“Yellowstone Season 5, Episode 9 Review: Great Death Sparks War”

Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Yellowstone” Season 5, Episode 9.

When Kevin Costner refused to return for the second half of “Yellowstone” season 5, one big question was left in the air: What would happen to patriarch John Dutton? We got our answer in Sunday night’s midseason premiere.

Yellowstone was never a subtle show, but the midseason premiere’s plot took the show’s absurdity to new levels. When Beth (Kelly Reilly) frantically runs to the governor’s mansion and finds the place swarming with cops, we knew pretty quickly that something bad had happened. When Kayce (Luke Grimes) arrived, they went inside and learned that her father had (allegedly) shot himself in the bathroom sometime in the middle of the night. Viewers caught a glimpse of a gun lying on the floor and the Costner lookalike lying on the floor in a white T-shirt and pajama pants and, like Beth, quickly concluded that there was no way John was ending his own life. There was no way he would go out like that, not only because it goes against his life and legacy, but also… pajama pants? Please. At least he would be wearing boots and a cowboy hat somewhere out on the ranch. Whatever the case, it’s clear that “Yellowstone” had to find a way to get rid of Costner’s character quickly, and clumsy or not, they chose to do so.

We learn that Dutton’s impeachment trial was scheduled to begin that morning and sometime around 3:53 a.m. a police officer on the scene heard a gunshot. The police quickly examined John’s hands for gunshot residue and looked for marks on the gun, labeling it a “10-56,” which is police code for suicide. A sad, disbelieving Jamie (Wes Bentley) was then forced to announce his father’s death to the waiting news media, which Beth and Kayce hear on the radio.

While Reilly has always been an easygoing character as Beth, the Dutton daughter was really a good character in this episode. She told Kayce that she was convinced that “Jamie not only killed her father,” but that he “killed everything our father ever did,” which he accomplished and left to them and all the memories he had co-created. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, since everyone leaves a legacy no matter how they die, but there has always been a kind of “cowboy morality” that “Yellowstone” undermines. We see it here with the implication that suicide isn’t something a man does, and we see it even more crudely later in the episode when the ranch workers joke about insults and stereotypes. There’s always been an assumption that “Yellowstone” – and by extension its creator, Taylor Sheridan – knows better than anyone that these cowboys are the truest, most intelligent Americans, regardless of what’s going on outside of Montana. It’s annoying when you’re not on it, but considering how popular the show is, they’ve clearly found something.

And speaking of cowboys, after getting a glimpse of Beth whining about how Jamie “killed my daddy!”, we learn that her husband Rip (Cole Hauser) married Montana about six weeks earlier with four or left five other ranch hands to go down to the 6666 Ranch. They have to graze their herd there after the bison leave one of their pastures full of brucellosis. They’ll also sleep on the windy land, and we get a glimpse of former “Yellowstone” favorite Jimmy (Jefferson White), who’s still waiting for the promised “6666” spinoff.

Later, Rip goes on a supply run to Pampa, Texas, where we enter the shop of legendary spur maker Billy Ray Klapper, who just passed away in September. He was one of the few spur makers who still used a solid piece of steel, and as “Yellowstone” reminds us almost constantly in this and every episode, cowboying (and outfitting cowboys) is becoming a lost art. Klapper is cute and it’s great to look around his shop, but it feels like they’re gilding the metaphorical lily a little with the scene, and another one later when Rip tells his hands, “In 30 years, it will.” no one can do any more.” ”

But enough about Texas. Back in Montana, we dig into the dirty details of what happened to John Dutton. It was, as Beth suspected, Jamie – or rather, Jamie’s devilish girlfriend, Sarah Atwood (Dawn Oliveri). The almost cartoonishly evil character has taken a swipe at John via a shady conglomerate, and as she pushes for a heart attack – something the family may actually have bought – the mercenary tells her that doing so would leave them at the mercy of the whims of a toxicologist who Maybe find the drugs in John’s system. Suicide, he says, is simply more sellable, especially when there is a lot of physical evidence pointing to a history of mental illness. (Are police officers really that gullible?)

Fast forward about six weeks, and with John now dead, Jamie comes home shaken. Sarah meets him in the bedroom, almost naked and with champagne in hand, but when she sees how sad he is, she is visibly upset. (“Well, that’s not the reaction I was expecting,” she quips.) She quickly reminds Jamie that he gave the green light to the act by telling her he wanted his father dead, even though Jamie seems baffled since it was never spoken of again after that night. It’s a big rhetorical and narrative leap, but it’s never worth really asking why anything happens in “Yellowstone.” It just happens, and the characters struggle to deal with the consequences.

Then comes Sarah’s big speech. She has always manipulated Jamie with compliments and sex, and this is no different. As he worries about how John’s death will affect him legally, Sarah tells him that he is protected, that he is about to enter a world that he rules and controls, and that he is “not about one 68-year-old man should mourn”. “I never loved him.” “Lions don’t die of old age,” she says. “Lions die in the mouths of younger lions and you are the younger lion.” We’re not really sure how Puppeteers like their involvement in the whole lion analogy, but we’ll let it go.

Lions apparently don’t die on camera either, as Beth and Kayce discover that the transponder failed near the governor’s mansion three minutes before their father’s death, nullifying all surveillance in and around the house. It’s too convenient to be a coincidence, and it seems clear that they’ll take matters into their own hands, as law enforcement seemed all too willing to wrap things up in a neat, self-inflicted package. (Do cops on “Yellowstone” ever do anything? It seems like the only justice ever meted out on that show is vigilante justice.) Anyway, Beth, Rip, Kayce and pretty much everyone else in Montana still left are about to start I’m gunning for Jamie and you have to assume the rest of the season is going to be pretty wild.

On Yellowstone, no one is ever really safe and we’re all just along for the ride.

“Yellowstone” airs Sundays at 8pm ET/PT on Paramount Network.