Yellowstone’s final season follows Rip (Cole Hauser) and the surviving heir of Dutton family s as they recover from the attacks on their lives and seek retribution against those responsible.
Jamie Dutton‘s (Wes Bentley) relationship with his father, who offers his brand of fatherly counsel, grows. Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) keeps fighting for his rights and authority, and Market Equities is doing the same.
The company’s CEO, Caroline Warner (Jacki Weaver), makes an appearance to reignite their conflict with the Confederated Tribes and the ranching family. Here is a summary.
Yellowstone Season 4 Recap
Episode 1 - Half the Money
A wounded John (Kevin Costner) is discovered by loyal foreman Rip (Cole Hauser) as he bleeds out on the side of the road. At the same time, Kayce (Luke Grimes) kills the assailant stunningly sent after him. Thinking swiftly, Rip dials Kayce, who arranges for a Medevac chopper to come and save John in a neighboring field. Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) exits her now-destroyed office on the other side of town, covered in blood and dust.
A troubled kid approaches Beth while she smokes outside the hospital and steals a cigarette from her. As Carter (Finn Little) reveals that his father is dying due to problems from his heroin addiction, Beth feels a connection to him and stays by his side as he bids his father a final farewell filled with resentment, fury, and sadness.
Mo (Moses J.) is tasked with persuading the man to speak in the manner of our Grandfathers by Rainwater. In the night, Mo drags the man across the field after tying him to a rope dangling from the back of his horse. Naturally, when the man speaks, the Nation receives its first solid indication of who planned the attacks against the Dutton family.
Episode 2 - Phantom Pain
Jamie is the suspect, as he is pictured here purchasing a 1,000-acre cow ranch while wearing Garrett’s (Will Patton) earpiece. It’s unlikely that his efforts to establish his own independence will benefit the rest of the family. Even though Jamie is the coward among them, he wouldn’t have his father and brothers killed by thugs. Since Beth has always hated him, it makes reasonable that she would assume the worst. Still, the fact that Jamie leased Yellowstone land to Market Equities isn’t the instant red flag she thinks it is.
Carter, the young boy from the movie premiere whom Beth met at the hospital, will be fought by Beth and Rip. After attempting to rob a convenience store with a screwdriver and claiming Beth as his guardian, the young man is taken to the ranch by Sheriff Haskell (Hugh Dillon). Because Beth recognizes so many traits of Rip in him and learns that the young man has little chance of surviving outside of prison or death, she decides to take him in.
Rip initially doesn’t like the concept. The giant softie can’t maintain the act for very long. He tries to drop him off in town before hiring him to be the new stall cleaner at the ranch. He then takes him home to Beth, where the three of them sit around the table and eat Hamburger Helper after trying to drop him off at the bunkhouse, which is still a haven for vice. It’s the closest any of them have ever been to domesticity. As if the Duttons needed more reasons to fight.
Episode 3 - All I See Is You
When Kayce joins John for a horseback ride the morning after killing half of Montana without provocation while acting as an official livestock agent, it turns into a rather sentimental moment as they both frankly wonder how many more times they’ll get to do this. John won’t survive this world of reduced morality. We may view the opening as a father-son bonding moment because we know those militia members were scumbags anyway, whether old age or one of his many foes.
When Beth shows up to take Carter shopping, she refers to his most recent purchases as her inheritance running around. Still, the cost is justified to make a point. John makes a lot of assertions. Really, that is what Jimmy is experiencing. Travis is escorting him to the Four Sixes Ranch, where he ostensibly won’t stay a week but where he’ll discover something about himself. Everyone else learns what happens when you violate your pledge to John Dutton. Everything is about image. It’s all he has left, even for the wealthiest guy in the state.
When Kayce tries to step in and settle a property dispute, he learns that sometimes image can be more critical than actual authority. An L.A. A wealthy guy by the name of Ralph Peterson (Jonathan Kells Phillips) blocked access to his land with livestock guards to deny another man an easement. Being the Livestock Commissioner should have some value.
To make his point, Kayce must drive his vehicle through the ranch’s gates, throw the owner to the ground, and bind his wrists. He doesn’t require an appointment or a warrant to carry out this action, indicating that perhaps his authority is merely a pretext for breaking the law in any case. After all, he did murder a large number of people in the cold open.
Episode 4 - Winning or Learning
For their customary morning ride, John meets Kayce and tells her the information Rainwater gave him about Riggins (Bruno Amato). The prisoner is doing a ten-stretch who was said to plan an attack on the Dutton family. Jamie must be persuaded to make a deal with the Bureau of Prisons by Kayce.
