Yellowstone Season 3 Quietly Spoiled John’s Fate With a Throwaway Scene That Most Fans Didn’t Pay Attention To

If there’s one thing that Taylor Sheridan does well, it’s planting seeds and foreshadowing, and Yellowstone is lush with both. Sheridan has a way of making moments that seem like throwaways at first glance hold way more weight, especially upon a rewatch. What makes these moments even more unique is that most of them involve Kevin Costner’s character, John Dutton, who is more of Yellowstone‘s prophet than the series’ main character, despite what fans might think. It is through John Dutton’s lines that Sheridan foreshadows much of his story.

One such moment occurs at the beginning of Yellowstone Season 3, and while it may not typically be remembered as a pivotal moment, it hides one of the most prophetic scenes in plain sight, disguised as a conversation about dreams between grandfather and grandson. After being rescued from his kidnapping, Tate suffers from nightmares and is unable to properly sleep. Monica asks John to take Tate with him into nature, because there’s no better medicine than sleeping under the stars. It is there that John and Tate share a moment about dreams, and John prophesies something crucial to his arc.

The Dream Scene Fans Overlooked in Yellowstone Season 3, Episode 1

John’s Dream Wasn’t Just a Dream — It Was a Warning

While Tate and John sit by the fire and snack on bread, a wolf howls in the distance, triggering Tate. John calms him and tells Tate that his father is standing guard, and that Kayce would never let anything happen to them. It’s at this moment that Tate opens up and shares with John that he has terrible dreams that keep recurring. In the dream, Tate says he’s in that room he was in when he was kidnapped, then the floor just disappears and Tate falls, and keeps falling. He screams, but no sound goes out. No one hears him, and no one comes to help him.

This is quite a traumatic nightmare for a boy his age to keep having, and the Dutton family has always had enemies coming after them, which doesn’t make it easier for John to say or promise that something like that won’t ever happen again. Yet, John does what he can to soothe his grandson’s worries by telling him that dreams are a mix of your memories and your imagination, a soup of what’s real and what’s made up. He reminds Tate that he can always change the ingredients.

But the thing about this soup is: you can change the ingredients, Tate. You can put in whatever you want to. Any memory, any fantasy.

— John Dutton, Yellowstone, Season 3, Episode 1, “You’re the Indian Now”

Tate then asks John if he’s ever had a nightmare. John says he has this one nightmare where he’s driving down the road and there are people pulled over. He pulls over to help, but they don’t want help. They want something else. Tate asks him what they want, and John looks away into the fire with a look of despair on his face, then tells Tate that it doesn’t matter. Sheridan, with a few lines of dialogue, delivers one of John Dutton’s most prophetic moments. Most fans would have simply brushed it off as a compassionate moment between a grandfather and his grandson.

On first viewing, however, that’s all it’s meant to feel like. The scene doesn’t feel entirely foreboding. The campfire washes warmth over both John and Tate, who are both sitting next to each other: grandfather with his arm around his grandson. It’s only in certain close-ups of John’s face towards the end of the sequence that viewers get a very subtle hint of John feeling off about his dream. That and Tate telling John that John’s dream wouldn’t come true because he changed the ingredients.

John Dutton’s Dream Foreshadowed His Violent Ambush

Yellowstone’s Season 3 Finale Delivered on the Threat John Already Sensed

To this day, Yellowstone‘s Season 3 finale is still the most devastating and suspenseful of the entire series. In it, a hit against the entire Dutton family is initiated (it fully plays out in the Season 4 premiere), and many lives hang in the balance. Beth’s assistant opens a box that explodes. Kayce is attacked in his office, and John’s dream becomes a reality. While driving back home after meeting with Jamie and the governor, John notices a mother and her son stranded on the side of the road. Their car is not working, so he naturally stops to help them.

The sequence already plays out like the first moments of John’s dream. As he continues to help them and remind them that kindness still exists in the world, a black van pulls up. John waves them away and tells them he’s handled the situation. The driver of the van then asks him if he’s John Dutton, to which John replies, yes. Suddenly, the van’s back doors burst open, and a man aims what looks like an AK-47 at John and fires. The man doesn’t stop there but also guns down the poor woman as well.

Man: Hey, you’re John Dutton, aren’t you?

Johhn: Yep.

While the latter half of the sequence diverts a little from John’s dream, one can’t deny how close the entire situation is and how much it mirrors John’s self-prophecy. John Dutton lays his back onto the wheel of his truck and holds his bleeding chest as he closes his eyes. If fans were paying attention at the beginning of the season, John stopping to help the stranded mother and her son should have signaled all the red flags. This is the power of Sheridan’s writing style and how he masterfully threads his story.

In many ways, this moment ignited the war between John and Jamie as lines were drawn in the sand and Jamie embraced his darkness. This was the beginning of the end of John being in control as well. What follows these events in Season 4, is Beth also coming into her own and realizing that she’s the only one who is going to properly be able to save the land. Despite changing some of the ingredients, John’s prophetic dream still came true in the most tragic way possible.

The scene between John and Tate is the kind of scene that deserves more credit when analyzing long-form television and is really what makes someone like Taylor Sheridan such a great writer. On a rewatch, Yellowstone is lush with these kinds of prophetic moments, which Sheridan masterfully ties into the overarching story. A simple scene between a grandfather and his grandson became a much more pivotal thematic statement about legacy, mortality, and the future of the Duttons.

If there’s one thing that Taylor Sheridan does well, it’s planting seeds and foreshadowing, and Yellowstone is lush with both. Sheridan has a way of making moments that seem like throwaways at first glance hold way more weight, especially upon a rewatch. What makes these moments even more unique is that most of them involve Kevin Costner’s…