Updated Monday November 11. See update below.

It’s been almost two years since the wildly popular modern Western drama Yellow stone last aired an episode. Season 5 Part 1 concluded with its 8th episode in December 2022. Episode 9 releases today.

It’s a long wait, dammit, y’all. I have the right to write sentences like that because I come from the very place where this show takes place: Bozeman, Montana, I was born and raised. That’s where I rode my first horse, although I haven’t ridden a bronco and can’t use the lasso to save my life. I can hit the side of a barn with a rifle, but I’m no John Dutton.

In fact, “no John Dutton” is about, because Kevin Costner will not make an appearance in this half-season of the series. The show’s movie star and filmmaker had a highly publicized argument with megaproducer Taylor Sheridan over the amount of time he had to spend on set. Costner was – and remains – making his epic four-part Western film series. Horizon: An American saga, and his attention was too divided to remain part of the Yellow stone melodrama.

(I rather liked Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, and I can’t wait to see chapter 2 later this year).

Forbes‘Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1’ Review – Kevin Costner’s Sprawling Western Is Flawed But Still GreatBy

Regardless, the Dutton family story continues tonight on Paramount Network at 8 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET on CBS (special broadcast).

The big “trap” in the title of this article is that it is the only way to look unless you wait for the streaming release on Peacock months later. This is not entirely true. You can also buy the season on Prime Video and watch episodes earlier online. But the only way to follow Beth (Kelly Reilly), Rip (Cole Hauser), Kayce (Luke Grimes), Monica (Kelsey Asbille), Jamie (Wes Bentley), Jimmy (Jefferson White) and all the rest of the sprawling cast of cowboys and their antagonists is having traditional cable television.

Are you looking Yellow stone always? I know a lot of fans have been unhappy with the show’s trajectory over the past two seasons, but it remains a very popular soap opera (I call it a soap opera, just like I thought). Sons of Anarchy be a soap opera, but you may not agree). Let me know your thoughts on Twitter, Instagram Or Facebook. Also consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Subscribe to my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.

For more shows and movies this weekend, check out my weekend streaming guide. Netflix also just released the final season of one of its best showsalthough it is about as different from Yellow stone as you can get it.

Update 11.11.24

Spoilers for Season 5, Part 2 ahead.

I thought I’d take a look at the reviews for the fifth season of Yellowstone, and interestingly, 84% of reviewers rate it “Fresh,” while only 41% of viewers do sowhich makes it lousy on the Popcornmeter. On Reddit and across social media, people are deeply upset about one thing in particular: the death of John Dutton.

As noted above, Costner wanted out and so Sheridan cut him from the show in perhaps the most absurd way imaginable: by having him shoot and commit suicide. As many commentators note, under no circumstances can Dutton commit suicide. This is so out of character that it is beyond all plausibility. It’s possible that the shooting wasn’t a suicide and that we find out that Dutton was murdered, but it seems like Sheridan could have given Dutton a more peaceful ending – a heart attack, for example.

“John Dutton was a fantastic character, and despite the Kevin Costner drama, he deserved a better goodbye than the one Yellowstone gave him,” one fan wrote on Twitter. “Yellowstone is having its first episode without Kevin Costner and they already ruined it in the first 5 minutes,” said another.

Many fans blame Sheridan for the mess. “I didn’t realize how important John Dutton’s character WAS to the show until this episode,” one fan wrote on Reddit. “It’s like all families that seem to fall apart when their matriarch or patriarch dies. Sometimes a strong child or grandchild brings everyone back from the ashes, and sometimes the family never recovers. But Taylor or Kevin completely screwed us with 5B. I guess arrogant megalomaniac Taylor destroyed his own series with this shit show. I will never be invested in another Sheridan series again.

I’ll be honest, this makes me even less interested in finishing season 5. I’m only a few episodes behind, but learning that John Dutton may have committed suicide has exhausted all the enthusiasm I had for return to the series. What a shame. Even if it ends up being murder, it feels like a bad ending for the star of the series, especially after so many trials and tribulations.

Have you watched the last episode? What are your thoughts? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram Or Facebook. Also consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Subscribe to my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.

Corrected on November 11: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported the number of episodes in Yellowstone’s fifth season. There were eight episodes, not seven.