“Yellowstone” cocreator and showrunner Taylor Sheridan has said that the second half of the fifth and final season could contain more episodes than originally announced.
Long before it was revealed that season five of the Paramount Network drama would be the show’s very last, it was announced that season five would be 14 episodes long rather than the typical 10. With eight episodes already released, there are just six episodes left to wrap up both the season and the series itself.
But while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about the show’s f inal run, Sheridan revealed that the number of episodes is not set in stone, and that should it take more than six episodes to conclude the story, that wouldn’t be an issue with Paramount bosses.
“If I think it takes 10 episodes to wrap it up, they’ll give me 10,” he said. “It’ll be as long as it needs to be.”
It’s unlikely, however, that audiences will see the drama return to screens in November, as Paramount Network announced in May, given that the episodes have yet to be written, let alone shot and edited.
Sheridan said he is currently not writing in solidarity with the ongoing writers’ strike, something which is also delaying production on the prequel series, “1923,” and put a pin in the development of the upcoming untitled spinoff starring Matthew McConaughey.
Elsewhere in the article, Sheridan hinted that the ending of “Yellowstone” — whenever it arrives — will see Kevin Costner’s character killed off, something he has had planned out for a long time.
While Sheridan said that Costner’s decision to leave the show “truncates the closure of his character,” he made it clear that John Dutton wouldn’t meet his maker in a conveniently timed car crash like Patrick Dempsey’s character on “Grey’s Anatomy,” or his own on “Sons of Anarchy.”
“I don’t do fuck-you car crashes,” the “Wind River’ director said of the technique often employed by writers as a way to kill off characters amid behind-the-scenes tension.