Yellowstone season 5 | Kevin Costner responds to the first episode made without him
Yellowstone’s return has given the show huge ratings – but Kevin Costner was not one of those tuning in. Spoilers lie ahead…
Well, crikey. The return of Yellowstone after a near-two year absence at the start of the week has found a bunch of metaphorical pigeons, and stuck an equally metaphorical cat in the middle of them all.
To be on the very safe side, let’s put a spoiler warning here. Go below this, and I’m talking about things that happened in Yellowstone season 5 episode 9.
Here’s a picture of a rabbit. He’s called Horace. Scroll past Horace to get to the rest of the story.
Still here? Right.
After a prolonged game of will Kevin Costner and show creator Taylor Sheridan resolve matters, Costner confirmed he was not returning for season 5 part two of Yellowstone. Sheridan responded by killing his character off within 12 minutes of the programme’s return. Any hint that there’d be a way back for Costner evaporated by the time the credits had started rolling.
Did Kevin Costner know of the fate of his character, John Dutton, before the episode aired? It turned out he absolutely did not. He popped up on Sirius XMand told programme host Michael Smerconish that “I didn’t know it was actually airing last night. That’s a swear-to-God moment. I swear to God. I mean, I’ve been seeing ads with my face all over the place and I’m thinking ‘gee, I’m not in that one. I’m not in this season.’”
When Costner was asked if he was going to check in on the show to see what happened, the actor said that “I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it”.
Being Yellowstone, it looks a lot less straightforward than that, of course. I know that, having watched the episode. Kevin Costner – whose name still tops the credits crawl – does not.
Yellowstone season 5 continues early next week. Given the ratings for the season premiere, conversations over Yellowstone season 6 must have accelerated…
