Taylor Sheridan’s return with Yellowstone season 5 part 2 is gaining him quite the limelight, both for acclamation and criticism. This is because, while on the one hand a lot of the saga is continuing to entertain fans and viewers the way it has done previously, on the other hand, numerous aspects of the saga are simply failing to sit well with them at the same time.
For one, the body count in the saga keeps on increasing, and this time around, some of the deaths quite literally seem pointless to fans. Like how Denim Richards’ Colby, for instance, was recently axed out from the series a bit too abruptly. So much so that even as Richards defends it, fans are still convinced that the show has officially become a lost cause at this point.
Denim Richards Addresses Colby’s Death in Yellowstone
Just when fans thought that eliminating John Dutton and Sarah Atwood would close up the slashing game in what is expected to be the final season of Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan has struck again. This time around, the one to brutally lose his life was none other than Colby Mayfield, the very character who had been in the ranch-y saga from the very beginning.
In the latest released episode 12, Counting Coup, of season 5 part 2, when young Carter found himself cornered by the 3-year-old horse – the one that Lloyd had already declared to be a ‘man-eater’ – when he went to refill his water, Colby decided to be the hero and save the day: He stepped in to save Carter but ended up losing his life by the horse in the process.
While the fact that his arc would end this way was surprising, what was even more stunning than this was the way he died: He took a few kicks to the chest before Carter ran out and shot the horse down, and that was that. Just like that, the cowboy who got branded by the third season ended up losing his life in one of the most uninteresting, disappointing, and abrupt manners possible.
That said, fans were obviously disappointed by how this series of unfortunate turn of events turned out for Colby Mayfield. But actor Denim Richards, who had been playing the character since the start, still defended Sheridan to the core while recently discussing his character’s death with Entertainment Weekly. Calling it ‘definitely an interesting and sad end,’ he said:
I feel like this season, Taylor is really emphasizing the realities of cowboy life. We have this saying that everyone’s going to fall off a horse at some point in their life. It’s not if, it’s just when and how bad. That is not a phenomenon. These things do happen, so I do think that there’s that element where I think it is about really wanting to emphasize that this is a reality.
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Pointing out how ‘everything good ends,’ he added,
It’s kind of poetic ’cause, in season 3, Colby gets trampled by a horse multiple times in the river. And so maybe this was those horses’ ancestors coming back to get retribution. But more than anything, it was about as clean as you could possibly do a death.
Seems like Richards had already accepted Colby’s death as inevitable.
However, as defensive as he may be of it all, fans and viewers are most certainly not buying this perspective. To say the least, this exclusive turn of disappointing events has earned so much dismay from fans worldwide that, at this point, they are convinced about 2 things: 1) Sheridan is just pushing ahead with lazy writing, and 2) The series has officially become a lost cause now.
Fans Are Convinced Taylor Sheridan is Just Trying Too Hard Now
As much as fans were excited about the release of the second part of season 5 of their favorite Western series, with the buzz surrounding it growing as loud as ever, the way things seem to be going as of now is anything but sitting well with fans. For one, they are quite literally cursing this killing spree that Sheridan has embarked himself on, especially after Colby’s death.
If anything – irrespective of however much Richards may want to defend the writer cum showrunner over the way he penned the conclusion of the character Richards had been embodying for around seven years now – fans are rallying about how Colby’s death should have had its very own, more developed storyline rather than being crammed in those other major plotlines.
All in all, taking to Reddit, here’s what they have to say:
Needless to say, all of these arguments are more than enough to convey the fact that Colby. Did. Not. Need. To. Die. This. Way. If anything, he could have had his own separate arc and a much better-styled death scene that delivered the message of how dangerous the cowboy job is all the while settling on a satisfying conclusive arc for Colby.
That said, agreeing to the fact that Sheridan’s masterpiece show might as well have turned into a lost cause at this point seems inevitable. But, then again, it’s Sheridan we’re talking about, so can fans really go around hopeless?
Yellowstone can currently be streamed on Paramount Plus.