'Yellowstone' Season 3 Ending Explained: Who attacked the Duttons – Roarke Morris, Angela Blue Thunder or Jamie?
Spoilers for Season 3 finale Episode 10 titled 'The World is Purple'
Let's get straight to it - who attacked the Dutton family?
In the Season 3 finale of 'Yellowstone', most of the Dutton family was attacked in an attempt to kill. That day, John Dutton (Kevin Costner) was negotiating his land at the Attorney General's office. But it didn't go as per plan. While they thought they had won the first half of the game, the tables were quickly turned and things took a turn for the worse. Beth (Kelly Reilly) was sent a bomb in her office in a box within a box. Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) was ambushed at his office with gunmen just barging in. And finally, John Dutton was on the side of the road helping a young mother and her son with a flat tire situation when he was gunned down.
As audiences, we don't see Beth or Kayce after the attacks on them - only John as he lays at the side of the road with the iPhone in hand that prevented a bullet to go through his heart. We can't help but ask who really planned all these attacks on John Dutton and his family. There is no doubt that John has made many enemies over the course of his life and so at this time, it is hard to say who it could have been. But let's try: we have three main candidates - Roarke Morris (Josh Holloway), Angela Blue Thunder (Q'orianka Kilcher) and finally John's newest enemy, Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley).
Roarke Morris
We would have thought Roarke had a lot more to lose in this episode, but we never got to it. Where John was supposed to avenge the attack on Teeter (Jen Landon) and Colby (Denim Richards), he was in turn attacked. After Beth turns the tables on Willa Hayes (Karen Pittman), Roarke is warned to take the harsher way to attain the Dutton land. He had been trying all day to get in touch with Wade Morrow (Boots Southerland), but we all know that he's at the train station with his son. So now what must he do? What can he do?
We'll vote yes, chances are the attack was by Roarke.
The attack on each one of the Duttons reeks of urgency. The whole plan was so ill-thought and half-baked that it only feels as though it was supposed to do some quick damage control. In Holloway's character, Roarke has displayed frustration, anger, restlessness and throwing of a temper tantrum every so often when he doesn't get things going his way. Perhaps the attack is that too.
Angela Blue Thunder
Now we never really knew who Angela really is, and what her backstory is till the very end of the season. She clearly despises John and the land that he owns and Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) for how he deals with it, but why, we don't know. But are there chances that she might be behind the attack? Possibly. For one, Angela doesn't flinch from violence. In the episode, she tells Thomas again and again that the only way they can successfully take their land back from the Duttons is by violence, no matter the lives lost, no matter the price. This also hints at how her past probably contains this nugget of violence and why she's so eager to hurt the Duttons. Maybe we'll know next season.
But we vote yes.
Jamie Dutton
Jamie is John Dutton's most recent opponent. Raised as his son, Jamie finds out barely two episodes ago that he was actually adopted. In the last episode only, desperate to find out his reality and past, he goes to visit his real father Garrett Randall (Will Patton) for the first time. This is where the show hints that Jamie might disassociate himself from the Duttons.
He has been treated wrong and unfair for a long time for him to ignore it. The finale episode begins with Garrett telling Jamie that the only way to defeat John and take the empire that is Yellowstone, is to kill him. At the meeting in the office also, he completely blindsides John and Beth. Later when Rip (Cole Hauser) desperate to find Beth and/or John calls Jamie for help, he tells him that Rip shouldn't call him henceforth.
Is there a possibility that Jamie killed them?
We'll vote no.
It is will be a very obvious reveal if Jamie turns out to be the person behind this. The entire ordeal is a bit too much for the character that he plays, especially the brutal nature of the attack. If his father Garrett did this without him knowing then that's a different deal, but it ain't only Jamie.
Is John really dead?
So now the real question is, does John Dutton really die at the side of the road, succumbing to the gunshot wounds? Does a man who has lived the life of John Dutton really die like roadkill? In real life, maybe, but is Taylor Sheridan's 'Yellowstone', probably not.
'Yellowstone' is renewed for Season 4, but no official details are out yet.