Elsa Dutton Returns To Narrate The Yellowstone Season Finale, & Fans Are LOVING It

Wes Langeler·
CULTURE
·
Elsa Dutton 1883 Yellowstone
Paramount+

Full circle.

Yellowstone has come to its bittersweet conclusion, and who better to bring the story to a close than the person who started it… well, started it 140 years ago.

If you haven’t caught up on the Yellowstone Series Finale yet, you might want to scroll on through, and if you haven’t had a chance to watch the origin story prequel, 1883, you might want to scroll on through as well.

If you have seen it however, you know that James Dutton’s daughter Elsa narrates the 1-season series, and she’s ultimately responsible for why the Dutton family settled in the Paradise Valley, Montana, way back in the late 1880s. If you need a quick refresher, Elsa is shot with an arrow during a Native American attack on the wagon train, and it’s a fatal blow… her father James, played by Tim McGraw, rushes to find a place to bury her, promising that it is where the family will plant roots. A Native American elder, Spotted Eagle, tells James he can build a home here, but in 7 generations, the land will be taken back… guess how many generations it has been? You guessed it, 7.

Flash forward to the Series Finale and Kayce and Beth sell the entire ranch to Chief Thomas Rainwater and the Broken Rock Reservation for what amounts to pennies on the dollar… $1.25 per acre to be exact. It all comes out to about a million bucks… but more importantly for the land, it will be protected, and free from the massive taxes they owe.

And in the final moments of the episode, Elsa returns to narrate the story once more… and fans were LOVING it.

Check out the reaction:

Pretty cool, right?

If you need an Elsa refresher, check out this “Best Of Elsa Dutton” compilation video:

Honestly, I thought the finale was pretty good. Granted, it was very predictable, and Taylor confessed years ago that he already knew how it ended. Problem is… we all knew how it ended. Even before 1883 made it seem pretty inevitable that the Reservation would get the land, it was the only viable option.

It was definitely a letdown to see Kevin Costner exit so abruptly, and you wish in a perfect world that he and Taylor could’ve resolved their differences and figured out a way to end the series with Kevin still participating. Does that mean John would’ve lived to see the end? No, of course not… he was always going to die with the ranch, but you have to imagine Taylor was backed into a corner with him leaving.

Wrapping it all up with Elsa was fitting though, and dare I say, poetic?

Of course, we’ll see how the Duttons carry on, particularly Rip and Beth in the upcoming spinoff series, which Kelly Reilly herself confirmed she would be starring in. We also have the second season of  1923 airing in February, which will no doubt help fill on some of the missing pieces in the great Dutton saga.

And then there’s the green-lit 1944 series, a ’60s era one possibly in the works, Taylor’s modern-day The Madison spinoff, the Dutton story is FAR from over.

Stay tuned…

And if you’re looking for the entire Yellowstone soundtrack, complete through every episode of Season 5, then look no further. Our Yellowstone: The Soundtrack Playlist, featuring every song from every episode, updated in real time, every Sunday night.

And now, it’s finally complete… enjoy.

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