Let ‘er rip some more?
Paramount Network’s hit ranch drama, “Yellowstone,” is currently airing its fifth and final season — but, it’s been dogged by rumors that Season 5 may not really be the end.
“I think this last batch of episodes leads us to the end of an era,” director and executive producer Christina Alexandra Voros recently told Variety.
“It’s impossible to talk about it in any detail without tipping my hat toward things to come,” she added cryptically.
This is similar to what “Yellowstone” star Ian Bohen, who plays Ryan the ranch hand, told The Post earlier this month.
“It’s not necessarily” the end, Bohen said.
In August, multiple outlets reported that “Yellowstone” may return for a Season 6 with a story that would reportedly focus on Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser).
If there was a season focusing on the husband and wife duo running the ranch, Ryan works closely with Rip. So Bohen would be a major character in a potential Season 6.
Puck was the first to report the news. The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Deadline subsequently verified the story.
Paramount never officially confirmed or announced a Season 6.
Bohen also didn’t officially confirm it, but he told The Post that the story of “Yellowstone” is “continuing; it’s a saga.”
Bohen added, “Maybe there’s a future that you want to continue.”
When asked if he’d heard about the future of the show, Bohen said, “I have,” but he declined to reveal anything else. “We’ll have to see what unfolds,” he teased.
Currently airing Sundays at 8 p.m. on Paramount Network, “Yellowstone” follows the Dutton family, owners of the largest ranch in Montana, including patriarch John (Kevin Costner) and his adult children, mellow Kayce (Luke Grimes), villainous Jamie (Wes Bentley), vicious Beth (Reilly) and Beth’s cowboy husband, Rip Wheeler (Hauser).
Costner, 69, left “Yellowstone” before the second half of Season 5 amid a flurry of rumors about an alleged feud with showrunner Taylor Sheridan.
In the premiere episode for the second half of Season 5, “Yellowstone” unceremoniously k*lled John off.
It turned out that John was fatally shot by a hit man, arranged by Jamie’s evil girlfriend, Sarah (Dawn Olivieri), but it was staged as a s**cide.
In the most recent episode, everyone finally found out that he didn’t d*e by s**cide. So, Costner can rest easy, because the Oscar winner scoffed at John’s d**th being a s**cide. Now, everyone on “Yellowstone” is aware that it wasn’t.
Local Montana cops had a press conference to announce that his d**th was being investigated as a homicide. Jamie — who is the Montana attorney general — got recused from the investigation. And, Sarah was herself taken out by a hit man.
What goes around comes around.
Voros told Variety, “I think [co-creator and writer] Taylor [Sheridan] has managed to… bring the ending to something that feels both shocking and fated at the same time. You need to get to the end of the story to fully understand everything that has come before.”
Voros previewed what’s ahead in the last handful of episodes before the series finale.
“I think you can expect to see characters who feel like they don’t have very many options searching and fighting to find a way through. What’s set up in Episode 511 is everyone feels like they’ve hit a dead end. Jamie [Wes Bentley] has lost his partner in crime, and he is on the verge of losing his political name,” she said, referring to Sarah’s d**th and Jamie’s diminished importance.
She added that the show also has to deal with the question of the ranch’s future.
“Beth and Kayce don’t have a plan as to how to fix this,” she explained.
“The best that they can hope for… is holding on to some portion of the land and selling off some portion of it. But because John’s goal and dictate was not to sell any of it, anything short of that is a failure, not carrying on their father’s will, letting down generations of family members who have fought for and protected this place.”
