Dutton Ranch Finale Ends In Murder, But One Star Maintains His Innocence: 'We Didn't See Him Do It'

"Dutton Ranch" star Juan Pablo Raba told TVLine that Joaquin's phone call to his father would bring heartbreak and devastation to everyone in the "Yellowstone" spin-off's first season finale — and now that we've seen it, we actually think he was putting things mildly.

We'll get to the rest of the episode in a minute, but first, we'll begin with the question on every viewer's mind right now: who shot (and killed!) Rob-Will? The fateful moment occurs at the end of the finale, with Oreana rushing to the Jacksons' front door after hearing a gunshot, only to discover her father bleeding out on the entryway floor. (We should have known this was going to happen the minute Rob-Will and Oreana finally had a heart-to-heart talk just a few minutes earlier.)

Many viewers will assume that Joaquin pulled the trigger, especially since his father orders him to kill Rob-Will earlier in the episode. But as Raba reminds us, we didn't actually see the murder take place, meaning Joaquin may be innocent after all.

"When I first read it, I was like, 'Oh my God, how is this going to play out?' But as I flip through the pages, I don't see an actual scene where Joaquin kills him," Raba tells TVLine. "You see Joaquin in a car with a gun, and a lot of doubt and heartbreak. He's not getting pumped to do something that he's never done before. All we see is Joaquin in his car giving some hard thought to something. And then we see him later, in the same car with the same gun... but did he do it?"

Though Raba insists he doesn't know how things will play out in "Dutton Ranch" Season 2, he theorizes that Mariano probably had a "back-up plan" in place, just in case Joaquin chickened out and couldn't kill Rob-Will. "If you're Mariano, and you're saying [demeaning things] about your son, and then you tell him to go kill his brother, wouldn't you also send someone to make sure things have been done?" he asks. "I'm just saying!"

In fact, Raba suggests that whoever committed this fatal act is clearly someone who has done this before. "There was no climax, no discussion," Raba points out. "This guy literally just opened the door and somebody shot [Rob-Will]. That's a stone-cold killer if you ask me. Now, is Joaquin capable of doing that? Maybe the heartbreak [of losing the 10-Petal] was too much for him to handle, but I have no idea."

Raba originally wished we had seen a "dramatic, powerful" confrontation between Joaquin and Rob-Will, but he has since changed his mind about how the shocking moment unfolds. "You can always have the killer revealed, maybe in a flashback, if you need to in the future, but it was much better to leave the possibilities open for a storyline in the second season," he has decided.

Now let's back up a bit: The episode begins with a tense showdown between Rip and Rob-Will at the 10-Petal, where Team Dutton is investigating the ranch's illegal cattle smuggling operation. Rob-Will tries to fire Rip and his "b***h" Beth on the spot, but Rip doesn't answer to trash — a lesson he teaches Rob-Will by beating him to a bloody pulp without even having to take off his sunglasses. And what do you know, Everett finds roughly $2 million worth of fentanyl stuffed inside the cattle, proof of the 10-Petal's involvement with the cartel.

Naturally, Everett confronts Beulah about her illegal activities, demanding the whole truth from his on-again lover. Her story begins the night she was sexually assaulted, resulting in her pregnancy with Rob-Will. After Beulah shot her baby daddy dead, Beulah's father arranged for Mariano to take the fall and disappear to Mexico, only something happened at the border that resulted in the death of Joaquin's mother. Everett doesn't technically ask Beulah for any of this information, but hey, context is context.

As for the drug smuggling, Beulah reveals that the 10-Petal Ranch has been running fentanyl from Mexico for 15 years, an operation Joaquin set up by reaching out to his father during a particularly rough patch for the ranch.

"The thing is, he had to do it," Raba tells TVLine of Joaquin's initial deal with Mariano. "The ranch was going through a really hard time because of the drought, and they were about to lose everything, so Joaquin came up with probably the only way out. And he may have done that in the past, but I'm pretty sure that now he probably would have found another way. Calling his father in any situation is the last, most horrible resource that he has."

Furious with Beulah for keeping this a secret, even if it is in the name of "protecting" him, Everett kicks her to the curb.

Now let's talk about Mariano, whom we meet, interestingly enough, in the middle of a christening, where he publicly denounces Satan and all his many temptations. (Sure, Jan.) His next destination is Rio Paloma, where he meets Joaquin at a seedy motel for an update on the situation with Rob-Will.

"The scale of this show is massive, so [director Christina Alexandra Voros] decided that these scenes had to be very small," Juan Pablo Raba tells TVLine of Joaquin and Mariano's motel rendezvous. "We shot in a dodgy, dingy, horrible motel. They had to clean it because they had so many roaches. But we needed that atmosphere. Suddenly you go from this huge ranch to this little room. It felt asphyxiating, very tight."

Once he's brought up to speed, Mariano surprises Beulah at the 10-Petal, demanding that she publicly re-announce Joaquin as her successor and "send the strangers packing." Beulah then visits those "strangers" at the Dutton Ranch, where she's met by the end of Beth's shotgun. She clumsily attempts to explain herself, but neither Beth nor Rip feel like listening; they give her back the missing drugs and tell her to get lost.

Mariano sends a handful of his goons to kill Beth and Rip, but their makeshift militia (nice shooting, Everett!) is able to fend them off, with only Azul taking a non-fatal hit in the process. Mariano also lectures Joaquin on his lack of initiative... before ordering him to kill Rob-Will.

"I think Mariano is just being a d**k, to be honest, Raba says. "Joaquin has done everything right. He was left alone with a family that wasn't his, and he chose to do the right thing. He didn't want to be a drug lord, so he decided to study and graduate from A&M. Mariano just said all of that about Joaquin being on the sidelines, and I'm just wondering, "Dude, I did what I was supposed to do. Why are you telling me this?"

As if all of the above wasn't enough, Oreana discovers that she's — wait for it — pregnant! False positive test results are always possible, but as far as she knows, she's carrying the next generation of Jackson in her womb.

Is it Carter's baby, you ask? We can't say for sure, as Oreana is a bit of a wild card in the romance department, but the fact that she immediately visits Carter at Dwight's old house seems to imply that he is the father-to-be. And the fact that she asks Carter for a soda, rather than an alcoholic beverage, suggests that she might actually have a maternal bone in her body, last name be darned.

Still looking to get some distance from Beth and Rip, Carter agrees to run away with Oreana. The destination is unimportant (and undecided), as long as it's miles away from Rio Paloma. Unfortunately, their little escape will have to wait, and not just because Oreana has a funeral to plan for her father.

The finale ends with Mariano calling Beth to inform her that he and his men have taken Carter hostage. "They don't want Carter, they want us," Rip tells his wife, to which she boldly declares, "Then they're going to f***ing get us!"

And just like that, the first season of "Dutton Ranch" has come to an end. But who do you think shot Rob-Will? And is Oreana's baby really Carter's? Grade the finale and overall season in our polls below, then drop a comment with your hopes for the show's return.