This post contains spoilers for season 5, episode 9 of Yellowstone.

The first episode of the second half of YellowstoneThe fifth season won’t keep you waiting long. Seconds into Sunday’s “Desire Is All You Need,” Beth (Kelly Reilly), the loyal daughter of the Dutton farming family, races to her father’s house in her fast car. She rages at the edge of a crime scene shoot, begging a police officer to let her in. But it isn’t until her brother Kayce (Luke Grimes) – Montana’s land commissioner, a former SEAL and a real… killer of many of the Dutton family’s enemies – shows up to help her push past the officer that these two loyal siblings learn the truth: Montana Governor John Dutton has died, from a gunshot wound to the head, in the bathroom of his residence.

Since 2018, Kevin Costner has played John Dutton, the beleaguered patriarch of showrunner and empire builder Taylor Sheridan’s dreams. In recent years, there has been no end to news of tension between Costner and Sheridan over filming schedules. culminating in Costner’s June 2024 final decision to leave the series. Yellowstone fans knew this was coming, we just didn’t know it would happen so soon. Among some annoyed viewers, “Taylor Sheridan did John Dutton dirty in the very first scene to get back at Kevin Costner” has gained traction as a concept. “Wow, talk about lazy and petty writing,” said a fan on X. “Taylor Sheridan is an idiot and needs to be taken to the train station immediately!” (The “train station” is where the cowboys at the Yellowstone ranch tell the Dutton family’s enemies they’re on their way, right before they shoot them in the head and throw them off a remote cliff. For the next time you see them sees a reference to the ‘train station’ on a bumper sticker, to give that vehicle some space.)

It’s pretty hilarious to see people fighting over whether Sheridan’s Hollywood ego or Costner’s Hollywood ego deserves the blame for the collapse. Scientists can study this issue for years and never arrive at a solution. One thing that contradicts this “Dutton’s bad death is Sheridan’s revenge” theory is the fact that you don’t see Costner’s face as the camera fixates on the body on the bathroom floor, sparing the actor any outrage over his character’s demise . As Kayce rushes past more police into the room – one thing about the Duttons: they will always find a way out – you see a large splash of blood at head height on the bathroom wall tiles, and then a gun on the floor. When Beth, against Kayce’s advice, goes to view the body, she looks down and sees the hands of her father, a crime scene technician, with a delicacy that reads like tenderness, scanning with an instrument to check for gunshot residue. (This moment is classic Yellowstone: The show is all bombast, shouting and scheming, and then offers a little moment that breaks your heart.)

The tech finds that residue and the official story:Gov. Dutton died by suicide– solidifies. That he was expected at the impeachment hearings that morning adds some credibility, although as Kayce tells another police officer later in the episode, nothing about John Dutton would have led anyone to believe he would do that to himself. Without going too much into the often retrograde views of who dies by suicide in this great country, it is true that John Dutton was, narratively speaking, a survivor: he had colon cancer in season 1, had a ruptured ulcer in season 2, and was shot multiple times in season 3. The guy was the “Look miserably and cross-eyed stoically at the sunset” type; that was kind of his thing. So what would have driven this governor to hold together his far-too-large farm to end it this way?

Fortunately for the people who are angry at the idea that their John Dutton could have died this way, we learn quite quickly via flashback that this death was not by his own hand, but was instead the fruit of yet another plot against the Duttons – this, successful . Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley), the family’s estranged adopted son (and state attorney general), was confused with a real operator, a fixer named Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri), who made the call to the to order murder to further secure the murder. political goals that would be easier to achieve with Jamie as governor. Discovering how much Jamie knew about this will be part of the action of Part 2 of this season.

Look on the bright side, Dutton mourners. The rest of season 5 – and beyond, if Yellowstone remains hanging (a sixth season is currently being discussed) – will be a major battle between Jamie and Beth, with Kayce, who has always been sympathetic to Jamie, caught in the middle. You’re supposed to root for Beth because Jamie is a villain in this series, more cosmopolitan and legal than any other Dutton and never seems comfortable on the ranch. (Yellowstone believes that blood will be shed.) An important part of the Jamie-vs.-Beth backstory is that Jamie helped Beth get an abortion when they were teenagers, but he did so by taking her to a free clinic on reservation, so the family wouldn’t suffer from the publicity – except the clinic also sterilized Beth, something Jamie knew but hadn’t told her for years. This earned him her undying enmity, and Kelly Reilly the opportunity to say things like, “I’m going to tell my husband you ripped his child out of my womb!” with maximum Beth fire. (This is classic Yellowstone melodrama – and classically muddled Yellowstone politics.)

In the real world, Jamie “wins,” symbolizing the external forces of urbanity and progress that threaten the ranch. The threat of him and the modernity he represents is omnipresent. Every character connected to Dutton on the show has a monologue about its inevitability at one point or another. In the back half of this episode, Rip (Cole Hauser), the ranch’s head cowboy and Beth’s husband, gives us a new one, on the beach in Texas with his cowboys: “In 30 years, no one will be doing this anymore.” , no one. All the land you see will be wind farms and solar farms, and we will get our beef from Brazil after they burn down the rainforest.” Yes – if Yellowstone has the courage of his convictions, Jamie will win the whole game. The chances of that are still worth watching, even if this show’s token movie star has officially aired pasture.