Following the back half of Yellowstone‘s fifth and final season, which wrapped in 2024, the series continued to exceed expectations and blow our minds. In the episode “Three Fifty-Three,” a fight breaks out between lovers Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) and Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri), one that forces the latter to leave the adopted Dutton behind. But things go south quickly for Sarah when she is tracked down by the same people she hired to kill John Dutton (Kevin Costner), who, in turn, kills her while she’s on the phone with Jamie. Though Jamie cries, all we can think, looking back on the show now, is that Yellowstone was better off without her.
Sarah Atwood Was a Plague on ‘Yellowstone,’ and We’re Glad She’s Gone
Olivieri is a powerful actress because she, like Neal McDonough‘s Malcolm Beck before her, is one of those villains we just love to hate. Before she was cast in Yellowstone, Olivieri first played the equally horrible Claire Dutton in Taylor Sheridan‘s prequel series 1883. She must’ve made enough of an impression that Sheridan decided to bring her back to Yellowstone, where she has been playing Market Equities stooge, Sarah Atwood. Sarah first appears at the beginning of Season 5, and it isn’t long before she has Jamie wrapped around her finger. Seeing him as the next big step in her career, she only seeks to help him take down his father and claim the keys to the kingdom for himself (which really meant herself too). In fact, just about every non-Beth-related decision that Jamie makes this season is first inspired by Sarah, who has been playing him like a fiddle from the very beginning.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
Did Sarah really care about Jamie? It’s hard to say. She certainly enjoyed using him and had no problem manipulating him. As she mentions at the end of the episode, she’s the one who took all the risks to get John killed and Jamie one step closer to being governor himself. Turns out, the risks were too high. But we’re glad to see Sarah go, even if Olivieri killed the part. In many ways, Sarah was even worse than Beth (Kelly Reilly), and, as one of the most cunning villains on the show, she always knew how to pinpoint weakness in others. This is perhaps especially true of Jamie, whom she used consistently for her own ends.
‘Yellowstone’ Took Supporting Pieces Off the Board for a Duttons-Only Showdown
Frankly, it still feels as if Yellowstone was pushing all the other pieces off the board to pave the way for a pure Dutton showdown, especially to set up the Rip and Beth spin-off coming this summer. There was hardly anything from the ranch hands down south in “Three Fifty-Three,” and Rip (Cole Hauser) was barely highlighted at all. Summer Higgins’ (PiperPerabo) departure had already tied up another loose end, and Thomas Rainwater (GilBirmingham) was likewise kept at a distance as the series narrowed its focus. With Sarah Atwood’s demise — which, let’s be honest, she flat-out deserved — Yellowstone removed the only real barrier between Jamie and his siblings, and with Beth wanting him dead and Kayce (LukeGrimes) convinced he was lying, his future never looked promising.
Sarah may have been a powerful villain, but her hold over Jamie’s life was over — and without her, Market Equities never stood much of a chance. Looking back, whether Jamie would have become the assassins’ next target or finally exposed Sarah’s crimes mattered less than what “Three Fifty-Three” made clear: Yellowstone still knew how to weaponize shock and awe in its final stretch. Sarah’s death was sudden, brutal, and shocking, but it served a purpose. In retrospect, if the rest of Season 5 hit with that same force, the show was always headed for a wild finish.
