There are hiatuses and then there are hiatuses, and the protracted, nearly two-year-long mid-season break for Yellowstone‘s fifth season has certainly earned the italics. The mega-hit Western last aired a new episode in January 2023, but all that is about to change as the show makes its triumphant return on Sunday, November 10.

Of course, one of the tricky things about having such a long interval between episodes is that it can make it particularly hard to keep up with all of the show’s complex plotlines and the individual machinations of its sprawling cast of characters. So, if you haven’t got time for a full rewatch of the first half of season 5 before the second half kicks off, or if you simply need a quick brush-up on all the action, here’s where things left off, and the major plot points to keep an eye out for in the show’s potentially final season.

John’s political career

Ranch owner and Dutton family patriarch John (Kevin Costner) continued his lifelong quest to protect his land in the first half of season five by reluctantly taking on the mantle of Governor of Montana. He immediately cut funding for a previously approved international airport, quashing plans to build up the area as a luxury tourism destination. While that move safeguarded the segments of the ranch’s land that would have been used for development, it also added to John’s ever-growing list of enemies; most notable among them, Market Equities, the firm behind the airport plan.

The company swiftly dispatched the enigmatic cutthroat Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) to deal the with problem. Sarah seduced her way into the good graces of Jamie (Wes Bentley), the black sheep of the Dutton family, who had been installed by his father as state attorney general, despite John’s misgivings about Jamie’s trustworthiness. It was an instinct that John probably should have listened to, as, by the season finale, Jamie had called for an impeachment tribunal against John for “robbing” the state by suppressing the tourism plans while protecting his own holdings.

As of the season finale, the tribunal was not yet officially underway, and with Costner having exited the series during the hiatus, it’s anyone’s guess how John’s plotlines will conclude in the coming season.

Beth and Jamie’s showdown

The news of Jamie’s betrayal incensed Beth (Kelly Reilly), his sister and the sole Dutton daughter, who lashed out in her father’s defense, demanding Jamie’s resignation. Having spent much of the season holding the threat of exposing Jamie’s murder of his own biological father over Jamie’s head, Beth found herself in a stalemate when Jamie pointed out that revealing his secret would also reveal all of the people who have been killed by the Dutton ranch over the years, since Jamie dumped the body at “the train station”—the same no-jurisdiction stretch of land where John and his ranch hands (including Beths husband, Rip) dump bodies of the ranch’s enemies.

Despite being more than willing to get her hands dirty, this was evidently the first that Beth’s first time hearing where the bodies are (quite literally) buried, and after a confrontation with John, she suggested that maybe the best solution was to get Jamie his very own ticket to the train station. John appeared to contemplate the idea, but he didn’t respond on screen, leaving the question of whether the father—who has long stood between Beth and her years-long pursuit to ruin Jamie’s life—was willing to make a permanent decision about Jamie still up in the air.

While John was debating, though, Jamie was more certain—saying that Beth would probably try to have him killed, he approached Sarah about some “professionals” who could have Beth taken out first.

Kayce and Monica have some choices to make

Early in season 5, the youngest Dutton son Kayce (Luke Grimes) and his wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille) suffered a major tragedy when their unborn son was killed during a car crash. While the couple tried to move on along with their surviving son Tate (Brecken Merrill) they both struggled with the emotional and psychological toll, especially considering how fraught their relationships have historically been with the other Duttons.

Kayce admitted he was worried about a vision he had seen during his season 4 vision quest that made him believe he’d have to choose between Monica and the ranch. At the end of the season, they discussed the possibility to moving into another house that John has offered them, as a way for them to have something of their own.

A cattledrive to Texas

An outbreak of disease among the Yellowstone’s cattle forced the ranchers to decide to move a portion of their herd at the end of season 5A to Texas’s 6666 ranch—where fan favorite character Jimmy (Jefferson White) now lives. With so many of their own cattle involved, John chose Rip to lead a group of Yellowstone ranch hands to monitor things.

The crew set out for the South in the season finale, however, though the operation seemed likely to last months or even a year, in the trailer for season 5B it appeared that Rip was back in Montana, suggesting there may have been a change in plans.

Trouble on the reservation

Over the course of the series, Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), the chief of the local reservation, has been both an ally and an antagonist to the Duttons, but in the first half of season five he had plenty of his own problems to keep him busy. Angela Blue Thunder (Q’orianka Kilcher), a consultant who had previously worked with him had begun promoting a popular, younger challenger to Rainwater’s leadership, forcing him to scrabble for political power.

In the midst of it all, the news also came down that the US government was planning to run two major pipelines through reservation land, damaging and potentially polluting the tribal home. Knowing that defeating the pipeline plan might be enough to save his position, Rainwater set about trying to use the situation to his advantage, but his press conference about the issue was interrupted when news broke about John’s impeachment tribunal.