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This article contains spoilers for Yellowstone season 5 episode 9.
This past year and a half, production behind the scenes of Paramount Network’s Yellowstone has been a mess – interrupted by a myriad of strikes, off-screen battles between co-creator Taylor Sheridan and his stars, and the departure of lynchpin actor, Kevin Costner, under less than amicable conditions.
Granted, many of these issues are some fairly extenuating circumstances. It seems like since the last time the mega hit aired on New Year’s Day 2023, production has been the victim of an ancient cowboy curse rather than deserved karma. Audiences and Den of Geek entertainment journalists can allow Sheridan a modicum of leeway. Perhaps it can be forgiven that he was not always perfecting the script for the highly-anticipated return, and that he was justifiably occupied over that year and a half. There was enough drama off screen that perhaps he couldn’t focus on the drama he was responsible for putting on the page.
After all that time, however, the final fate of Kevin Costner’s lead paterfamilias John Dutton feels disappointing. He’s simply dead. Originally his death is ruled a suicide, but both the audience and several characters within the show learn very quickly that this is not the case. Even if it were suicide, the method in which John died is not what feels erroneous, but what it means for the rest of the show does. The plot developing out of John’s death becomes symptomatic of an overall sickness that has been incubating within Yellowstone since the very first season. It was too easy.
Even newcomers to this show can quickly recognize motifs – cowboy hats, bravado, and more low raspy voices than a dinner with Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford. This also includes violent endings to characters’ journeys. Protagonists and antagonists alike have met their bloody end in this show, and the Duttons lie somewhere in the middle of that moral line, so a blood-soaked crime scene was not a surprise when it came to John’s departure.
It was the fact that no sooner was it revealed that John was dead, that it was also revealed that Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) was responsible for it, and by proxy, so was Jamie (Wes Bentley). This is a major card for Sheridan to play right off the bat in the first episode following that 18-month break, particularly because of what it now means for the remainder of the show’s run.
This show, as popular as it is, will never really challenge its audience in the same manner that many of Sheridan’s other television works will. Perhaps one of Sheridan’s most beloved limited series, 1883 took bold major-league swings, killing major characters and leaving the viewers emotionally devastated by the end of its run. Mayor of Kingstown, co-created by longtime Sheridan collaborator and actor Hugh Dillon established that absolutely no one was safe even in the premiere episode. That show, in the opinion of this writer, recently experienced a renaissance in its third season after a somewhat timid sophomore season. It once again killed off major players, it took chances with narratives and with characters in order to push the drama further and in unexpected ways. Yellowstone doesn’t do that. It has never done that.
This newest plot development was perhaps the easiest and most obvious thing Sheridan could have done with John’s death. The vilification of Jamie Dutton has been an ongoing mistake through the show’s run, as it simply does not allow anyone surrounding Jamie to change or evolve. Bentley has admirably played this complex character, but has rarely been asked to change it up. Jamie has remained a spineless “victim” of fortune so many times, it has become played out. He has been manipulated by John, by his biological father, Garrett Randall (Will Patton), by his former politician-paramour, Christina (Katherine Cunningham) and now by Sarah.
Concurrently, it also means that one storyline that could have been the most interesting and emotionally satisfying remains monotone for its entirety as well. The relationship between Jamie and his adopted sister, Beth (Kelly Reilly) isn’t exactly a wild ride with twists, turns, and loops. If a casual viewer caught any of the fights between Jamie and Beth in the first season, they could jump into season 5 and the sibling rivalry has barely changed.
The problem with Jamie being thrust into the murder of his father is that it pigeonholes almost the entirety of what story has left to be told. Jamie will battle it out with his siblings, squirming the entire time. There will be no redemption for him, no moment of bravery. His entire existence for 53 episodes will be to live cowardly and die cowardly. There will be no peace between Jamie and Beth. There will be no journey for Beth, no emotional growth, no maturity, no forgiveness.
This writer would gladly welcome any twist or flicker of character evolution that would possibly prove this theory wrong, but after five years of the same thing, that does not seem likely. Sheridan chose to give the audience what they wanted instead of what the audience needed in order to push the story forward in unexpected and exciting ways. Sheridan remains a gifted creator, and has proven it time and again, but has inexplicably chosen to keep his flagship program stagnant.
New episodes of Yellowstone season 5 premiere Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on Paramount Network, culminating with the finale of December 15.
The post John Dutton’s Fate Reveals a Major Problem With Yellowstone appeared first on Den of Geek.
