Yellowstone has finally come to an end after a turbulent but ultimately satisfying fifth season. Taylor Sheridan’s popular Western series suffered a public delay after its lead, Kevin Costner, declined to return for the second half of Season 5. This forced Sheridan and the other showrunners behind Yellowstone to accelerate their plans for the series, bringing it to an end after five seasons instead of the six they’d mapped out. The final half-season consists of six episodes, bringing the Dutton family drama to a close in one final adventure filled with death and tragedy.
Yellowstone Season 5B may have ended, but the discussions surrounding the series will continue for a long time to come. Several creative decisions, including the death of John Dutton, will remain controversial in the fanbase as audiences come to a consensus regarding the popular show’s finale. While most fans seem to think that Yellowstone’s finale brought most of the show’s characters to a fitting conclusion, one main character’s storyline never lived up to its potential. Despite hinting that Jamie Dutton would grow to become a compelling villain in the final seasons of the series, Yellowstone was never able to make Wes Bentley’s character the terrifying antagonist that he should have been.
Jamie Is Disappointing as Yellowstone’s Main Villain
Jamie Should Have Been Yellowstone’s Big Bad
Once a loyal ally to his father and the rest of the family, Jamie Dutton becomes unpredictable and dangerous as Yellowstone’s seasons go on. Jamie becomes increasingly alienated from the rest of the Dutton family over the years, especially after learning that he was adopted. On several occasions, he broke free from the Duttons and tried to make it on his own, even starting a rival ranch with his biological father for a short period. Nevertheless, the Duttons always managed to bring Jamie back under their thumb, only increasing his hatred toward them. In particular, Jamie harbored a hatred for his sister Beth, who always held a grudge against him after he had her forcibly sterilized when they were teenagers. The underlying hatred between Jamie and the rest of his family continued to grow throughout Yellowstone’s five seasons, building toward his character becoming the biggest threat to the ranch by the finale.
Despite years of work going into his character arc, Jamie’s story is the most disappointing out of Yellowstone’s main cast. Although he continues to seeth in hatred against the rest of his family, Jamie never develops into the villain that Yellowstone promised he would be. Even in his more villainous arcs, Jamie is always under the thumb of a bigger bad, whether it be Garrett Randall or Sarah Atwood. At no point is Jamie ever the biggest threat facing the Dutton Ranch. He is always taking orders from another character or, if left to his own devices, he typically makes a mess of his plans before too long. By the series finale, Jamie is the only villain left in the series, making him the de facto major antagonist. Yet even then, Jamie doesn’t pose much of a threat to his family’s future. It is only when provoked that he finally lashes out against Beth, leading her to stab and kill him in the final episode. Jamie dies without making much of an impact on the rest of the Dutton family at all, leaving fans disappointed with his long character arc that ultimately went nowhere.
Other Yellowstone Villains Outshine Jamie
Jamie Dutton Was Never at Any Point the Most Compelling Antagonist In Yellowstone
Unfortunately for Jamie’s character, Dawn Olivieri’s Sarah Atwood was a more compelling villain in Yellowstone’s final season. An executive working for Market Equities, the company looking to put an airport on the Duttons’ land, Sarah poses a bigger threat to the ranch than Jamie ever did. Her scheming nearly resulted in the Duttons losing their ranch and, when she ultimately failed to take over their land, she lashed out with even greater rage. It is Sarah who finally defeats John Dutton when no one else could, hiring a mercenary to assassinate him in the governor’s mansion at the beginning of Season 5B. While Jamie is involved in the coverup for his father’s death, he doesn’t become a part of the conspiracy until after John is already dead. Thus, Jamie is not the primary antagonist of Yellowstone’s final season, but an unwilling accomplice who finds himself in over his head.
Unfortunately, Yellowstone failed to recognize the importance of Dawn Olivieri’s cunning villain, killing her off partway through the season when she was gunned down by the same mercenary organization she had hired to kill John Dutton. Yet, even after Sarah Atwood’s death, Jamie fails to rise to the occasion as Yellowstone’s final villain. After Sarah is murdered, Jamie panics and spends the rest of the season scurrying around trying to cover up his involvement in John’s assassination. He makes no grand power plays or strategic moves against his family, but instead runs away and hides, as he has always done. Without Sarah Atwood, Jamie ceases to pose any meaningful threat to his family and therefore fails to stand out as a compelling villain.
How Yellowstone Could Have Made Jamie a More Memorable Villain
Jamie Should Have Grown Darker as the Series Progressed
Jamie could have been a more memorable villain with several changes to his character. Wes Bentley’s character should have grown darker and more unhinged as Yellowstone’s story went on, getting worse and worse with each passing season. While there are elements of this throughout Yellowstone, the series never gave Jamie a consistent downward arc, instead juggling him back and forth between being an ally and an enemy of the Duttons. A better story would have seen Jamie embrace his darker side with increasing ambivalence to his morality, becoming the monster that the rest of his family always thought he was. By Yellowstone’s final season, Jamie would have been ready to make one organized stand against his family in a play to get their ranch for himself.
The biggest mistake that Yellowstone made with Jamie was not making him responsible for John Dutton’s death. Aside from taking the ranch itself, there is no greater victory than any villain could have won over the Duttons–and that honor went to Sarah Atwood. Once Sarah was gone, the show found itself lacking an appropriately menacing main villain. But, because Yellowstone had promised a villainous arc for Jamie, the series’ creators felt obligated to make him the final villain in Season 5B. Had Jamie been the one responsible for John’s death, it would have set him up as a more fearsome antagonist, whom Beth and Kayce would have to defeat before the finale. This would have completed his downward spiral throughout Yellowstone’s five seasons, as audiences watch the final culmination of a villainous arc that started in the very first episode.
Ultimately, Jamie’s arc in Yellowstone doesn’t build out what viewers were hoping to see from the character. Jamie is not a memorable villain because he never makes any major moves against his family. Instead, he acts as an unmemorable accomplice to other better villains who made a bigger impact against the Dutton family than he ever did.