As Beth tells her father at his funeral, “You made me promise not to sell an inch, and I hope you understand that this is me keeping it. There may not be cows on it, but there won’t be condos either. We won.”
And in a poignant final scene, the Broken Rock Tribe move onto the land, dismantling the family ranch. But when children begin toppling the headstone of Dutton family ancestors buried on the property, Mo (Mo Brings Plenty) stops them, telling them the area will always be hallowed land.
It’s then that viewers hear the voice of 1883’s Elsa Dutton (Isabel May), tying the entire franchise together.
“One-hundred-and-forty years ago, my father was told of this valley and here’s were we stayed, for seven generations,” she says. “My father was told they would come for this land, and he promised to return it. Nowhere was that promise written. It faded with my father’s death, but somehow lived in the spirit of this place. Men cannot truly own wild land.”
But what exactly becomes of Beth and Kayce? Kayce, finally relieved of the burden of his father’s beloved ranch, builds a new life ranching on his own terms with his wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille) and son Tate (Brecken Merrill).