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Yellowstone director Christina Voros has shed light on how the show plans to end, despite the unexpected, premature departure of star Kevin Costner earlier this year.

Ahead of the hit Western’s highly anticipated return this month, Voros discussed how Costner’s character, John Dutton, remains an “essential part” of the show’s final episodes.

“John Dutton is still central,” she said The Hollywood Reporter. “His presence is essential. I think if I said more, all the work that went into editing the scripts might be in jeopardy!

“But I think the reason why people wonder, ‘Isn’t he?’ Where is he, where isn’t he?’ is because he is the patriarch and his presence is an essential part of the story.

Costner, who led Yellowstone as a Montana landowner and patriarch of the Dutton family for four seasons, he announced he was leaving the hit series in June.

“I just realized I can’t continue season 5b or the future,” he said in an Instagram video. “It was something that really changed me. I loved it, and I know you loved it. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not coming back.”

Early reports suggested his departure was due to a falling out with the show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan, over scheduling conflicts allegedly caused by the actor’s desire to shoot his Western passion project. Horizon – An American saga.

However, Costner later disputed these claims, saying he was willing and ready to film when needed, but production kept getting delayed.

“I did it for five years and I wanted to work more than once a year,” he said in a June episode of the Today Toon. “At one point we lost a whole year and I thought: that can’t happen again.”

He added that he would “love to go back.” Yellowstonealbeit ‘under the right circumstances’.

Yellowstone returns with the second part of its fifth and final season on November 10 on Paramount+ at 8 PM ET/PT.

While the series is coming to a close, Sheridan isn’t done expanding the world of Yellowstone. He recently announced that Michelle Pfeiffer will lead the upcoming Yellowstone continued series The Madison.

The new series follows a family of New Yorkers who move to the Madison River Valley in central Montana. It is intended to address themes of grief and human connection.