The Dutton civil war finally begins on Yellowstone‘s underwhelming mid-season finale
Jamie's daddy issues earn him a trip to "The Train Station" as Season 5 reaches its halfway point
TV Features Yellowstone
Jamie Dutton may not be the worst person ever made, but he’s definitely in contention for the honor. John Dutton’s trash nepo baby of a son fired the first official shot of the Dutton Family Civil War by swinging the wrecking ball of impeachment at his dad’s governorship on Yellowstone’s mostly underwhelming mid-season finale, “A Knife and No Coin.” The disappointing cliffhanger spends most of its run time doing what the uneven season five has done at large: Promising an all-out war between the Duttons in a way that feels like the narrative is just stuck in place. All talk, very little action. “Knife and No Coin” finally propels Jamie, John, and Beth closer to endgame—with Beth and Jamie in a race to see who can kill the other first.
Here’s what went down this week
We’ll have to wait until season five returns this summer to see who wins the Shakespearean sibling rivalry between Jamie and Beth, but the episode ends with the two planning to put hits on each other to save the ranch. Which, at this point, Beth seems to realize is a lost cause.
But she fights because the fight is all she knows—especially when her brother, the living manifestation of daddy issues, keeps giving her fuel to stay in the ring. This week, Jamie has outdone himself: While John joins frenemy Chief Rainwater to give a press conference to protest the proposed pipeline through their respective lands, Jamie speechifies Montana politicians into voting for impeachment. The subtext of Jamie’s conjecture-heavy plea is basically “My daddy didn’t love me enough, so now I’m making it EVERYONE’S problem,” which makes it all the more satisfying when Beth breaks into Jamie’s house and punches him in the head with a rock. (This show LOVES settling arguments this way).
Their confrontation is what fans have been waiting for all season, and it ends with a twist: For the first time, Jamie has leverage over his sister. He is unfazed by her threat to leak photos of him disposing his first murder victim at “The Train Station” because if she does that, he will expose all the bodies John put there long before his got added to the pile.
Beth didn’t even know the Long Black Train and its final destination was a thing. And when she confronts her dad about using what he calls “a trash can for everyone who’s ever tried to attack us” (so good), Beth seems rattled at the depths of her dad’s ranch protection efforts. But not rattled enough to stop her from suggesting to her dad that his son should be The Train Station’s next passenger.
This week’s most messed-up scene is…
You thought the above was it, didn’t you? That’s cute.
Leave it to Jamie to one-up his sister’s wish for killing him by asking Sarah, his half-naked lover-slash fixer, if she knows anyone who can help him go on the offensive and take out Beth first. You stay classy, Yellowstone.
Burning questions for the rest of Season 5
1. Who will Sarah call to kill Beth?
Of course Sarah knows folks in Virginia who could make Beth’s demise look like an accident. And of course she casually just mentions it like she was asked for good food recs. Whomever she taps from her rolodex of corporate-approved assassins, you can expect John to sick Kayce and his Liam Neeson-in-Taken-style skills on them.
2. What’s John going to do about the wolves?
Nevermind the impeachment. I mean, yeah, that’s a big headache for John—but the dead wolves are a four-alarm migraine now that the local news has put out a story saying they were likely killed on John’s property.
This report invites federal scrutiny, and John’s “trash can” ain’t big enough to hold every Game and Wildlife agent in the state. The greatest threat to the ranch is the guy who has spent years doing anything to protect it, so it will (hopefully) prove to be more satisfying that the season so far to see how John gets out of this mess.
23 Comments
“Mid-season finale” makes no sense as a collection of words and should never be used again.
That said, there is sketch comedy gold in a gag where every episode is a finale. Could be a reoccuring bit.
“Tune in for the thrilling debut finale!”
Just need someone with talent to flesh it out…
(Yes, Calvin and Hobbes had a similar idea, so here’s the shout out:
)
Reminds me of some show years ago being billed as “The Television event of JUNE!”
He looks like Bryan Kohberger.
