With my favorite show, YELLOWSTONE, returning Sunday, November 7 on Paramount, I wanted to do a quick recap on where we stand at the end of season 3 and discuss my top suspects for who is trying to kill the Duttons.

Here is what we know

Someone conducted a coordinated, simultaneous attack separately targeting the three main Dutton heirs.

Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) received an explosive package in the mail at her office that seemingly destroyed the building. Her assistant was clearly blown up but we don’t know Beth’s fate. However, let’s be real, she and Rip are the most popular characters on the show and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

At the same time, gunmen broke into Kayce Dutton’s (Luke Grimes) office, where he serves as the livestock commissioner, while he was on the phone with his wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille). We don’t see what happens, but see Kayce is ready to fight.

And last, we see John Dutton (Kevin Costner), who has stopped on the side of the road to help a mother and son fix a flat tire. A van pulls up and a gunmen shoots him multiple times out of the back of the vehicle. John receives multiple gun shot wounds, but his cell phone stopped one from hitting his heart.

**It is strange to me that Jamie Dutton was not targeted in this attack because anyone who was trying to kill all of the Yellowstone Ranch heirs should have included him in the list… unless they know better and know that he had turned on his father and could make a good ally. In my opinion, this rules out an outsider. I took this into consideration when choosing my main suspects.**

The attacks entail the following key elements, which I used to try to figure out who ordered the hit:

• Motive
• Intelligence about the key family members and where they would be located.
• Coordination and resources (both manpower and hardware) to carry out each attack simultaneously.
• Enough deniability that the perpetrator would think they could get away with it.
• Willingness/ the stomach to potentially kill the Duttons.

Now that we have the facts out of the way, who are the main suspects? Check out my assessments on each potential killer (or killers) below and let me know your theories in the comments.

Main Suspects

Jamie Dutton

Why he could have done it

If anyone has the motive and information required to carry out this attack, it is Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley). He has had a horrible relationship with his father and sister since the beginning of the series, and it has only gotten worse from there.

We found out in the season 3 finale that Jamie still holds power of attorney for the Yellowstone Ranch in Montana, so with his family members gone, he would have all of the say now to sell the ranch and potentially get a boat load of cash. However, he laid all of his cards on the table and was close to selling Yellowstone to Market Equities, against his father’s will. Had it not been for Chairman Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), he would have succeeded. Therefore, he knows that his time as power of attorney and stake in ownership of the ranch is quickly coming to a close… unless he does something to stop it.

Most importantly, towards the end of the season, Jamie found out he wasn’t a Dutton by blood at all. He was adopted by the Duttons after his father killed his mother and just found out because he needed his birth certificate to be certified as Montana’s Attorney General. In the first meeting with his biological father, Jamie’s father started chirping in his ear that he needed to take Yellowstone Ranch for himself and “kill the king” (aka John Dutton). But is Jamie ready for such a big step?

Why he didn’t do it

Jamie has zero deniability and would obviously be the main suspect to law enforcement. He is a smart man and has higher aspirations for his life. Do we really think he would be stupid enough to kill his whole family and think he could get away with it? When Rip (Cole Hauser) calls to ask where the family is because he hasn’t been able to get in touch with anyone, Jamie says not to call him anymore. If Jamie were really responsible, he wouldn’t have picked up the phone to begin with.

Jamie has never really cared about the financial windfall from selling Yellowstone, and it’s unclear that he was still in the will to receive any benefit from it selling.

Jamie is a villain, but I don’t know that he is a monster and would be so fast to kill his whole family. Beth, maybe, but not Kayce and John. He has killed before, but his victim was a journalist who he thought was going to ruin his family’s reputation and make his dad turn against him forever. Jamie barely recovered from that incident and didn’t even have the stomach to clean it up himself. I don’t think one conversation with his biological father will change him from a reluctant killer to a monster. Not to mention, where would he quickly get the resources and manpower to conduct such a synchronized attack?

Assessment: I don’t think Jamie is our culprit because he has too much to lose and it would be way too obvious. At best, I think he helped one of the other suspects because if he is involved, he had to have major outside help.

---

Chairman Rainwater

Why he could have done it

Chairman Rainwater and the Duttons have a long history. The Duttons are obviously on land that was taken from the Native Americans on the Broken Rock Reservation, and as Chairman of the Confederated Tribes of Broken Rock, Rainwater is seeking to take back the land that was once theirs. This puts the Dutton family and Yellowstone Ranch consistently within his crosshairs.

Not to mention, he has fallen a bit from the list of prime suspects now that he and John Dutton have joined forces over the last couple of seasons to ensure outsiders don’t take their land. And most recently, Rainwater came to John’s defense when Jamie tried to use their power of attorney to sell the Yellowstone Ranch by suing for an environmental impact study, which is sure to delay the whole process. As his advisor Angela Blue Thunder (Q’orianka Kilcher), mentioned in the finale, no one would really suspect they had anything to do with it at this point so maybe it’s a good time to put the final blows on the Dutton family.

Why he didn’t do it

Chairman Rainwater may not always be a trustworthy ally to the Duttons, but he has prided himself on never going after family members. If he had a problem with John Dutton, he took it up with him, but never endangered members of the family. In fact, when Monica and Kayce’s son Tate was taken by the Beck brothers in season 2, Chief Rainwater sent his most trusted warrior to assist in bringing Tate home.

