When Yellowstone premiered, the audience labeled the Kevin Costner show as a reinvention of Westerns and Taylor Sheridan as a modern messiah blessed with the exceptional gift of storytelling. With each season, the series owned up to that reputation – until the past three years when the project took a nosedive concerning its quality of writing.
For the next few years, both Sheridan and Costner have been put through the wringer and relentlessly subjected to controversial fan theories and allegations regarding their work on Yellowstone; and anyone not living under a rock is aware of the highly volatile, if not explosive, nature of the creator and ex-lead actor’s relationship.
As of mid-2024, Kevin Costner has completely washed his hands off of the Paramount flagship series while simultaneously keeping an open mind and his options available. The same, however, cannot be said about Taylor Sheridan.
Did Yellowstone Run Itself Into the Ground?
Nearly every project in the past half a decade has met a fateful end. The amount of mid-series cancelations, unfinished storylines, and degraded quality of writing has made television a tedious source of modern entertainment. The medium is no longer trustworthy and the audience has been reciprocating as such with animosity and outcry every time a streamer/network pulls the plug on an unfolding show. To remain cautiously optimistic with the release of every new project has now become the order of the day.
Taylor Sheridan‘s Yellowstone was supposed to be a harbinger of better days… a new chapter in this modern era of television storytelling that could cut through the noise and expose a completely revolutionary form of content. However, constant production delays, bureaucratic red tape, and the possible delegation of work to a writers’ room have proved yet again that no project is safe from its inevitable doom and that Yellowstone is merely a glitch in the dysfunctional new world order of television storytelling.
Moreover, the fallout between Taylor Sheridan and Kevin Costner and the devolution of their working relationship between Seasons 5A and 5B is only one rusty cog in the wheel of corporate machinery. But even though the rest of the project may be fully functional and running fine, a single faulty part can easily topple the whole project.
Can Kevin Costner’s Exit Affect Yellowstone Finale?
The decades of experience, emotional investment in old American Westerns, and the unyielding passion for acting that Kevin Costner holds gave Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone character, personality, authenticity, and integrity. Without Costner, the show is equivalent to a headless chicken running into a wall without a proper sense of direction.
Costner, through his quiet resolution, powerful screen presence, subtle line delivery, and mysterious allure held the audience captive season after season, making them tune in to the ever-degrading and toxic family drama that makes the world of Succession look like Barbieland. The actor’s absence as the governing patriarch and godfather of Yellowstone immediately reduces the reputation of the series to a worn-out story dragging itself to the finish line.
As such, all personnel involved with Yellowstone are already feeling the scorching burn of humiliation as Sheridan has yet to appoint a new general to lead his army to the final battle. With every principal cast member having an equal stake in the series’s future, especially Kelly Reilly’s Beth and Wes Bentley’s Jaime Dutton, an insider reports to Life & Style:
They’re caught between a rock and a hard place because they want to stay in Taylor Sheridan’s good graces, but some of them do really miss Kevin and feel like it was a huge mistake not figuring out a compromise. Certain cast members are already throwing their weight around a lot more than before. When Kevin was a part of the cast, he was the undisputed alpha and very much the leader, but with him gone things have gotten very out of whack.
Moreover, the earlier reports of Yellowstone ending with a fifth season may not even be true anymore as rumors of a sixth season being underway have taken root in the trades. With Kevin Costner no longer attached to the project, the possibility of a Season 6 in the near future is bound to put certain things in perspective for the remainder of the cast members.