Who doesn’t love a good Western? It seems like, nowadays, just about everyone is into the genre as it’s become more popular than it’s been in years. Yellowstone marches on as one of the leading brands built by cowboy-turned-filmmaker Taylor Sheridan, who continues to tell the story of the Dutton family as they fight for their land. But after five seasons on the Paramount Network, there’s bound to be a plot hole or two lurking around the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, and there’s one from the very first season that fans have noticed after all this time, involving the death of Evelyn Dutton (Gretchen Mol).
Evelyn Dutton’s Death in ‘Yellowstone’ Has Strange Timing
The Dutton matriarch wasn’t exactly the most beloved character in the series and only appeared in two flashbacks back in the first season. It’s through Evelyn’s dealings with a teenage Beth (Kylie Rogers) that we become acquainted with the woman John Dutton (Kevin Costner, or Josh Lucas in the flashbacks) once chose to settle down with. Turns out, she’s the right sort of woman for the Dutton Ranch and soon begins raising her daughter as if she were one of her brothers rather than the Dutton heiress she was born to be. But when our first introduction to Evelyn proved to be in her final moments (see Season 1’s “No Good Horses”), fans spotted something that seemed out of place given the context.
At the beginning of the scene, it’s revealed that Evelyn’s death takes place on March 30, 1997. There’s nothing particularly special about this date other than the fact that it occurs in the middle of a Montana winter. But when you pay attention to the scene, the date chosen as Evelyn’s last is a bit odd given the greater context of the Last Best Place and seems like a continuity error of sorts. For starters, the scene looks like it was shot in the fall (and it probably was), but more notably, the trees in the background are off. “In the mountains in March, leaves are usually not fully developed on trees until April at the earliest,” one fan noted on message boards reported by Express. The trouble is, for all Taylor Sheridan’s hard work at making Yellowstone feel authentic, the audience is right.
You see, in Montana, winter only begins to wind down in April, and sometimes snowfall can even occur as late as the early summer months. In fact, the way that the winter is portrayed in Yellowstone is one of the show’s most consistent criticisms, as its depiction of Park County life fails to include the long and often dangerous winters. That’s not to say there aren’t times when there’s very little snow on the ground during the winter months, but those times are far and few between, and often don’t last long. The scene we see in “No Good Horses” is a bit odd when you consider when it’s supposed to take place, and doesn’t really add up. At least with their other winter flashback to the previous Christmas (as seen in “A Monster Among Us”), that interaction between Evelyn and her daughter happens entirely indoors.
‘Yellowstone’ Struggles to Reflect Montana, but It’s Gotten Better
This struggle to accurately depict the full scope of Montana living is something that Yellowstone has wrestled with throughout its run. Early on, the series was always set during the summertime to avoid the harshness of the winter. Then, when 1883––the first prequel story set within the Yellowstone Universe––was announced, it was done so with a teaser that seemed to imply that we’d finally see a brutal Montana winter on screen. While that didn’t exactly happen, the show did eventually start to incorporate snow and dialogue concerning the coming winters that at least paid lip service to the idea.
It wasn’t until Yellowstone Season 4 when we were graced with flashbacks to the year 1893 (set a decade after the aforementioned prequel), that we got to finally see a real Montana winter on screen. From there, the show’s present also attempted to highlight the cold and better remind its audience that this show too is “made in Montana.” Whether Sheridan and company did this in response to these common criticisms or they were just unable to avoid the snowfall on set is unimportant, but what does matter is that audiences can see Big Sky Country for what it truly is, at least on a small scale. Yellowstone’s second prequel, 1923, also better showcases winter, which is maybe just easier to do for a prequel than it is for the present-day flagship series.
‘Yellowstone’ Filmed in Utah and Montana Until Season 4
Part of why there might’ve been a disconnect between the way earlier seasons and the later years of Yellowstone look (and the climates they’re able to showcase) is that the show didn’t always shoot exclusively in Montana. Originally, only the scenes on the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch and the Broken Rock Indian Reservation were shot in Montana at the Chief Joseph Ranch in Darby, Montana, and the Crow Indian Reservation in eastern Montana, respectively. Otherwise, the show was largely filmed all over Utah, particularly around Salt Lake City and Park City. This all changed in 2020 going into the show’s fourth season when it was announced that the show would move to Missoula County, which is ironically the home of Bozeman’s college rivals.
However, just because Yellowstone was largely filmed in Montana during its fourth and fifth seasons doesn’t mean it was shot there exclusively. Much of Season 4, particularly the scenes concerning Jimmy Hurdstrom’s (Jefferson White) move to the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas, were shot on-location at said ranch, which creator Taylor Sheridan owns. No wonder they’re working on a Texas-based spin-off. Again, in Season 5, Jimmy returns on the Four Sixes, teasing a potential comeback in the back half of the fifth and final season. One thing’s for sure though, there’s no snow all the way down there.
When Is ‘Yellowstone’ Returning?
Unfortunately, the first half of Yellowstone Season 5 ended with little news on when the show might return. Now that the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes are over, Yellowstone will resume production in the springtime of 2024 (likely to avoid those harsh winters we were talking about) and will air the back half of the final season sometime later that year. But as far as exact dates and times, we can’t be quite sure yet. The return of the Yellowstone prequel series 1923 is also in flux, as the second season had been “delayed indefinitely” due to the aforementioned strikes. But despite Hollywood ending the strikes, there has been no news on 1923’s return.
Thankfully, Yellowstone has been airing on Sunday nights on CBS starting with the first season, which premiered this fall. Now on Season 2, the network is committed to airing abridged versions of the premium Paramount series, with bits and pieces cut out that aren’t quite suitable for network audiences. As usual, Yellowstone has continued to command an audience regardless of whether it airs new episodes or old. While we don’t know exactly when the neo-Western will be back on the airwaves, we can remain confident that Paramount hasn’t forgotten about our favorite ranching family.