It was bittersweet watching one of my all-time favorite shows, Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone, ride off into the sunset last week. The ending was beautifully poetic, foreshadowed by a scene with characters from 1883, its spinoff prequel, but the inexcusable absence of longtime lead Kevin Costner cast a Montana-sized shadow over the final six episodes, per elsewhere well produced.

If you’ve never watched Yellowstone, you should probably stop here and start watching the show from the beginning. It’s well worth your time, especially for the brilliant way the series pays homage to the past and the people who practice a rapidly disappearing lifestyle in America.

I enjoyed the storylines, but the quiet scenes on the ranch or the rowdy and often hilarious scenes in the cowboy bunkhouse were just as enjoyable, if not more. These characters were as likable and relatable as any I’ve ever seen on the small or big screen, and that’s a testament not only to Sheridan’s writing, but also to his choice to often cast real cowboys in acting roles. actor for whom they are perfectly suited, lending an authenticity that is hard to find in Hollywood these days.

After watching the finale, which saw Beth and Kayce avoid the crippling inheritance tax linked to their father’s death by selling the ranch to the natives for a pittance and promising that their ancestors would be honored and the land would be protected from development, I had my own opinions, but I was particularly interested to know what my right-wing colleagues thought.

I had a feeling where they were going, and I was right:

“The last episode of Yellowstone was the natives dismantling the ranch, removing the Y and demolishing everything,” Jack Posobiec job on As they had always planned.

J.D. Sharp called the show “a 5-year psychological operation aimed at normalizing powerful white landowners forced to abandon their property.”

“What have we learned after 5 seasons of Yellowstone and multiple spin-offs? Sacrificing yourself to protect your family’s land is pointless and Christians are evil. » wrote Jeff Hunt.

There have been a lot more reactions like this from us, and to be honest, I completely understand the feeling. After all, a key tenet of leftism is the supposed return of land to so-called “indigenous peoples”, even though every inch of habitable land in the world has been conquered, purchased, reconquered and repurchased countless times over the course of the history of humanity. Yet the only people under pressure to reveal everything are, you guessed it, white people. The sensitivity on our part on this issue, especially regarding a series that in many other ways is decidedly the opposite of “woke”, is understandable.

But in this specific case, I tend to disagree. If you watch the prequels and the rest of the original series, you’ll notice a vein running throughout: love and appreciation of nature and the beauty of the earth. The Duttons, while undoubtedly wealthy from being the first to claim such a large tract of land in such a rich area, had only one goal in mind: to properly manage the land and prevent it from being ruined by development. (And if anyone were to make a visit to the “station” to achieve this goal, so be it!) It was a goal that was also shared by the neighboring Indians led by President Rainwater, and both Parties, although sometimes adversaries, often joined forces in the face of outside influences that sought to develop the land.

It turns out I’m not alone in this view. Conservative commentator Dana Loesch expressed similar sentiments and pupil a poignant final scene which would never have been retained if the director had been as woke as he is accused of being:

“The final episode of Yellowstone was great for people who actually watched it,” Loesch wrote. “The tribal elders and the Duttons realized they had been on the same side all along and Mo stood up for the family’s sacrifice for the land.”

Indeed, woke grave desecrators and statue destroyers would have cringed at a scene where one of the coolest, most likable Native American characters in television history absolutely berated a group of ignorant Native children for tearing down white people’s tombstones.

Yellowstone ended exactly as predicted in that earlier scene where the then Indian chief, after granting the land to ancestor Dutton, prophesied that it would be returned to the natives in seven generations. “In seven generations, you can have it,” replied James Dutton, played by Tim McGraw, wryly.

From start to finish, Yellowstone wasn’t about waking up. It was about cowboys and Indians and cattle and ranches and rodeos, but it was all about stewardship of the land and (most importantly) good people, for better or worse, trying to push back the wave of progress. And this was perfectly summed up by Elsa Dutton’s words from 1883 that hauntingly come to life today:

“Men can’t really own wild land, to own land you have to cover it with concrete, cover it with buildings, stack it with houses so thick that people can smell other people’s dinner. You have to rape it to sell it. Raw earth. Wild land. Free land can never be owned. But some men pay dearly for the privilege of its management. They will suffer and sacrifice to live with it and live with it, and hopefully teach the next generation to do the same. And if they fail, find another one willing to keep their promise.