Yellowstone star Luke Grimes opens up about the negative fan reactions to John Dutton’s season 5 fate. The successful neo-Western show following the machinations of
\the Dutton family recently kicked off the second half of season 5. Yellowstone boasts an ensemble cast, including Kevin Costner as patriarch John Dutton, as well as
Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, and Cole Hauser. Season 5, part 2 aired its premiere on November 10, and it featured a shocking plot point in which John Dutton is
found dead following a seemingly self-inflicted gunshot wound, prompting fan backlash.
In an interview with People, Grimes, who plays Kayce Dutton, reveals that the character’s fate was always planned to go down that way, and that it fits in with the series to remove the Dutton family patriarch so that the children have to learn to survive on their own. Check out the actor’s full comments below:
What This Means For Yellowstone’s Future
Yellowstone Is Still Going According To Plan

Our Take On Yellowstone’s Controversial John Dutton Ending
The Show Was In A Difficult Situation Whatever It Did
While it is true that having the patriarch depart to leave his kids to face the struggles of the world alone is a well-trodden path in storytelling, it’s likely this wasn’t the exact storyline Sheridan had planned. Costner’s acrimonious departure from Yellowstone has been well-documented, and this would almost certainly have forced Sheridan and his team into creative decisions they didn’t want to make. The show has enough goodwill to turn things around and win over viewers for the final episodes of Yellowstone, but the specter of John Dutton looms large.