Kevin Costner hates “Yellowstone” and is waiting for death (for his character).

On Sunday, Yellowstone finally returns, delivering the second half of its fifth and final season almost two years after the first half of the season began airing. But all is not well in the land of the Duttons.

Since its debut in 2018 Yellowstone– a stirring family drama that is often compared to Consequencejust when the Roy family wasn’t producing Fox News, but instead was carrying out illegal killings near cattle in Montana – has become one of the biggest shows on television. The focus is on Kevin Costner, who plays the family patriarch John Dutton, a role for which diversity In 2022, it was reported that he receives more than $1 million per episode.

At this point, Costner’s feuds with creator, writer, director and producer all-round talent Taylor Sheridan and Paramount Network are well known. There’s been a steady stream of stories about it since the end of the first half of season five Yellowstone Star breaks the series. Costner reportedly wanted more creative control over the show and more space to work on his Western passion project horizon. Several media outlets reported in 2023 that the actor had requested tight filming windows: 50 days for the first half of season five and just a week for the second half. (Costner’s rep called the latter claim “an absolute lie.”)

Now finally, Yellowstone is back. But will Costner take part in the series’ highly anticipated finale? Check out the trailer:

First the answer appears yes, albeit in a lesser form. “Everyone has forgotten who runs this valley,” Costner growls early in the promo reel, adding that it’s “time to remind them”; “This war is just beginning,” he growls at the end. In the 60 seconds between these announcements, there are three fleeting shots of Costner, lasting a whopping five seconds in total, all without dialogue. Instead of the series’ nominal star, we see other warring factions: the three Dutton children and their various lovers, grizzled ranch hands, and leaders from the Broken Rock Reservation.

But even this meager presence is deceptive. Costner’s line, “Everyone has forgotten who runs this valley,” isn’t new – it comes from the first season. This summer, Costner confirmed reports from last year that he would not be appearing in the future Yellowstone episodes. “I will not be able to continue Season 5B in the future,” he said in an Instagram video. “I just wanted to let you know that I will not be returning.”

Whatever the trailer makes it seem, there apparently won’t be any new Costner footage: Over the last week, the cast has been making the rounds talking about how different it feels to film episodes without him. Maybe some old scenes will be added into the season – perhaps through flashbacks or even something that wasn’t actually seen in an earlier editing room, although that seems contractually questionable. But Yellowstone There are still six episodes to go through, and the show just won’t be able to live up to its old Costner clips that far. In short: John Dutton has to go, and quickly.

It is almost farcical to imagine what will definitely happen. Yes, Consequence killed Logan Roy at the start of his final season. But it’s hard to overstate how much more central John Dutton’s character is Yellowstone. Sure, we spend a lot of time with the Dutton kids and their individual dramas, just as we did with Kendall, Roman, and Shiv (and, um, Connor). But John Dutton is not just the star around whom the Dutton children revolve – he is the parent, lover, direct employer or business rival of almost all of the characters Yellowstone; A large number of scenes take place at his home in Dutton.

In fact, the show has always been an explicit vehicle for Kevin Costner. Check out the Season 1 trailer, which starts with the text “ACADEMY AWARD WINNER KEVIN COSTNER,” barely manages a few seconds without showing it on screen, and reminds you again toward the end that it’s the ACADEMY AWARD WINNER KEVIN COSTNER. How about the promos for Season 2 and 3? That’s right: It’s ACADEMY AWARD WINNER KEVIN COSTNER.

When the first half of season five debuted in 2022, Costner’s name had been left out of the trailer – and Sheridan’s appeared instead. Perhaps this is due to the show’s growing popularity and the increasing visibility of Costner’s co-stars (not to mention Sheridan’s); Perhaps behind the scenes, Costner had already begun to resent the demands of the series. But Costner can still be seen everywhere in the trailer: he appears in 45 of the 90 seconds of the trailer or does a voiceover there.

To make matters worse, John Dutton was elected governor of Montana in the first half of season five.

And yet. Nobody since Poochie and Joey Tribbiani has so brazenly dared a show’s writers — er, the writer — to kill him off. Not that he made it easy: Last year, Puck News reported that Costner had a “moral death” clause in his letter Yellowstone Contract that specifically forbade his character from dying in a way that would cause him “disgrace or embarrassment.” So it falls into an elevator shaft. And Sheridan has all but ruled out the fan-favorite theory that your father’s favorite rancher would die in a car accident.

In theory, John Dutton could survive off screen. Let’s say he really gets, Really He invests in the Montana state legislature and moves to Helena full-time, or the government finally finds out about his many, many crimes and he flees somewhere without an extradition policy. Maybe he just goes out to get a pack of cigarettes and never comes back.

But it’s far more likely that the Dutton patriarch will meet a sudden end – an added clue is the fact that Paramount Network has declined to provide advance screeners to reporters. Unfortunately for YellowstoneJohn Dutton isn’t just the star of the series – he’s also, canonically speaking, nearly invincible. To date, he has survived cancer, a ruptured ulcer that required spontaneous intestinal surgery by a veterinarian, a shot and death on the side of the road, and countless other near misses.

How do you kill John Dutton? Thanks to Costner, we’re almost certainly about to find out.