Given John Dutton’s significant role, there are many, many ways Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone season 5, part 2 absence will hurt the show’s ending.

Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone season 5, part 2 absence will hurt the popular show’s ending in several ways.

Reports of the neo-Western’s star chafing at the series’ creative direction cropped up in the wake of the fifth mid-season finale, with Costner allegedly refusing to commit to the last batch of episodes until he read an ending for his character, rancher John Dutton, that he liked.

Created by Taylor Sheridan, the drama’s on-screen stakes are just as high as the behind-the-scenes ones, especially as Yellowstone nears its finale. Now, just ahead of filming, it’s been reported that Kevin Costner won’t appear in Yellowstone’s final episodes at all.

While the turn of events hasn’t been officially confirmed by Costner, Sheridan, or any of the show’s representatives, the likelihood of John Dutton dying in Yellowstone season 5 just increased tenfold. Despite Yellowstone’s impressive cast of returning season 5 characters, Costner’s Dutton patriarch-turned-governor of Montana is the personality around which everyone else (and their problems) seems to orbit. Losing him ahead of schedule will be a blow to the show. Tasked with giving John Dutton a proper send-off (potentially sans Costner), Yellowstone’s team will have to get creative. Even so, no amount of clever writing will be able to account for the void at the series’ center.