Why Yellowstone Fans Are Taking Another Look At This Character

Another season of Paramount Network's bracing neo-Western drama Yellowstone has come to an end, and if there's one thing the series' season 3 finale has taught us, it's that Taylor Sheridan and his team really enjoy breaking the brains of their fanbase with big-time cliffhangers. But even as Yellowstone's season 1 and 2 finales tested the mettle of series diehards, the panic-inducing final moments of season 3 likely still has them picking their jaws up from the floor.

Those shocking final moments found key members of the Dutton family at the mercy of hired assassins who were clearly interested in showing none, and via a combination of mail bombs and firearms, the fates of some of Yellowstone's most important people were left very much in the air. 

As Yellowstone fandom continues to wring their hands over which of the Duttons will live to fight another day, the question of who ordered the executions to begin with looms every bit as large, because payback will almost certainly be the order of they day for Team Dutton in the upcoming fourth season of Yellowstone.

You can be certain Cole Hauser's Rip Wheeler will be front and center for the bloody action to come since his beloved Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) was one of the targets, with many Yellowstone devotees presuming Wes Bentley's Jamie Dutton will be one of the many incurring Rip's wrath. As a few savvy viewers have already pointed out since season's end, however, there's another nefarious player on the Yellowstone chessboard who may well have engineered that finale bloodbath; one who's made it clear she'll stop at nothing to help her people reclaim their land from the clutches of the Duttons.    

That player is Angela Blue Thunder (Q'orianka Kilcher), who turned up in Yellowstone's third season as a legal consultant hired by Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) to help protect the Broken Rock Reservation from the land-grabbing Market Watch conglomerate.

Yes, the Market Watch goon squad also has their sights set on the Dutton's sprawling Yellowstone ranching lands. And yes, they (along with their partner Jamie, who was suspiciously not attacked in that finale) are also prime suspects in the Dutton attacks. According to Yellowstone fandom, however, they're also the most obvious of potential villains. As such, those fans are also apt to point out Jamie does not inherit the Dutton Ranch in John Dutton's will, so that crew didn't have much to gain by trying to kill their way into the mix.

Angela Blue Thunder, on the other hand, was quick to see Rainwater's tenuous partnership with John Dutton would likely absolve the Broken Rock bunch from suspicion. Given her memorably ominous statement that "Winners are never judged by how," and her clear desire for Rainwater to take the fight to the Duttons, it's clear she's willing to get her hands dirty in service of reclaiming the Dutton's land for her people.

Blue Thunder also spent much of the season endearing herself to Kayce Dutton's wife Monica (Kelsey Abille), and it's certainly no coincidence that Kayce is set to inherit the Dutton Ranch after John's death. That, of course, means Monica inherits if Kayce is also out of the picture.

As it is, Yellowstone fandom is currently taking a long, hard look at Angela Blue Thunder as the probable orchestrator of the assassination attempts. Should that be true, it'll be fascinating to see how she continues to spin that bloody web of deceit in season 4.