Yellowstone season 5 ending explained: which characters died?

Yellowstone has come to an end after five incredible seasons, so let's break down everything that happened in the series finale and last ever episode of the epic drama.

Since the series began airing in 2018, Yellowstone has given audiences five seasons of twists, turns and some of the best acting you'll see this decade. Viewers have well and truly taken the Dutton family and their epic saga into their hearts, wanting to know whether the characters are real people and if the show is based on a true story and, most importantly, needing to know why did Kevin Costner leave Yellowstone before the series had reached a final conclusion? The reasons are complicated, and it was certainly one of the more difficult twists to get your heads around.

The lengths the Duttons went to in order to protect their secrets and keep hold of their land, has now reached a final conclusion - although there's some relief to be found in knowing the Yellowstone universe can never truly be left behind with the sheer volume of spin-offs either already airing or in production. But now the final credits have rolled on season 5, let's break down everything that happened, and lift the lid on any of your unanswered questions.

Yellowstone season 5 ending explained

The Yellowstone series finale ends with the Dutton Ranch finally being sold back to the Broken Rock Reservation - Kayce Dutton came to the conclusion that selling up was the only way to save his family and free him from his father’s legacy. The land is sold to the tribe for $1.25 an acre, which is the same price Kayce’s ancestors paid when the land was first purchased.

Selling for such a low price means the tribe can afford the site, and both parties evade inheritance tax fees neither could afford if the land was sold at its true value - the grounds can also be preserved as a protected reservation this way, rather than developers having the chance to swoop in and destroy it. Kayce can also keep a family connection to the land with this tactic, by negotiating to keep the East Camp section where he, Monica and son, Tate, can start their own brand and build their own legacy.

Meanwhile, as John Dutton is being laid to rest, Beth quietly tells her father's casket that his death will be avenged, as she plots to carry out a murder.

That shocking move arises when Beth stabs Jamie Dutton, the brother she hates, in a move she'd been secretly planning for some time. Stabbing her sibling right in the heart certainly made for one of the most shocking scenes of the series. Heading to Jamie's house in the aftermath of the funeral armed with bear spray and a knife, Beth almost doesn't get to see her plan come to fruition when her brother nearly chokes her to death. Luckily, Rip arrives just in time to save his wife, and she sees an opportunity to take Jamie down and plunges the knife into his chest.

Beth asks Rip to take Jamie's body to the 'train station,' code for the infamous dumping ground that bodies are taken to and never seen again. Beth leaves the attack battered and concussed, but soon recovers enough to buy herself and Rip a new ranch far enough away from tourist hot spots to firmly stop the developers sniffing around.

With Colby dead and the ranch sold, the former ranch hands all move on, beginning with Jimmy, who returns to the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas with Emily. Teeter gets a job at the Bosque Ranch, while Walker joins his girlfriend on her tour. The episode concludes with the Broken Rock Tribe moving into Yellowstone, and taking down the headstones of the Dutton family ancestors buried on the land with Mo trying to stop them.

Just before the credits roll for the final time, Kayce and Beth can be seen starting their new lives, while a voiceover from 1883‘s Elsa Dutton pulls everything together. Her character says: "One-hundred-and-forty years ago, my father was told of this valley and here’s where we stayed, for seven generations. My father was told they would come for this land, and he promised to return it. Nowhere was that promise written. It faded with my father’s death, but somehow lived in the spirit of this place.

"Men cannot truly own wild land. To own land you must blanket it in concrete, cover it with buildings. Stack it with houses so thick, people can smell each other’s supper. You must rape it to sell it. Raw land, wild land, free land can never be owned. But some men pay dearly for the privilege of stewardship. They will suffer and sacrifice to live off it and live with it, and hopefully teach the next generation to do the same. And if they falter, find another willing to keep the promise."

With a rumoured Beth and Rip spin-off of their very own rumoured to be in production, it might not be long until we're reunited with this faction of the Dutton tribe, and get to see more of their story unfold.