The “Yellowstone” Season 5B premiere was shocking in ways both expected and unexpected.
We expected that John Dutton, the character played by Kevin Costner, would meet his maker following a prolonged and very public skirmish between the star and series creator Taylor Sheridan, which involved contract obligations and Costner’s own western epic “Horizon.” Ultimately, they couldn’t reach an agreement and Costner left the show.
But the way that his death was handled in Episode 9, and the mystery and sadness and grief surrounding his passing, along with an ingenious structure for the first episode that flashed back, for most of the runtime, to six weeks before his death, added even more emotional heft.