Yellowstone is coming to a close. With the news that Taylor Sheridan may not bring the cast over to the Matthew McConaughey-led sequel, there’s a good chance that some of our favorites are headed to the train station. Do Beth and Jamie die in Yellowstone Season 5, Part 2? Check out some interesting fan theories below.
Yellowstone is Paramount’s successful Western drama that follows the real-life Dutton family, who own and operate the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, the largest ranch in the state of Montana. The fan-favorite series premiered in 2018 and features frontrunner Kevin Costner, who plays the one and only John Dutton III, the six-generation patriarch of the Dutton family.
Throughout the series, John and his family are constantly protecting the Yellowstone ranch from those attempting to take their land, including an Indian reservation and wealthy land developers. Paramount announced in May 2023 that Yellowstone is ending after Season 5 and there will not be a sixth season of the successful Costner-led drama.
In the meantime, fans are anxiously waiting for the remaining episodes of Yellowstone Season 5 – which Paramount Network said is coming in November 2023. But this is becoming less likely due to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that are halting production on hundreds of film and TV projects. And with the Costner and Taylor Sheridan Yellowstone drama dominating headlines since February (see our full timeline of events here), we don’t even know if the lead star will make an appearance in the final episodes.
But what we do know is that we last saw the Dutton family in the Season 5 mid-season finale. The last episodes focused on the rivalry between John, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley). Bentley spoke with Entertainment Weekly in February 2023 about what could happen with the estranged siblings moving forward.
“We’ve got something coming. We’re both threatening each other now in some serious ways,” Bentley revealed to the entertainment site. “It’s a mystery to me too where it’s going. I just know this is an inflection point….Something major will come of this moment between Jamie and Beth. This is kind of the final straw. He didn’t much how much Beth was really fed up with him until really recently, and I think that is now flipped a switch in Jamie that he feels similarly.”
Do Beth and Jamie die in Yellowstone Season 5, Part 2?
Do Beth and Jamie die in Yellowstone Season 5, Part 2? We’re not sure yet, but in Taylor Sheridan’s universe, anything is possible. When asked whether John Dutton will be killed off, Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter, “I don’t do [beep]-you car crashes,” (which refers to Shonda Rhimes killing McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy). “Whether [Dutton’s fate] inflates [Costner’s] ego or insults is collateral damage that I don’t factor in with regard to storytelling.” The creator didn’t mention anything about Beth or Jamie – but there is a good chance at least one of them will die in the final episodes of the neo-Western drama.
After all, Beth has already mentioned to her father that she wants Jamie gone. In Season 5, Episode 8, Beth approaches her father and asks him the truth about the train station (a cliff where the Dutton family kills and disposes of their enemies). “What is it, exactly?” Governor Dutton tells Beth, “It is a trash can for everyone who has attacked us.” He even asked her, “Why are you so surprised?” (considering all the illegal things their family has done). Beth then states that the train station is the place for Jamie, hinting that she wants him dead. Just before that, Jamie publicly announced that he wanted their father, the Governor of Montana, impeached. Talk about betrayal.
At the end mid-season finale, Jamie comes to the same conclusion and decides that he wants to murder his sister. He admits to Sarah that he figures that Beth would try to get him killed, and he asks his lover if she knows anyone who could kill her. She says yes and that she would meet with potential killers for him. However, when some fans got digging, some believed that Summer (Piper Perabo) – the environmentalist who became John Dutton’s lover in Season 4 – may become collateral damage in an assisination attempt against Beth. Seven months ago, a Reddit thread titled, “Summer will be killed by Jamie’s hitman instead of Beth,” caught the attention of fans.
In the thread, the user @ingrahamtx wrote: “Since Summer is living in the main house, I really think Jamie’s hitman will mistakenly kill her instead of Beth. That is the only reason I can see why she is in John’s house other than she is a convenient piece for John’s enjoyment now that the ex-Governor has moved on. I can’t see Beth getting killed just yet.”
After Dutton helped get her prison sentence commuted in Season 5, Summer was released under house arrest and is staying at the Yellowstone Ranch. So there is a real possibility that if Jamie sends a killer to the John’s house, they could mistake Beth for Summer. “Oh I could see that…,” another Reddit user said in response. “Interesting theory. Killing the wrong person isn’t exactly what professional hit men do. But I could see it,” another Reddit user added.
Meanwhile, another Reddit user said it’s something that Sheridan has orchestrated before. “It’s also something Taylor Sheridan has done before in Sons of Anarchy,” @Fincadin penned about the FX show. “When Opie’s wife was killed during an attempted hit on Opie.”
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight in May 2023 (conducted before the actors’ strike), the actress who plays Summer said she has no idea what’s coming next in Season 5, Part 2. “I know [creator] Taylor Sheridan was writing before the strike was happening and one of the fun things about working on a Sheridan show is that you really don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Perabo explained. “I have no idea what’s happening next and the whole thing left off on this cliffhanger, so I’m waiting myself.”
The last time we saw Summer, she was still on house arrest and much of the crew headed off to Texas. “I don’t know if we start the next [episode] and they’re coming back from Texas. I don’t know if we’re all gonna go to Texas,” she hypothesized while acknowledging that she can’t comprehend life for Summer without John. “I also don’t want to imagine a life for Summer in the winter in Montana. She’s on house arrest so I hope John comes home or gets her sentence commuted to Texas.”