When he visits his brother, Market Equities displaces people and wildlife while upsetting Montana’s long-standing natural equilibrium, and he is smugly refusing to stop growth. Kayce is tempted to trust Jamie when he says he never ceased watching out for the family and making sure they never experienced legal retaliation for the vengeance they exacted on the militia. He definitely presents a compelling case.
John also needs to know that Beth has received a job offer. Beth hopes to bully her way through the meeting with Caroline Warner, CEO of Market Equities, but she is unsuccessful. As she recounts, Caroline ascended the corporate ladder at a time when doing so was discouraged for women.
Thankfully, Caroline has a superior thought. She is aware of Beth’s land trust for the Yellowstone using the front company Schwartz & Meyer, a minor shareholder with no controlling interest. Beth is to sell it, per her request. They are both aware that, ultimately, the property will be lost.
However, Beth cannot sell it while John is still alive. Caroline has responded with an offer. Caroline wants to create a destination town in each valley. Still, the only way she can do it is with the help of an insider who can make Montana see that the only thing it has that is valuable is the mythology of the West. Beth consents, but only in return for an offer. According to her, Market Equities cannot accept. She desires Caroline’s ownership of Schwartz & Meyer so she may use it to declare Jamie insolvent and fire him.
Jamie can be concerned about other things as well. He discovers a revelation when he sits down with Riggins’ file. Garrett, his biological father, was one of his former cellmates. That indicates that the Duttons’ attempted assassin, dear old dad, is now the most likely suspect.
Episode 5 – Under Blanket of Red
Beth keeps up her fight against Schwartz and Meyer, her previous employers. She has agreed to Caroline Warner‘s offer to manage Market Equities’ growth in Montana in exchange for a majority stake in Schwartz and Meyer. Beth pays him a visit to his office to inform Schwartz of his dismissal. Beth responds, “To run it into the ground,” when John asks why else she agreed to work for the company that seemed to be grabbing land to crush the Yellowstone.
After leaving the ranch, Monica and Kayce mend their marriage. Tate (Brecken Merrill) and Rainwater attend numerous sweat lodge ceremonies. Monica (Kelsey Asbille) informs Kayce that she wants to purchase a home near the reservation so they can raise Tate there. The reserve and the Duttons no longer appear to be at odds with one another, and Kayce’s presence is no longer questioned.
Jamie found out that Riggins, the prisoner who planned the assault on the Duttons, used to share a cell with Garrett Randall. Jamie pays a visit to Riggins and does an interview about the Dutton incident in exchange for immunity.
Episode 6 - I Want to Be Him
Jimmy Hurdstrom (Jefferson White) spends his first few days of work in Texas riding all day while keeping a straight face through the evening. He appears dedicated to embodying the Yellowstone brand and learning how to ride a horse. Mia packs her things and heads back to the bunkhouse.
Walker’s (Ryan Bingham) guitar is smashed, and Lloyd (Forrie J. Smith) stabs him in the upper chest with a knife after promising a fight for weeks. The attack occurs after a conversation with Carter in which Lloyd claims to be an outcast but won’t accept responsibility.
Minutes later, Walker gets the knife taken out of his chest and is bound by the side of the road, where Rip and John decide what to do with him. Laramie (Hassie Harrison) and Teeter (Jennifer Landon) are ejected from the bunkhouse when John chooses to make Walker and Lloyd fight it out in public, a punishment that appears to also support the one bunkhouse rule neither had observed. John then declares that no girls are allowed in the bunkhouse any longer, driving them out. Teeter is furious.
When Beth asks the perplexed Rip to take her horseback riding, Summer Higgins is standing in the Dutton kitchen wearing John’s shirt and is missing her pants. For some reason, Beth flips out and refers to Summer (Piper Perabo) as a whore. Though it unfolds as a straw man attack, the entire discussion looks like a humorous dig against vegetarianism.
Then a job call comes in for Kayce Dutton. He travels with Monica and Tate to the edge of a reservation where a racing family reported their horses stolen. The family, including Avery, a former rancher in Yellowstone, is addressed by Kayce and Rainwater. When Monica discovers a past between Kayce and Avery, she becomes enraged. Later in the episode, she is still irate.
After learning that Garrett paid Riggins to assassinate John, Kayce, and Beth, Jamie finally confronts Garrett. Jamie is prepared to arrest his father with a gun pulled, but Garrett sits Jamie down and explains moral relativism. He paid Riggins to kill the siblings of John and Jamie, but he did it for Jamie so that Jamie might escape John’s control and stand on his own two feet. Then they embrace.