That picture of Wes Bentley looks like if Adam Scott tried to create himself in Fallout 4.
He looks like nature is trying to fill a Kevin Conroy-shaped vacuum.
The ‘midseason finale!’ was lackluster, but the sniping between Beth and Summer is a sufficient helping of that Yellowstone snark for my time.Don’t you dare eat my peanut M&Ms!!I’ll have you know I have a peanut allergy, missy!!- Into my veins!!
I don’t know anything about this show, really, other than Kevin Costner and I guess there’s some murder, but that picture of Wes Bentley makes me want him to be my daddy.
I take the argument that this program doesn’t have a lot of representation in it quite seriously. I don’t believe I seen any golden agouti gerbils, or ANY pocket pets for that matter!
This show is five seasons in and they still haven’t used the title “Much Ado About Dutton” for one of their episodes?
Who knew Paramount+ was so willing to buy this much ink in a blog?
yeah, Yellowstone is not a hugely popular TV show at all. It’s just a conspiracy by Paramount+ to hype up a show that is streamed on Peacock.
It is literally the highest rated show on television.Higher ratings than any show on any network.
If it weren’t for the AVClub, I probably wouldn’t know much about Yellowstone.
Anyone else find it crazy that the AVClub no longer reviews Rick & Morty or Doctor Who, but devotes so much time to this show for Boomer dads?
I had to give up this show. Too many missing scenes.
But how will you learn about the lives of modern cowboys?
I had no idea they’d murder their rivals, get dressed down by their sisters, and then break into spontaneous whoops and card games.
Not the Dutton civil war?!YES! The Dutton civil war!Git mah hat!
I just finished the first season during the holiday break. It’s quite good, even if they do push too many drama at times, like for Monica and her son and Kayce Dutton. Hopefully they will continue to build the great characters throughout the other seasons.
I’m afraid Jamie is targeting Rip, not Beth.
Beth sneaks into his house to smash his head in with a rock but it’s Jamie whos the over the top bad guy. Do you hate someone named Jamie maybe?
Don’t know how they did it but this was even worse than season 4.Also, not sure why this critic keeps singling out Jamie as heinous, the whole family are terrible people.
There was a brief moment that Yellowstone was just dumb soap opera fun with cowboys. People said it was conservative, but what it really always was—and mostly still is—is the toxic dream of an emotionally-stunted man with resentment issues. Once it became a hit, Taylor Sheridan let his ego run wild, and now every episode his him projecting through some characters and using others as straw men.Beth (a douchebag’s idea of what “strong women,” look like) has recurring scenes insulting men who hit on her at random. Once this was shown as her shutting down aggressive men. But instantly became Sheridan attacking “coastal elites,” and college professors, and “city folk.” Beth insults his broad straw men targets, who scurry away, weak and speechless.He hates Harvard and lawyers and people from the coastal cities, so he made one character a Harvard lawyer who is an idiot when it serves to insult lawyers and educated people who don’t think riding horses in the 21st century is the pinnacle of maturity and wisdom.Sheridan wrote himself into the show, playing what he thinks a cool dude is, but looking and speaking like a total Dickbag. Wearing a shirt you know Sheridan chose out of his own closet, which read “your girlfriend is staring at me.”Meanwhile, the Costner character is a horrible person, horrible father, with a genuinely stupid dedication to the family land an not his actual family. Sheridan is somehow oblivious to the irony that his own show is a great lesson in how some people’s toxic masculinity makes heroes out of shitty people. Even his idea of strong women are assholes who bully and insult people they see as “weak and soft.”Meanwhile, he offers no challenge or story arc to his shitty characters. If you binge the show, you quickly see that everyone who “wins,” talks exactly the same way, with the same viewpoint. Everyone who “loses,” is a politician, a lawyer, a professor, or a business person who wasn’t born in Montana.Every character is either just a stand-in for Sheridan or a straw man. Every “hero,” character sounds like Sheridan drinking bourbon while bitching at his laptop about soft men and feminists.