Much as the Yellowstone crew might insist the show worked just fine without Kevin Costner, John Dutton nevertheless loomed large over the final episodes. Showrunner Taylor Sheridan tried to fill the void by casting himself as Bella Hadid's hot boyfriend (!!!), but the whole season was all about avenging John's death and figuring out who would assume his legacy. Frankly, it's a legacy Costner doesn't care too much about.
Asked for his thoughts about Yellowstone "finally ending" in a video obtained by DailyMail.com, Costner laughed, "I'm not even thinking about that. I don't think I've given it any thoughts." As a warning to the inquisitive cameraman as much as a message to Yellowstone fans, he concluded, "So we'll just let it go."
Costner hasn't kept up too much with the Duttonverse since his exit. When he was killed off in the midseason premiere, he admitted the next day that he "didn’t know it was actually airing last night." In an interview with SiriusXM’s The Michael Smerconish Program, he said, "That’s a swear to God moment. I swear to God. I mean, I've been seeing ads with my face all over the place and I'm thinking, 'Gee, I'm not in that one.' I’m not in this season."
He sure wasn't. Costner's departure from the mega successful franchise was a drama that played out behind the scenes and in the press. In his interview with Smerconish, the filmmaker continued to insist that he didn't quit, but there were "contractual" issues around continuing to film when he had his own Horizon production waiting. "There was room, but it was difficult for them to keep their schedule. It seemed to be, it was just too difficult for them to do it," he said.
Instead, Costner left and Sheridan killed his character off. Costner "heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it," he said at the time, but acknowledged the Yellowstone crew are "pretty smart people" so the suicide could be "a red herring." That instinct proved correct; Dutton's death was actually a hit arranged by his own son Jamie (Wes Bentley). Beth (Kelly Reilly) ultimately avenged her father and killed Jamie in the series finale, riding off into the sunset—and into her own upcoming spin-off.