Episode 7 – Keep the Wolves Close
Jimmy continues his cowboy profession in Texas by assisting a trainer in gathering horse sperm, which leads to him meeting someone for supper. Mia (Eden Brolin) arrives in Texas and discover a freshly-shaven Jimmy trying his luck with a different woman. After Monica learns that Avery (Tanaya Beatty) exists, Kayce and Monica are still uneasy. Kayce and Mo have found Avery’s stolen horses and have returned them. Avery declares her love for Kayce. Avery learns that Kayce is married. Monica is looking downcast at the horizon somewhere off-screen.
John is informed by Governor Perry (Wendy Moniz) that she will be running for the Montana Senate, leaving her seat available for a Dutton, either Jamie or John. John claims that Jamie’s elevation would be disastrous for the Duttons and Montana despite having some faith in Jamie for his investigation into Riggins. John declares he will run for the seat and accept the governor’s support.
Jamie, though, feels that the governorship should be his after speaking with Garrett Randall. Even before seeing John and Beth at the state house, he is ready to accept Perry’s support. Jamie walks forward to receive the endorsement, but Perry abruptly calls out John’s name instead of in an overly dramatic act.
Episode 8 - No Kindness for the Coward
When Rip and John arrive at the diner for their rendezvous with Sheriff Haskell, something seems off as they approach the entryway. People inside aren’t eating; instead, they’re just staring at each other as the sign outside reads “closed.” John and Rip turn around and return to the truck. As they pretend to depart the parking lot, John and Rip board the vehicle. John walks back and silently enters the restaurant as they take John’s pistol and rifle from the truck.
While other thieves are inside the aisles, an armed robber is seated close to a customer. As John sneaks through the kitchen with his rifle raised, the apparent commander demands wallets and valuables. When the robbers are startled, shots are fired, with John killing one of the armed robbers and Rip grabbing another through the restaurant’s front window. Sheriff Donnie Haskell takes out his revolver and starts shooting at the robbers.
The robbers are all dead except for one, who has taken a young woman and is using her as a shield. John invites Rip inside, where they engage the final robber. Rip shoots the man in the foot after receiving the order from John to do so. When John shoots him, he is about to fall to the ground and retaliate. Just as John assists Sheriff Haskell in calling his daughter, the sheriff is shot and killed. John is compelled to break the heartbreaking news that her father has just been dead.
Episode 9 – Grass on the Streets
Beth is upset with Rip for letting her dad into a café where there were many armed thieves. While Beth is still in bed, Rip is getting ready to start the workday. When John is determined to do anything, there is no way to stop him, but Rip tells her that he tried his best to assist John, which kept him safe.
Later, everyone is having fun, and Beth can be heard quietly watching from the door as all is happening. She is only noticed by Walker, who then moves outside. She acknowledges that she is depressed after losing the one thing she had fought for her entire life. Walker complies with her request to play a depressing tune and stealthily takes out his guitar. Kayce is prepared to talk to the wolf. As this process will take four days and four nights without food or water, Mo cautions him to beware of the coyote. Kayce fears he will pass away.
Monica advises Kayce to follow Mo’s instructions and pay attention to him. After kissing him, Kayce departs for his vision quest with Mo and Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham). When Kayce is alone and in the middle of nowhere, Mo and Thomas give him instructions on what to do next and caution him that what he will go through will depend on how fervently he prays and how much he endures.
Episode 10 - Grass on The Streets and Weeds on the Rooftops
In the Yellowstone, season finale Jamie congratulates Beth on getting hitched to Rip. She encourages him to visit the Bureau of Prisons website and explains that she is confident he is responsible for the attack. She chooses to take care of it on her own, and when he tries to pull her away from his computer, she strikes him in the face and pulls a revolver.
The men gather at the Yellowstone to bid Jimmy and Emily (Kathryn Kelly) go. Walker asks Teeter to say hello to the men in Texas on his behalf as Jimmy receives a hug from Colby and Ryan and Teeter mumbles something incomprehensible. Jimmy is reminded that he always has a place there by Rip as they move a short distance away. Rip also expresses his pride in Jimmy.
As Beth returns to the Yellowstone in the morning, John is waiting outside. John requests that she tell him the truth when she makes indications about her activities. He believes she murdered Jamie or did something to permanently sever his relationship with the family. John admits that despite his best efforts, he has feelings for the child he nurtured.
Carter arrives with two horses as Beth drifts off to sleep. Carter argues that it’s meant to be enjoyable while John is out of the mood and doesn’t understand the point. John finally gets up and joins Carter for a ride after he claims Rip informed him that no one will ride one day. John pauses for a moment before following Carter into the forest as he runs off.
Yellowstone Quick Facts
- an American neo-Western drama television series
- under the creation by Taylor Sheridan and John Linson
- premiered on Paramount Network on June 20, 2018