Rainwater also respects Kayce, and even more so his wife Monica for all that she is doing to help the Broken Rock Reservation. I don’t think he would be so quick to try to assassinate her husband and his family.

Assessment: I don’t think Chairman Rainwater is our culprit either. He doesn’t have the stomach or willingness to kill the Duttons. However, I do think it’s possible that someone from his crew may have gone rogue behind his back to order the attack. More on that later.

---

Roarke/Willa Hayes/Market Equities

Why they could have done it

I think the better question is why wouldn’t Roarke (Josh Holloway) and crew do it? They certainly have the motive since Roarke and his company are trying to use eminent domain to take land from the Yellowstone Ranch to create an airport and ski resort. Of course, the Duttons are not keen on that idea and Beth has made it her singular mission to make this endeavor costly by short selling Market Equity’s stock and making harassment claims against one of their top officials, Willa Hayes (Karen Pittman).

Roarke and his crew showed that they didn’t mind getting dirty when they hired local ranchers Wade Morrow and his son to antagonize the Duttons. Roarke hoped the Duttons would respond by doing something against the law that would land them in jail. Morrow and his son almost kill two of the Yellowstone ranch hands, but justice swiftly finds them. Rip and the branded Yellowstone ranch hands track Roarke’s hired guns down and kill them both. Is Roarke now looking for his own revenge?

Now that we have motive and willingness out of the way, when you have as much money as Roarke and his company do, you can pretty much pay to have intelligence and coordination/resources.

Why they didn’t do it

The only reason I can see Roarke not being involved in this is because it is soooo obvious. He has zero deniability. Roarke’s last interaction with the Duttons was tense. He and his company failed to get any of the Yellowstone land and Beth made it known that she privately accused Willa of harassment.

There were quite a few witnesses to the tension in this meeting. Would Roarke really be so brazen as to try to kill his enemies… or did someone see this as the perfect time to set him up?

Assessment: Out of all of our obvious options, I think Roarke and Market Equities is our most likely culprit. You will see almost all of our key elements are checked and I noticed Josh Holloway said in a recent interview that Roarke “gets his”. Let’s hope it is at Rip’s hand. Alternatively, could this be the outside help Jamie needed and the two teamed up?

Wildcards

These potential suspects are a bit less obvious and are in more of the long-shot category, but I still have my suspicions.

John Dutton

Assessment: I told you these were going to be wildcards. While I do not think John Dutton did this, something in me kept coming back to the scene where Beth is trying to convince her dad to sell the ranch because it is going to be too expensive to maintain long-term. John says there is a way out of every bad situation. Could this be his way out? This would put his enemies under a microscope and make his family gain popular support and look like innocent victims. Now, this would require some serious planning and luck to ensure that his plan didn’t ultimately kill his children and they would get out of it safely. But we know John is a strategist. This couldn’t be his master plan to keep his beloved land…could it?

---

Angela Blue Thunder

Assessment: Angela, a chief advisor for Chairman Rainwater, is actually the only person, besides John Dutton, on this list with all of the key elements checked. She has all of the resources of the tribe at her disposal, which enables her to know where the Duttons are located, and has the ability to target each of the family members simultaneously. Angela also clearly has the willingness to target the Duttons based on her conversation with Rainwater in the season 3 finale, where she reinforces how the Duttons are not their friends. She disagrees with Rainwater and says she will stop at nothing to get their land back. Her whole rationale for targeting the Duttons at this time is because it would be so deniable with all of the other enemies at the Dutton’s doorstep. Other than Roarke, Angela is my main suspect.

---

Garrett Randall

Assessment: Garrett (Will Patton) is Jamie’s biological father and had the idea for Jamie to take the ranch from his family members. He flat out told Jamie he needed to kill his adopted father John Dutton. But while Garrett is an evil dude, who spent a long time in prison for murder, I don’t think he has the money, manpower, or resources to carry out an attack as advanced and organized as this. This dude seems like a loner and would need serious help.

---

California Motorcycle Gang

Assessment: I didn’t think of these guys as potential suspects until I watched the season back and noticed the woman who was pulled over with the flat tire for John to fix said she is from California, just like the motorcycle crew. Plus, they have a lot of manpower and resources at their disposal and it sounded like there were a lot of men storming into Kayce’s office.

Still, I think this is probably a long shot because these guys care less about killing the Dutton dynasty and more about revenge on the Yellowstone Ranch writ large. I can see them burning the ranch down and killing John, Rip, and the ranch hands, but the targeting killing of the Dutton heirs seems to have a more political motive. Plus, it would take some leg work to figure out each of the Dutton’s locations for the simultaneous attacks.

---

Malcolm Beck

Assessment: Is Malcolm (Neal McDonough) dead? He was on his last legs when John and the Yellowstone crew rescued Tate, but it’s unclear if he actually died. If he is still alive, there is no doubt he would have every reason in the book to try to take the Duttons out. He has showed a willingness to do so in the past when his hired men killed Beth’s assistant and almost killed her and he abducted Tate in season 2. But I can’t imagine John, Rip, and Kayce wouldn’t follow-up to make sure a man that did so much damage to the family was dead.

---

Governor Lynelle Perry

Assessment: I think the governor (Wendy Moniz) has more to lose than she does gain in all of this. She has been a supporter (and lover) of John’s since the beginning, and while she seemed to be more against him in the eminent domain meeting, I don’t know that she would risk her political career and freedom to target the Duttons.

---

Thanks for reading my theories. Hoping for a Rip and Beth wedding this season!