After the Yellowstone season 4 finale, fans are attempting to tie up loose ends. While the season didn’t quite end like the previous—with three Duttons under fire, John shot and dying on the roadside—it attempted to resolve those season 4 attacks. But the resolution, some fans are finding, didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Early on in season 4, we find out that the perpetrator of the Dutton attacks was a prisoner named Terrell Riggins. Riggins apparently hired a local militia to gun down, blow up, and ambush John, Kayce, and Beth. Later in the season, John has Jamie interview Riggins to find out more.
Jamie, of course, finds out that Riggins’ previous cellmate was Garrett Randall, Jamie’s biological father. When Jamie confronts him, Garrett admits to organizing the hit—and implies he would do it again. Jamie’s discovery, however, is never revealed to any other Dutton until the season’s final episodes when Beth visits Riggins herself and then confronts Jamie.
Fans on Reddit are now wondering what took so long for anyone to check Jamie’s interview given its importance—who attacked the Duttons and why are kind of the most important questions this season.
One Redditor joked that Beth should probably be mad at Kayce, since Kayce had relayed John’s request for Jamie to interview Riggins. Shouldn’t Kayce have followed up? Shouldn’t John?
John’s request for Jamie to interview Riggins is somewhat baffling. He appears to put a high level of trust in Jamie’s judgment, only to openly disavow his abilities episodes later. When approached by the governor over the possibility of Jamie taking an open seat, John decides to run instead rather than have Jamie take the office; John says Jamie would be the worst option for Montana. He can’t be trusted.
And yet John has trusted Jamie. After the interview with Riggins, John never presses Jamie for a follow-up. Nor does he appear to fact check any claim that Jamie makes off screen—assuming that Kayce did check in with Jamie and Jamie proceeded to lie about Riggins being the sole perpetrator. If Jamie lied about Riggins’ role in the attack, John seems to trust him enough never to verify.
(Are we supposed to believe John knew the truth about Riggins and was just hoping Jamie would do something about it? Was it Jamie’s test? Even if so, once Jamie failed and allowed Garrett to still be a threat, why didn’t John come kill Garettt? Especially if he knew Beth was in danger.)
Kayce and John’s indifference requires Beth to do the actual follow-up. Which leads to a predicable confrontation with Jamie—even though this moment should have been one of the most emotionally-charged scenes in the season. Everything led up to Jamie’s final decision. But that decision was forced by a plot-hole-filling Beth—not an altered Jamie.
In general, fans seem fatigued with the Jamie vs. Beth storyline—which doesn’t appear to be ending, given that both survive the season finale, Jamie now in a kind of indentured servitude to Beth. (Perhaps he’ll have to aid her against the legal threats of Market Equities, who accused Beth of corporate crimes.)
Jamie’s unraveling at the hands of such a simple follow-up interview has left some people throwing up their hands. If the Duttons were so concerned about the attack, why did they leave the interview up to the person they seem to trust least? Perhaps the plot simply required it.
