We all know Kayce Dutton was a war hero back in the day, he even earned the Navy Cross, but is it possible he was part of the team that took out Osama Bin Laden?
Now that the dust is long settled on Yellowstone, how are we feeling about it?
Honestly, I liked the ending… Of course it was foreshadowed in the Paramount+ prequel 1883 but realistically, where else could they have gone with it? Granted, it’s a fictional series and certainly had its share of outrageous moments (more on that later) but if Taylor Sheridan wanted to keep any semblance of creditability with his writing, the ranch had to go back to the Broken Rock Tribe, plain and simple.
Obviously, it would have been a whole lot better without the rushed John Dutton death that was forced in due to the contract disputes between Kevin Costner and Sheridan, and let’s be honest the whole last season was pretty predictable, but overall it earned its popularity and wrapped up as well as I think it could have.
With that being said, fans are still digging into the backstory of the characters, especially since there’s a slew of spinoff shows still in the works.
Was Kayce Dutton Part Of Seal Team 6?
I came across a Reddit post that raised a very interesting theory about Kayce Dutton…
It referenced an emotional conversation between him and John where Kayce finally opens up and tells his dad a war story. The poster dug into what was said, compared the timelines and historical truths, and put together quite a theory.
Did Kayce Dutton kill Osama Bin Laden?
In real life that honor is claimed by Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill but if there’s one thing we know about Taylor Sheridan, he’s not afraid to go way out on a limb. One of the most popular responses to when the show “jumped the shark” was Kayce, a former Navy SEAL operator himself, walking around in a full on ghillie suit…
They waved away all the problems of the s3 ending…
This got hit harddd…like they've been assassinated like hell. Suddenly they're up and running like everything's cool? I wanted more of that Ghillie suit Kayce… Struggling to get up and shit. Nothing! pic.twitter.com/YCQdcPZGc0— AL. (@StChroma24) February 20, 2022
Why exactly would Kayce have one of those at the ready? Well, he could have been part of one of the most important missions in US history.
Here’s the scene in question:
The Reddit poster breaks it down like this:
“An observation that I noticed during the war story of S2E5, Kayce says ‘We were in Pakistan. We weren’t supposed to be there, but that’s where we were’.
We know Kayce was a Navy SEAL from other scenes, and to public knowledge, the SEALS only ever went to Pakistan once, During Op Neptune Spear, and they didn’t ask the Pakistanis permission to go…
They were ‘hitting a high value target.’ It is heavily implied during this scene that Kayce was one of the SEALS that raided the Abbottabad compound and got Osama Bin Laden. I think its an interesting bit of writing, if not taking a large amount of artistic license, and somewhat paints a picture of how dangerous Kayce actually is as an operator. It’s also done fairly well because Kayce isn’t the bragging type and wouldn’t outright tell John ‘we were hunting Osama Bin Laden.’“
Hold on a second… does that make sense?
For starters, Kayce is certainly quite capable in a gun fight. Sure, there’s plenty scenes of him dumping a full auto, which a high level operator presumably wouldn’t do, but there’s also plenty of other scenes that prove he’s a very deadly man.
Also, and more believably, this would be such a Taylor Sheridan move… the guy just can’t help himself but to drama-max everything, so why not make one of the Dutton kids part of the team that took out the leader of al-Qaeda?
Plenty of comments agreed that it would make sense, if only because it would have come from Sheridan’s mind:
“I 100% would not put it past Taylor Sheridan to give one of his main characters this backstory
In this story the SEALS probably got captured and were about to be executed one by one until Travis showed up on a horse spinning around and unloading on all of them with a machine gun.
He [Travis] was there too. When one of the helicopters wouldn’t lift off, they considered just replacing the main rotor with him on a horse, but opted to destroy it instead because Travis was too busy having sex with all of Osama’s wives
It’s implied that the guy who set up the hit on John was probably CIA at one time and certainly had connections to that world, so it’s not the worst potential theory. It’s interesting that he had the Navy Cross, which wasn’t awarded all that often for service in Afghanistan (just 7 times, with three coming on the “Lone Survivor” mission, which also resulted in a Medal of Honor for the officer on the mission, Michael P. Murphy.). So the message was, Kayce was a badass SEAL.
I drew the same conclusion
I had the exact same thought while watching this scene. American solders entering Pakistan with no permission, that must’ve been a really really big operation.
I remember hearing this and thinking it sounded a lot like Rob O’Neill’s version of events that night”
In case some of those comments don’t make sense, Travis, the 6666’s ranch guy who’s always surrounded by hot girls and talking about sex and strip poker is played by none other than Taylor Sheridan himself…
But aside from a couple historical inaccuracies in Kayce’s story, such as Bid Laden returning fire, killing two American operators, and using his wife Amal as a shield (none of that ever happened), the rest sounds pretty close to Operation Neptune Spear. Honestly, I’m in on this theory. Why not? The show’s already insane, let’s go all the way! It’s not like anything changes, so let’s let it fly and say that it was Kayce Dutton, not Robert O’Neill, who took out Osama Bin Laden, at least in the fictional Yellowstone world.
Upcoming Yellowstone Spinoffs
Directly related to Yellowstone are season two of 1923 (airing on Paramount+ this Sunday, February 23rd), a 1944 prequel, a potential 1960s prequel, a modern day spinoff (originally given a working title of 2024 with Matthew McConaughey rumored to star, both things that seem quite unlikely now. Maybe it’ll be 6666’s focused?), and a Beth & Rip spinoff.
The Madison is another show in the works starring Michelle Pfeiffer with Patrick J Adams, Matthew Fox, Elle Chapman, and Beau Garrett. Kurt Russell was also briefly tagged to the project but there’s been no confirmation on that yet. Reportedly this show won’t be directly connected to the Dutton family and is described as a “heartfelt study of grief and human connection following a New York City family in the Madison River valley of Montana.”
All of that is to say, if you liked Yellowstone, there’s still plenty of reasons to be excited.
Be sure to catch up on 1923 Season One before Sunday’s Season Two premier. If you don’t have a Paramount+ subscription yet, grab a 7 Day Free Trial here to get up to speed.
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The post Was It Actually Kayce Dutton Who Took Out Osama Bin Laden? ‘Yellowstone’ Fans Think So… first appeared on Whiskey Riff.