the one who first made the deal with ME, Perry warns them not to make Montana’s Paradise Valley into a tourist destination like Jackson, Wyoming (aka Jackson Hole), which can no longer sustain itself outside of that industry. After Perry walks out on Jamie and Rawlings’ plans, John’s former assistant Clara Brewer (Lilli Kay) follows suit. Unable to work for a man willing to undo all the good her old boss had done, she asks the senator for a job. Perry agrees, but only before implying that she should use her current unemployment status as a means to warn others (presumably Kayce and Beth) about what Jamie and the new governor have planned for Montana, no longer bound by confidentiality agreements.
Kayce Finally Confronts Jamie in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 11
It’s then that a can of worms is finally opened. Ready to see what happened to his father for good, Kayce arrives at the morgue and demands to see the report and the body. Upon reviewing it, he requests a toxicology report, with Detective Dillard’s (Rory Cochrane) permission. Kayce pressures medical examiner Janice Everly (Vinessa Shaw) into performing a new autopsy in front of him. When she does — treating it as if it were a homicide only after Kayce first uses some of his military moves to prove a point — she sees abrasions on John’s toes, indentations on his back, and bruises on his calves. “This does show signs that he was forcibly restrained,” she admits, apologizing for having first missed it. “You’re supposed to miss it,” Kayce responds.
With that, Kayce tells Beth he has to confront Jamie. “You leave him to me,” she says, but her pleas fall on deaf ears. Barging into his brother’s office, Kayce explosively throws Jamie across his desk. But before he can take another swing, Jamie tries to convince Kayce that he wasn’t involved in their father’s death. His argument is simple: because he’s no longer in the will, he would have no benefit from killing their father. “I do not benefit from a f**king airport,” he explains. “The ranch benefits, which is to say, you benefit. Your son benefits.” Rambling on, Jamie notes that he was just as shocked to hear about what happened. “I don’t have anyone to share my grief with, I don’t have family anymore, I don’t have anyone,” he cries. Sadly, he’s right, and though he notes that Beth has poisoned them against each other, he fails to see the consequences of his own actions. In a final plea, he tries to convince Kayce that the best thing to do is to sell some of the land, noting that the entire Dutton legacy would be erased otherwise.
It’s here that Jamie tells Kayce that he still loves him, and that, though they disagreed, he loved their father as well. “I could never do that to you. I could never do that period,” he concludes. “I hope not, Jamie,” Kayce finally says, having been silent throughout Jamie’s entire monologue. “I really do. For your sake and for mine.” After Kayce leaves, the Helena Police Department issue a new statement to the press, announcing that John Dutton’s cause of death has been officially changed from being marked a suicide to “undetermined.” As a result, a homicide investigation has been opened. Hearing the news, Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) becomes visibly worried as, elsewhere, her assassin Grant Horton (Matt Gerald) is seen calling someone about the news. And it’s not good.
Everyone Is Closing in on the Dutton Ranch in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 11
Though things begin to look up on the murder investigation front, the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch itself is under serious attack. When Governor Rawlings addresses the senate assembly in Helena, reinstating the lease with ME, he also evokes eminent domain on the Dutton property. Even worse, Rawlings orders Jamie to recuse himself from the investigation due to his closeness to John’s death. While Jamie later notes to Sarah that only he, as Attorney General, can recuse himself (a judge would work too), being publicly called out in front of an entire Montana branch of government puts the adopted Dutton on edge.
Having watched the assembly herself, Beth tells Kayce that they can either sell the ranch or lose it. The only option they have is to figure out which parts they want to sell and for how much, otherwise the entire thing will be taken from them (the taxes alone are enough to drown them in debt). Just then, Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) arrives with Mo (Moses Brings Plenty), offering his sincere condolences for John’s death. While Mo goes off with Kayce, Rainwater stays behind for a conference with Beth. She relays her father’s deep respect for the man, noting that she always knew when he didn’t respect someone. Rainwater too respected John, even if the two were often enemies. Only after this does the conversation move to the future of the ranch.
“I’m a realist, there’s no way this place stays whole,” Rainwater explains. “But how much of it can remain like it is? Pristine. The way it was when my grandparents walked it.” He vows to help in any way he can, though he’s now been made relatively powerless by the tribal council, who sided with Angela Blue Thunder (Q’orianka Kilcher) back in Season 5 Part 1. But Beth believes there is no saving the ranch, or even preserving it. She deems her father and ancestors foolish dreamers who fought so hard to only “prolong its collapse.” She explains how Bozeman has doubled its size since the ‘90s, and Montana will likely grow more by 2040. “Now we got a front-row seat to its destruction, and there’s not a f**king thing I can do about it,” she concludes. Even still, Rainwater offers whatever support he can.
But where did Kayce and Mo run off to? They took a walk to discuss the vision that Kayce had back in the Season 4 finale, “Grass on the Streets and Weeds on the Rooftops.” Back then, he told Monica that the vision would be “the end of us,” and now we have a better idea of what that means. Kayce tells Mo that he believes he’s going to have to choose between his family and the ranch, something that isn’t really much of a choice at all. Even still, he struggles to know when or how to make a decision like that. “You’re not supposed to know yet,” Mo tells him softly. “When the time comes, you’ll know, and it won’t feel like a choice at all. It’ll feel like fate.” Mo tells Kayce that when the moment finally does come, he’ll smile because the choice will become so entirely clear.
Jamie and Sarah’s Relationship Finishes with a Fatal Bang in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 11
Elsewhere, Sarah buys a prepaid burner phone and returns to Jamie’s house. Though she tries to contact Grant, every number he used before has been disconnected. Upon smashing her burner phone, she’s scared by Jamie, who arrives, now furious with her. “What the f**k have you done to me?” he asks her, blaming her for putting the heat on him for John’s death and now his political embarrassment. But Sarah tells Jamie to grow up and to start thinking like an attorney, noting that there’s absolutely nothing that legally connects him to John’s murder. “I took all the risk, and I took it for you,” she exclaims, referencing her meeting with Grant from “Desire Is All You Need.” Despite that, Jamie says it was all because of the millions she’ll make on ME’s airport deal.
When Sarah implies that Jamie wanted the governor seat so badly he couldn’t care less about his father’s death, Jamie slaps her. After slapping him back, she leaves. Driving away, Jamie calls Sarah and apologizes. “You have to trust me, Jamie,” she says, “and start believing in yourself. You have nothing to fear, nothing.” But Sarah is gravely mistaken. The moment she tells Jamie this, a couple pulls up next to her asking for directions. Turns out, they’re assassins, likely sent on Grant’s behalf to clean up any loose ends. Sarah is instantly killed while still on the phone with Jamie, who hears it all and weeps. “Three Fifty-Three” began with John Dutton’s execution, and it ended with his death avenged, and his murderer killed by the very people she had hired to do so.
Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 airs Sundays on Paramount Network. Previous seasons can be streamed on Peacock.
