Yellowstone Season 5 Episode 12’s shocking death is even worse than Kevin Costner’s

Taylor Sheridan just broke Yellowstone’sunspoken golden rule: don’t mess with the ranch hands. You can kill off Sarah Atwood, and you can even give John Dutton an unceremonial, elderly death, but you ought to leave these poor guys and gals alone.

From day one, Lloyd, Ryan, Colby, and the like have simply been trying to make a living. And in exchange for their labors, living on the Dutton Ranch gives them nothing but suffering in return. Now, they’ve just been hit with the biggest loss imaginable – the brutal death of Colby at the hands (or hooves) of a horse.

Now fans are rebelling for several reasons, not the least of which being that this is one of Sheridan’s meanest moves to date.

Just like every cowboy dreams it (not)

Colby isn’t the only ranch hand to die in the line of duty for the Duttons. In the past, we’ve had Fred and Rowdy, one of whom was taken to the Train Station and the other died in a fight with Rip. Both of these characters were presented as villains, and their deaths were treated in a “well, he had it comin’” kind of fashion. The same can’t be said for Colby.

Colby was one of the rare good souls roaming around the ranch. He worked hard, played harder, and always kept himself to himself. That is, of course, until Teeter rolled into town. The thick-accented and foul-mouthed lady hand quickly took a liking to Colby, steamrolling him into a relationship that developed quickly after the two were trampled by horses in a Season 3 attack. 

All this is to say that Colby was never someone who had a death coming to them. So, it was a gutting turn of events when he walked into the stable in Season 5 Episode 12 and saw Carter trembling in the corner, trapped by a rogue horse. When Colby attempted to save him, he was kicked to death in a quick and merciless killing.