Kevin Costner has kept everyone guessing about his ties to the second half of Season 5 on Yellowstone. For a long time, it’s been assumed he was out and wouldn’t appear in the series’ final episodes. But now, there might be a slight chance that his character, John Dutton, could return to finish up his story.
An Us Weekly insider is whispering about how co-creator Taylor Sheridan has been thinking about wrapping up the successful Paramount+ series. “They’ve internally discussed going a couple of different ways with the storyline if Kevin doesn’t return,” the source said. “[Sheridan] could incorporate a big event to explain the disappearance, or there’s a calculative move to protect his family from an enemy.” The Yellowstone insider believes that if Costner is out for the rest of the season, then the last episodes will probably “focus more on the children and ranch hands and their relationships, conflicts, and alliances.”
It’s been a long road to getting those final shows to the viewers, especially since the last original episode aired in January 2023. Production was delayed by the writers’ and actors’ strikes last summer, and schedule conflicts between Costner and Sheridan reached the headlines. Costner has ping-ponged back and forth over whether he would ever return to finish Yellowstone. His divorce documents from last fall indicate that he had “concluded his work” on the series for good in 2022.
However, Costner seems open to finishing up his John Dutton tale, according to Puck. “Even if Costner significantly lowers his financial and time commitment demands, Sheridan may not want to bother reopening his finished scripts to accommodate a send-off for John Dutton,” the entertainment industry site reported in late March. “But the Yellowstone fans would certainly love it, which Costner knows and hopes to leverage, as he always does.”
Sheridan and Costner are both big personalities, so they might have to temper their egos to come back to the table and work together again. Sheridan has gone on record to compliment his former star, telling The Hollywood Reporter in June 2023, “My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered. His creation of John Dutton is symbolic and powerful … and I’ve never had an issue with Kevin that he and I couldn’t work out on the phone.” There just might be a silver lining to the end of the Yellowstone standoff… stay tuned.