The driving force behind the latest season of Yellowstone is finding out who ordered the attempted assassination of the Dutton family, and in the latest episode, “Winning or Learning”, a major development was made in that regard. The chief suspect is now Jamie’s biological father, Garrett Randall, which puts him in an awkward situation. The big dramatic question now becomes whether he will turn against the Duttons and embrace his true lineage, or whether he will remain true to the people who raised him. But who is Garrett Randall, what does he want from Jamie, and how is he intending to get it?
Yellowstone Season 4: Who is Garrett Randall?
Garrett was introduced in Yellowstone’s third season as Jamie’s biological father, but it turns out John kept them apart for good reason – Garrett killed Jamie’s mother, and has spent many years in prison for the crime. Thanks largely to Beth’s all-consuming hatred of Jamie and her ongoing attempts to turn the rest of the family against him, Jamie was compelled to track down his biological father. After having spent so long feeling as though he didn’t belong, Garrett was just what Jamie needed, and he bought his excuses wholesale.
Those excuses, by the way, were that Garrett killed Jamie’s mother because she was a negligent drug addict who was cheating on him while he was working to provide for the family – that’s the “it was really her fault” starter pack, and the idea of Garrett being a manipulator isn’t exactly disproved by his reliance on cliché here. Nevertheless, Jamie likes the idea of his real father being a quiet hero, and the two begin to bond.
Thus far in the fourth season, we haven’t seen much of the pair of them, but we do know that Jamie has bought a substantial parcel of land and they’re both living on it in blissful father-son harmony, which is sure to pose a problem given recent developments.
Did Garrett order the hit on the Duttons?
After Chief Rainwater gave John a file suggesting that a long-time prisoner at Deer Lodge has orchestrated the attacks on the family, the Dutton patriarch suspected that the person pulling Riggins’ strings was the one they really had to worry about. So, John passed the file on to Kayce and instructed him to leverage Jamie’s connections to find out more about Riggins. If Jamie refused, it would be seen as an admission of guilt, and suggest that he was the one to arrange the attacks.
However, Jamie was more than willing to play ball. But that turned out to be a problem. At the end of “Winning or Learning”, Jamie was delivered Riggins’ file from the Bureau of Prisons and learned that Garrett was one of Riggins’ former cellmates. Yikes.
While this isn’t exactly smoking-gun proof that Garrett was behind the attacks, it does put him in uncomfortably close proximity. And Garrett has plenty of motive. John Dutton has raised his son, and a former felon who has spent most of his life in prison is likely to covet the expansive privilege of the Yellowstone. Garrett had every reason to arrange the hit.
The question is, could he? Getting someone like Riggins to arrange attacks on the most powerful family in the state presumably doesn’t come cheap, and Garrett is pretty explicitly broke. He has the connections to have arranged everything, but not the capital. So, if he’s guilty, what was he bargaining with? One assumes he’s playing a long game. He suspected he would be able to manipulate Jamie and get his son to throw around substantial resources that Garrett would eventually be able to use to pay his debt to Riggins – such as the new ranch they’re both living on.
With Jamie now aware of the connection, he has some decisions to make. And none of them are going to be easy.
