The West was won through perpetual expansion, and now Taylor Sheridan is trying to similarly colonize every TV slot as far as the eye can see. Hey, they always tell you to write what you know, but you might as well close the loop and do as you write. The frontier is getting crowded—partly through an affront from his old pal Kevin Costner—but Sheridan will continue to stake his claim somehow.
Dutton Ranch has already spawned spinoffs 1883 and 1923, with a few more in the hopper like 1944, 6666, and The Madison with Michelle Pfeiffer. (How that one escaped the safe-code naming convention is a mystery.) Now, according to Deadline, we can add a new, as-of-yet untitled series to the pile. The latest spinoff will be the first to follow characters from the OG Dutton clan following the events of this Sunday's series finale, and will bear the Yellowstone name somewhere in its title, per the trade's sources.
The series will be led by Kelly Reilly (Beth Dutton, the daughter of Costner's John Dutton) and Cole Hauser (ranch foreman Rip Wheeler), who will now be responsible for continuing the Dutton family legacy after whatever happens in Sunday's closing episode. That sounds a hell of a lot like a sixth season instead of a whole spinoff to this writer, but Deadline reports that while a continuation of the original series isn't out of the question, positioning the new venture as a whole new show rather than just another season will allow Paramount+ to retain control, overwriting the OG series' exclusive deal with Peacock. Ah, the streaming wars. They're almost as dramatic as life on the ranch.
