Taylor Sheridan created Yellowstone in 2018. 3 years later, he abandoned it in pursuit of other tales. The director’s endless search for a place in the world of imaginative storytelling kept him busy with projects of ridiculous range. From neo-Westerns to crime thrillers, Sheridan flitted around like a moth to a flame wherever he was needed and whichever cause he was called upon to serve.
The Hollywood underdog rose from the dirt under studio execs’ shoes and built himself an empire at Paramount – a studio, one might add, that was exclusively associated with Tom Cruise until Sheridan claimed the title. Now, as he returns to the world of Yellowstone once more to see it through to the end, the fans can feel an anticipation charging the atmosphere around the series.
Taylor Sheridan Shakes Up the World of Yellowstone
It was only a matter of time until Taylor Sheridan returned home to the ranches and cowboys of Succession in Montana. After all, the barrage of criticism filed under the subject line of Yellowstone had grown from a molehill to a mountain after its post-Season 3 decline. The storylines weren’t as coherent, the characters grew tedious, and the plot turned stale and repetitive.
With Sheridan steering his brainchild – and Paramount’s first flagship series – to its end, fans have begun to see a ray of hope amid all the cloudy drama of the past 2 years. Christina Voros, Yellowstone-verse director, helpfully adds: “Half the cast doesn’t know what happens,” which can only mean that great things are about to happen – hence the need for such secrecy.
Knowing the level of anticipation that has been building up around the series and recognizing the need to protect the season finale from getting leaked, the ridiculously drastic measures they took to hide the details from the whole cast made even the MCU snipers flinch in the shadows.
“We have some people in the crew who worked in the Marvel universe, and they thought what we were doing was crazy,” Voros revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. Speaking of the efficacy of their clandestine operation, she said, “What you don’t have access to won’t make you informed.”
As the season progressed, Voros became the gatekeeper, strategically handing out information to the various departments – from costume to set design – and redacting the script for actors and personnel, who would only get key details associated with their role in the story on a need-to-know basis – “So for a large portion of the cast, even for some of our seven-year veterans, they will be learning what happens when the show premieres.”
Meanwhile, the guerilla warfare that went on to protect the series finale was attributed in large part to preserving Taylor Sheridan’s vision and the cast and crew’s 6-year journey behind the making of the series.
Yellowstone Season 5B Takes Things to the Extreme
Taylor Sheridan fought a losing battle with himself when he decided to put his five different fingers in five different pies, personally typing up the scripts for each episode of every show, directing some, appearing in some, and generally losing sleep for months on end due to the building pressure.
But all of his hard work would have gone to waste if not for the extreme measures that were taken to secure what can only be defined as the end of an era. Voros even went so far as to encrypt the dialogues so that they couldn’t be interpreted by the cast or the extras: We had code words for things.
Mercifully, apart from the department heads themselves, the Dutton family cast was part of the secret club that was in on the entire plot. However, for the extended cast, this level of secrecy and strategizing often meant they were learning about the plot as they moved along in a scene often causing their reactions caught on the camera authentic and genuine rather than rehearsed.
Although this aspect of filming was not taken into account in the beginning, the genuine reactions from the cast in real-time became a blessing to the show, lending the scripted series a more personal touch than it would otherwise have. The final season of Yellowstone says goodbye with grace and composure as the cast and the crew of Taylor Sheridan’s labor of love put their best into the last 6 episodes of the Paramount series.
Yellowstone Season 5B premieres on Paramount+ on November 17, 2024.