What a ride.
Of course, this past Sunday, the series finale of Yellowstone, the show set on the Dutton Ranch in Montana and followed the lives and tribulations of many different members of the Dutton family, came to an end.
If you haven't watched it yet (or the 1883 series yet), just a warning, this will include spoilers on the endings of both...
To the excitement of many viewers, Elsa Dutton (Isabel May), returned to narrate the series finale of Yellowstone. The daughter of James Dutton also narrates the 1-season series 1883, and she’s ultimately responsible for why the Dutton family settled in the Paradise Valley, Montana, way back in the late 1880s, when she is buried on the land and her family puts down roots.
Elsa had a prophetic speech about land and the importance of keeping it pristine and in its purest form, and it was a really beautiful way to close out the beloved show.
In an interview with Yellowstone Executive producer Christina Voros, who directed four of the six episodes of season 5B,The Hollywood Reporterspoke to her about her thoughts on the series finale, which was actually directed by the shows creator and writer Taylor Sheridan.
She says it works because it was both "surprising and inevitable," as Sheridan has hinted throughout the series that the land would ultimately go back to the native's who originally lived there:
"Because it’s both surprising and inevitable. I think there were people who figured it out before we got there, but I still think that it lands with such a resounding symphony that even if you saw it coming it still feels earned. It’s the final piece in the puzzle. It was the right thing to do. It completes the story in a way that I think is incredibly satisfying and beautiful to see. A friend of mine said to me before the last episode aired, 'How are you guys going to tie it all up in one episode?' And I think Taylor did a really gorgeous job allowing the last episode to be everything that everyone loved about the series. It is this gorgeous landscape. It is big emotions. It’s action that is violent but driven from a place of profound feeling, and it makes sense of all these things you might have missed going back in the series and even, like you said, back to '1883.'"
She added that Taylor always knew how it was going to end, so no matter how long the show went, with or without patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner), that was never going to change:
"Taylor always knew how this was going to end. In some ways it’s surprising that people didn’t know that before they saw it because it does feel inevitable. But I didn’t know it when I read the first script. I myself was so invested in the story that I didn’t know how he was going to tie it all up. So it was surprising to me, someone who made '1883.' I think it is testament to his ability as a storyteller to be able to keep you guessing up until the very end. Yes, there’s the Beth and Jamie ending — duh! But no one knew in the episode before how that was all going to come together so quickly. My hat goes off to Taylor for not only having tied all the different strings together in a bow, but to have allowed the final episode to have flavors of everything that people had come to love about the series in the first place."
There was a lot in the last half of this season that I didn't love, but the very, very and of the episode felt poetic, and fitting, and while maybe pretty predictable, still felt right in so many ways.
And it's not really the end for many of the fan-favorite characters, as favorites Kelly Reilly (Beth Dutton) and Cole Hauser (Rip Wheeler) have already been confirmed for a new spinoff series, so stay tuned for more there.
https://youtu.be/GxM6y38GSqw?si=0_XLmQ5wzk6FlnuV
