Yellowstone’s Dutton family tree, explained

Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923 spoilers follow.

The situation outside the Yellowstone universe may be in flux, with the second half of season five embroiled in a contract dispute between the show’s star Kevin Costner and creator Taylor Sheridan and now delayed by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. But the situation within the show can be equally as tricky to unpick.

The Dutton family is just as sprawling and complex as the mammoth Montana ranch they preside over in the Paramount+ show. With two spin-offs already underway and more seasons in the pipeline, it doesn’t look like the family tree will be tapering off in the immediate future.

What we’ve seen so far of the fifth season has proved to be the show’s most successful outing yet — bringing in over 12 million viewers when it returned in November last year — and as the episodes are now re-airing on cable TV in the US, Yellowstone could see a new wave of fans flock to the ranch just as it reaches its finale.

The show’s humble origins in 2018 saw Costner arrive as the central patriarch, John Dutton, surrounded by his warring immediate family. Since then, Sheridan has hauled the story every which way to flesh out the family tree around John, introducing elder Duttons first with 1883 and then with 1923.

So, while we wait for another batch of season five episodes promising another healthy heap of family drama, here is a clear-cut breakdown of our central, slightly dysfunctional Dutton family.

1883 generation

Years into Yellowstone‘s Paramount+ run, the streamer debuted the prequel 1883, throwing the Western series back to that year and introducing us to the wayfaring couple James (Tim McGraw) and Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill).

The limited series unspools the story of how the family came to settle at the flagship Yellowstone ranch after a treacherous journey through the Great Plains. The couple tragically lost their daughter Elsa (Isabel May) along the way, but she later narrates the following spin-off 1923 from beyond the grave.

After the deaths of James and Margaret — broken to us via that narration from Elsa — we move 40 years on to the events of 1923.

1923 generation

James’s brother Jacob Dutton (Harrison Ford) and his wife Cara Dutton (Helen Mirren) then take on the Yellowstone ranch and set about transforming the land into the empire it will soon become.

The lives of the second generation of Duttons don’t prove to be any easier. The opening flashforward scene of 1883 sets up Elsa’s sudden death on the Oregon Trail, and what follows is little more than an exercise in picking off her surviving family members.

“Upon my father’s death, my mother wrote to his brother, begging that he bring his family to this wild land and save hers,” Elsa’s 1923 voiceover explains. “A year later, he arrived to find my mother frozen in a snow drift, her two boys half-starved and barely able to speak.

“He raised them as his own and took my father’s dream and made it into an empire. Then the empire crumbled.”

It’s captivating stuff to kick off the second prequel series of the Western drama.

John Senior (James Badge Daly) was quickly despatched after being gunned down in classic Western fashion, leaving the family’s future in the hands of Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) as Jacob suffers from declining health. The first season of 1923 ended on a major cliffhanger — we’re still awaiting the outcome — after Spencer was separated from his newlywed wife Alex Dutton (Julia Schlaepfer).

Generation Three

With the third generation of the Dutton family comes another major unanswered question: Who’s the grandfather of Costner’s central character John?

Some believe it’s Spencer, while others have pushed John Sr’s son Jack Dutton (Darren Mann) as a possibility. Later episodes of 1923 saw Jack’s wife Liz (Michelle Randolph) suffer a miscarriage, leaving Jack resigned to the possibility they may not be able to have children.

With another season on the way, it seems 1923 is setting up Jack for big things when the show eventually returns.

Generation Four

We first meet the big man’s father, John Dutton Junior (Dabney Coleman), during a flashback in the second season of Yellowstone, teasing the mystery of John’s lineage.

We still haven’t met his wife, and we don’t know much about John Dutton Jr, but he died with his gaze cast out over his vast ranch lands and passed Yellowstone onto his son.

Generation Five

This is where everything Yellowstone began, with our central Montana rancher John Dutton (Kevin Costner). We’ve come a long way from the early heartbreak after the death of his young wife Evelyn (Gretchen Mol) and the sudden murder of his oldest Lee (Dave Annable) in the opening episodes of the show.

As Costner prepares to bow out of the show, his character’s fate remains to be seen. But as of the current fifth season, John has managed to reinvent himself as a politician to be reckoned with.

We also know that John had two brothers, Chance and Peter, both of whom died before the events of the Paramount+ show. Peter died hours after childbirth, but we’ve seen Chance’s gravestone — without any dates on it — so he could be another Dutton of this generation we could meet in the future, either in a flashback or in another instalment of the prequel.

Generation Six

While we initially started with a Succession-style tussle for inheritance, amid John’s declining health, the question of who will be next in line to helm the Yellowstone ranch has largely been cleared up — as have John’s health issues, for now at least.

The bigger question has morphed into how the Dutton family will cling to their ranch amid the changing times while maintaining peace among the various family tree offshoots.

Kayce (Luke Grimes) appears to be the chosen one and even has an heir apparent in the form of his little one Tate (Brecken Merrill), who he shares with his wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille). He also has the apparent backing of his late brother Lee, who appeared as a ghostly vision in the fourth season to help guide Kayce through a troubled period.

But given this is Yellowstone and the Dutton family we’re contending with, it won’t be plain sailing. There’s still the looming spectre of adopted son Jamie (Wes Bentley), and with the back half of season five to go, he could be the one to throw a spanner in the works and lay a claim to the ranch.

There’s also Jamie’s heated sibling rivalry with Beth (Kelly Reilly), whom he had sterilised without her consent, blocking any route to her succession claim and flaming a war between the now estranged pair.

Beth has both John and her husband Rip (Cole Hauser) on her side, but a scheming Jamie can never be underestimated, so we’ll have to wait and see who comes out on top.

The only other question we’re left with is where in this sprawling lineage Matthew McConaughey’s character will fit in for his upcoming spin-off.

Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923 are available to stream on Paramount+.