The events of Yellowstone season 5, part 2 had disappointing elements, primarily due to John’s death, but the Broken Rock Tribe’s win was a triumph.
By selling the land back to the ancestors of its Indigenous stewards, Kayce Dutton fulfilled Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prophecy from 1883, in which John’s ancestor, James Dutton (Tim McGraw), promised Spotted Eagle (Graham Greene) that the Dutton family tree would return the land to the Crow people in seven generations.
Still, we don’t get the complete picture of what this triumph means for Rainwater, since Yellowstone never follows up on Thomas’ backstory from season 1.
Yellowstone Never Explains Thomas Rainwater’s Backstory
Yellowstone Season 1 Tells Some Of Rainwater’s Origin
In Yellowstone season 1, we witness pivotal moments for Thomas Rainwater. In Yellowstone’s series premiere, Thomas Rainwater becomes the tribal chairman of the Broken Rock Tribe, taking on the honor and the challenge of restoring well-being to his people.
While his mission is misunderstood by his people throughout Yellowstone, Thomas knows that the best thing he can do for them is restore their ownership of the land, thereby restoring their way of life. We learn a bit about Rainwater’s background in the pilot, which helps to inform his goals, but our understanding could be even more robust.
When becoming chairman of the Broken Rock Tribe, Thomas tells a visiting Montana senator that he didn’t grow up on the reservation.
Contrasting the scene, as Thomas is adorned in traditional regalia, Rainwater tells the lawmaker that he thought he was Mexican until he was 18 years old, only learning that he was Native American after his adoption records were unsealed in adulthood.
Yellowstone season 1 gives us one more tidbit in Thomas Rainwater’s threat to John Dutton, with the chairman saying he studied at Harvard and worked in acquisitions and mergers at Merrill Lynch.
Taylor Sheridan Can Still Tell More Of Thomas Rainwater’s Story
Yellowstone’s Story Is Continuing Robustly After The Original Series Ended
While we didn’t get to learn more about Thomas Rainwater’s backstory in Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan could be saving more developments for his upcoming Yellowstone spinoffs.
After Yellowstone season 5’s finale, the story will continue for Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) in a Yellowstone offshoot on Paramount+, and Kayce’s story will continue in a procedural series for CBS, tentatively titled Y: Marshals.
Thomas could emerge in an upcoming spinoff series, and we could thereby learn more about the tribal leader. His appearance in Kayce’s series is promising, considering the bond he and John’s son formed in Yellowstone.
Thomas is presumably connected to 1923’s Teonna Rainwater.
