The Yellowstone franchise is far from over, even after the satisfying conclusion of Taylor Sheridan’s flagship series. Kevin Costner’s early exit from the neo-Western drama encouraged writers to shorten their plans, ending the series with its fifth season rather than its sixth. However, the Dutton saga continues in several prequels, including the final season of 1923 and its immediate successor, 1944, while other spinoffs take the franchise into the future, including two series following Beth and Kayce Dutton, respectively.

While audiences are excited to see what becomes of the most iconic characters in the franchise, they can’t afford to forget about the characters introduced earlier in the series, including some who are long gone. Danny Huston’s Dan Jenkins is one of the most underrated Yellowstone characters. The main antagonist of the show’s first batch of episodes, Jenkins has a surprising arc that ends brutally by the finale of Season 2. What happens to Danny Huston’s Yellowstone character and why did the actor leave the show?

Beth Dutton ponders her next move on the porch of her father’s house with a shotgun on her lap in Yellowstone.
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Dan Jenkins Was a Major Villain in Yellowstone
Dan Jenkins Wanted the Dutton Ranch
Danny Huston stars as Dan Jenkins in YellowstoneImage via Paramount

Dan Jenkins was a major antagonist in the first two seasons of Yellowstone. A land developer working in the Bozeman branch of Paradise Valley, a shady company buying up land in rural Montana, Jenkins set his sights on the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch early in the events of the series. Jenkins and his company saw the Yellowstone Ranch as the perfect location for their next building project, a massive casino that would bring the state of Montana near-endless revenue in tourism. This, however, led him into direct conflict with John Dutton, the owner and proprietor of the ranch, who had sworn long ago not to sell even a single inch. John recalls his children Beth and Kayce back to the ranch to help defeat Jenkins and his team, leading to a brutal battle for the land. Jenkins consistently found himself outmaneuvered by the Duttons, who nearly killed him on multiple occasions (including one infamous moment when Kayce left him to hang in the middle of the woods). Jenkins managed to escape the first season of Yellowstone with his life, though he was utterly defeated in his quest to conquer the Duttons’ land.

Yellowstone Cast & Character Guide

Character

Played By

John Dutton III

Kevin Costner

Beth Dutton

Kelly Reilly

Rip Wheeler

Cole Hauser

Kayce Dutton

Luke Grimes

Monica Long-Dutton

Kelsey Asbille

Jamie Dutton

Wes Bentley

Thomas Rainwater

Gil Birmingham

Dan Jenkins

Danny Huston

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After his defeat in Season 1, Dan Jenkins returned in the following season, though not in the way that most fans would have expected. After the Beck brothers came to town, it soon became clear that no one was safe from their irreverent and brutal tactics. Though their main target was the Dutton family, everyone in Bozeman knew that it was only a matter of time before they fell into the brothers’ sights. In one of Yellowstone’s most shocking moments, John Dutton reaches out to two of his most bitter enemies: Thomas Rainwater and Dan Jenkins. The three former enemies team up to defeat the Beck brothers, concocting an elaborate plan to put an end to their violence once and for all. In a strange twist of fate, Jenkins became a surprising ally to the Duttons in his final episodes of Yellowstone. Unfortunately for him, the plan didn’t go quite as he expected.

Donald Whitfield from 1923 with Rip from Yellowstone
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What Happened to Dan Jenkins in Yellowstone?
Jenkins Met a Bitter Fate in Yellowstone
Danny Huston stars as Dan Jenkins in YellowstoneImage via Paramount

After teaming up with Thomas Rainwater and John Dutton in the final episodes of Yellowstone Season 2, Dan Jenkins vows to help defeat the Beck brothers, no matter the cost. Unfortunately for him, that cost was his life. In the season finale, Jenkins is attacked in his home by a group of mercenaries hired by the Beck brothers. After dispatching his bodyguard outside, the mercenaries made their way into the house, where they exchanged rounds of fire with the terrified businessman. Jenkins puts up a surprisingly good fight for a non-fighter, killing two hitmen before being critically injured by an unseen third assailant waiting for him on his back porch. The final mercenary shoots Dan Jenkins twice in the chest, leaving him to bleed out on his own back porch.

The Yellowstone Franchise

Series

Years

IMDb Rating

Rotten Tomatoes Score

Streaming

Yellowstone

2018-2024

8.7/10

84%

Peacock

1883

2021-2022

8.7/10

89%

Paramount+

1923

2022-2025

8.3/10

95%

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As he realized that he had become just another casualty of the Dutton family drama, Dan Jenkins uttered memorable last words, seemingly dissociating from reality: “I have every right to be here. I have every right. I have a right. This is America.” These final words echo his plight against the Duttons, who always argued that a city man like Jenkins had no right to come to rural Montana seeking to urbanize its land. Unable to come to terms with his own grisly fate, Jenkins mutters what has been running through his mind for months, hoping that somehow his unfair demise might be reversed. Yet, as Dan Jenkins learns the hard way, even the American Dream can’t stop a bullet–and no amount of money can fix these wounds.

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Why Did Danny Huston Leave Yellowstone?
Huston Never Returned to Yellowstone After Season 2
Danny Huston stars as Dan Jenkins in YellowstoneImage via Paramount
Dan Jenkins never appears on the series again after his death in Yellowstone Season 2. The character quickly fades out of thought and memory as the series moves on to other storylines. Danny Huston, who played Jenkins, has never publically come out to explain his reason for departing the series, which suggests that his character’s death was more likely a creative decision planned early on. Dan Jenkins was the first major villain in Yellowstone’s five-season run and, by most accounts, one of the least imposing. Compared to other Yellowstone villains, Jenkins was rather tame. Though he was by no means a good man, he wasn’t particularly evil either, making him more a rival to the Duttons than an outright supervillain. Therefore, it made sense for Taylor Sheridan to kill Jenkins off to make room for bigger and better villains who would take his place.

Upcoming Yellowstone Spinoffs

Untitled Rip & Beth Spinoff

1944

The Madison

Untitled Kayce Spinoff

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Even though he died only two seasons into the series, Dan Jenkins’s arc lasted much longer than most Yellowstone fans would have expected. As the main antagonist of Season 1 who is defeated in the finale, Jenkins could have easily disappeared into the woodwork, never to be seen again. Instead, Sheridan and his team chose a more interesting option, bringing Jenkins back as a tentative ally to the Duttons. This gave the character a much more compelling arc, even if it ended in his brutal murder. Though some may have been disappointed that Jenkins would never return for his revenge against the Duttons, he gets a far better storyline than most other major antagonists in the television world.

Yellowstone’s first major antagonist met a grisly fate at the end of Season 2. By the time of his death, however, Dan Jenkins was hardly an enemy of the Duttons at all. Instead, he ended his arc on the neo-Western series as a surprising ally to the Dutton family, making him far more interesting than he ever was as a run-of-the-mill antagonist.