‘Yellowstone’ says goodbye to Kevin Costner

Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for the debut of the second half of Season 5 of “Yellowstone.”

CNN
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We now know the fate of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton in “Yellowstone.”

The long-delayed second half of Season 5 debuted on Sunday. Moments into the episode, the audience learns that Dutton, the family patriarch, had died of a gunshot wound.

While Dutton is initially believed to have died by his own hand, it is later revealed that he was actually murdered in a scheme involving Sarah Atwood (played by Dawn Olivieri), who is romantically involved with Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) .

Costner confirmed in June that he would not be returning for the new season.

The actor announced this in a video he shared on Instagram.

“I just want to reach out and tell you that after this long year and a half of working on ‘Horizon’ and doing all the things that are required and thinking about ‘Yellowstone,’ the beloved series that I love that I know you love,” Costner said. “I just realized I won’t be able to continue season 5b or into the future.”

The western “Horizon: An American Saga,” was the first of Costner’s planned multi-part film series that ultimately failed to break through at the box office.

On Monday, Costner appeared on Sirius XM’s “The Michael Smerconish Program” and revealed that he was not even aware that this episode aired over the weekend, nor did he know the details of his character’s fate.

“I actually found out this morning,” he said.

Costner added that he still hasn’t seen the episode, but was made aware of the nature of Dutton’s death, which “doesn’t make me rush to see it.”

“That’s their business,” he said. “I gave it five seasons – I didn’t even know I wanted to do it that long. There were a couple of times where I talked about possible endings for myself.”

“Yellowstone” viewers took to social media to lament the loss of Costner’s character and how he was written out of the show.

Some of his co-stars joined in the mourning.

“It’s hard to imagine the show without him. But that was always where the show was going. It was, can these kids do it without him?” said Luke Grimes, who plays Kayce Dutton The independent.

“So we all knew it was going to get there, we just didn’t know how or when, and it was definitely different than we thought,” Grimes said. “But what it did was ramp the show up to 10, and now everything is starting to unravel.”

“Yellowstone” airs on Paramount and can be purchased on demand on Prime Video.