Yellowstone director Christina Voros explained the real reason the show sealed Kevin Costner’s fate in the first 30 seconds of the bombshell season return.
The show wasted no time by revealing that Costner’s, 69, character John Dutton died, seemingly by suicide, in the opening moments of the Season 5, part 2, premiere.
Voros opened up about creator Taylor Sheridan’s decision to have Dutton killed off, after Costner’s shock exit from the show amid rumors of a feud with Sheridan, in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published on Sunday.
Following fan speculation that the quick and brutal death was a jab at Costner, Voros revealed that Sheridan wanted to swiftly address the actor’s departure and redirect the narrative to the remaining characters, and exploring how they deal with the ‘aftermath’ of Dutton’s death.
‘I think Taylor’s decision to begin this way was incredibly brave,’ she said.
‘I think it is testament to his faith in the characters and the actors who embody them to go, “Let’s not make this about the incident. Let’s make this about how these human beings exist in the aftermath.” That was more interesting to [Taylor] than the incident itself.’
‘I read that first script and I had the breath knocked out of me. I didn’t see it coming. I think there are people who are anticipating the season and wondering if it could all be about solving the mystery, right?’
‘But if you lay it out straight out of the gate, then the mystery becomes: What is the rest of the show going to be, since we’ve already let the cat out of the bag, and I think it’s kind of ingenious.’
‘I think everyone going into the season, everyone who loves the show, has ideas about what the ending is going to be. And I think Taylor has found a way — and we mentioned this the last time — where good drama is surprising and inevitable.’
‘It makes sense that things end where they end up, but you don’t necessarily see it coming and you don’t necessarily understand the road you are going to take to get there.’
‘Some of the beauty of the use of flashbacks is that it’s really juxtaposing and bringing into high relief how much is at stake — how much has been lost, how much was taken for granted, how much we all thought John would go on forever. It is shocking.’
Voros continued: ‘And so I think rather than stringing people along to get to a place everyone sees coming, the decision to just open with it is really brave and really interesting.’
‘I read the first episode and I went, “What happens next?” I had no idea. There are different versions of storytelling where you could have dragged it out to the end, as opposed to ripping the bandaid off.’
‘Now it becomes: What is the story? What do they do? How do they do it? Who survives? How do they figure it out with the patriarch and their North star, who has ultimately been the general and who everyone has fallen in line behind?’
She went on: ‘I can’t talk to the decision: It’s Taylor’s world. He made the bold decision. It’s a tricky question, because I don’t want to foreshadow anything that’s coming. Because it has to do with the writing.’
‘It has to do with Taylor’s choice to not only deal with this episode, but the entire season.’
‘I have a lot to say about it, but there’s nothing interesting to say without talking to the greater choice as a whole of how the season is going to develop, and I don’t want to tip our hats to any of that yet.’
‘What’s interesting about birth and death is not the birth and death itself, but the way it affects us as people. To me, I think that was the driving force in telling the story this way. He’s asked, “How does everybody else survive and what do they do?” And that’s where the mystery is. That is where the unraveling is. That is where the story is.’
She also told the publication the code words used to keep Dutton’s death a secret even from the cast.
‘We didn’t talk about it as a death. Any time there is a death or some sort of event, we called it an “arrival.” And we gave John’s character a pseudonym. We called him “Crosby.”‘
‘We were calling the opening scene, “Beth discovers that Crosby has arrived.” It was on call sheets and the crew were like, “Who is Crosby? And, where’s he coming from?” I did some random research: [John Schuyler] Crosby was the last governor of Montana before Montana was turned into a state, in the 1880s. It was a very random, obscure, esoteric reference [by Taylor Sheridan].’
Voros also explained the decision to show Dutton’s dead body without his face.
‘It’s not even a choice as a director, it was very much in the DNA of the writing that episode. The scenes that are in the present tense dealing with his death seem very intentionally about the characters that continue on and what their experience of his death is.’
‘So you know that it is him by virtue of the way that Beth and Kayce are reacting to it, and that’s what matters.’
‘So it was present in the writing, but it was more important to me to focus on how you learn more about the death by looking at the lines on Luke’s face and the tears in Kelly’s eyes than you do by looking at a body absent of life on the ground.’
She went on to praise the cast for how they handled Dutton’s exit.
‘This season was a masterclass in working with actors at the top of their game. It was tremendously rewarding to see these characters who have been integral to the story from the beginning share the weight of the absence of the patriarch.’
‘Everyone has grown into themselves and their characters in such a deep and profound way.’
‘It’s sort of art imitating life imitating art. In the absence of John, the family has to come together to shoulder the weight of the world, much in the same way as the cast has come together to shoulder the weight of his absence in such a bold and beautiful way.’
After a nearly two-year hiatus, Paramount Network’s Yellowstone returned Sunday with the Season 5 midseason premiere, the first of its six final episodes.
Costner made a dramatic exit from the series over scheduling conflicts with his Western movie franchise Horizon, though fans were quite upset at how he was killed off.
Fans took to social media to react en masse to the beloved character’s exit as the neo-Western series comes to a close.
Given how hard John Dutton has fought for everything in his life, fans were furious, insisting he would never have killed himself.
@Thecraftyturtle said, ‘Ok no way John Dutton killed himself. They did his character dirty!!’
@KayCee1771 said, ‘Not the way i expected #Yellowstone to start,’ as @AmberLee_0123 said, ‘It hasn’t been 5 minutes of #Yellowstone and I AM NOT OKAY.’
@FolkToe said ‘#Yellowstone Run Jamie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ insinuating Dutton’s son Jamie (Wes Bentley) was involved.
It’s not too surprising that Jamie may be blamed, since the show’s last episode nearly two years ago showed Jamie entertaining various ways to have his father killed with his new romantic interest Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri).
She told Jamie there were companies that specialized in making murders look like accidents or even a heart attack.
However, as the episode continued, it became more clear that Sarah seemingly took matters into her own hands and organized John’s death to simply make it look like a suicide… covering up his actual murder.
@thetvescape said, ‘Wait, so now it’s looking more and more likely that the “suicide” was staged!’
@BroGod4Life said, ‘They don’t believe John Dutton attempt suicide they believe either Sarah, Jamie or somebody had anything to do what happened to him if they have proof and it’s going to take time.’
After fans saw Sarah ultimately confirming her involvement in Governor Dutton’s death, she surprised Jamie at his home, scantily clad with champagne glasses.
She was surprised that he was shedding tears over his father, adding she thought this is what he wanted.
‘Who are these tears for?’ Sarah asked, as Jamie insisted that his father and his political career both died that day.