It’s finally almost here: new episodes of Yellowstone – streaming on NEON. Travis Johnson previews the show’s return, in which everything is up for grabs and everything is at stake.
Yellowstone surprised everyone.
Certainly, if you’re a fan of the Western genre then you’re interest was certainly piqued as the series’ 2018 premiere date approached—particularly due to the presence of Hollywood star and self-appointed keeper of the Western flame Kevin Costner in a rare TV role. The gravelly Costner as John Dutton, patriarch of a deep-rooted Montana ranching family fending off all-comers in a modern-day horse-opera-cum-crime-drama? Sure, that’s got to be worth a look.
What a difference six years makes, hey? Yellowstone is one of the biggest TV success stories of recent years, one of the most watched shows in America, capturing a mass cable audience rarely seen in the streaming-centric age, all eager to spend time on the titular Yellowstone Ranch.
Creator Tyler Sheridan, an actor familiar (well, vaguely familiar) from Veronica Mars and Sons of Anarchy, is now a bonafide mogul. Yellowstone, his first produced series, begat prequel series Yellowstone: 1883, with Western veteran Sam Elliott and country stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw in the lead roles, and Yellowstone: 1923, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren (Sheridan has a knack for attracting top-notch acting talent).
Then there’s Lawmen: Bass Reeves with David Oyelowo, originally conceived as a spin-off but realised as a stand-alone miniseries; upcoming Yellowstone series The Madison (a direct sequel starring Michelle Pfeiffer), 6666 (a Texas-set spin-off), and 1944 (a prequel, but a direct sequel to 1923), plus unrelated series Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, Special Ops: Lioness, and the imminent Landman.
But it all began with Yellowstone, and now Yellowstone is back, with the second part of its fifth season premiering on November 11. Everything is up for grabs, everything is at stake. Costner’s John Dutton, now Governor of Montana, is at loggerheads with his prodigal son, Jamie (Wes Bentley), with fiery-tempered daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly) making the volatile mix even more dangerous. It seems certain that familial blood will be spilt. Exactly whose is a heavy question.
It’s been a borderline heroic journey getting here at all, with the Yellowstone schedule frequently shifting. That’s not the only reason we’ve been waiting so long—the WGA and SAG strikes certainly didn’t help, and now we haven’t seen the Duttons since January 2023. Will it have been worth the wait?
I reckon so, and I’m not alone. The delay, and even the chatter and conjecture around the show’s returning cast, only heightens anticipation. Those kinds of strictures just build creative pressure, and odds are it’ll burst out in interesting and messy ways.
That’s the appeal of Yellowstone in a nutshell—it’s a melodrama. It’s not soapy—although I like to think of it as Dallas with AR-15s—it’s pulpy. It’s heightened and histrionic, never cleaving to mere “realism” when there are bigger beats to be hit. Everything about it is big—big actors playing big characters, giving big performances under big Montana skies.
The emotions in play are towering; every betrayal cuts like a knife, every grievance worthy of a blood feud, every act of violence explosive and heavy with consequences (for all that, Yellowstone is almost bloodless compared to 1883, an absolute slaughterhouse of a series). It’s Shakespearean—not just in that the dynastic tussles over the ranch invoke King Lear, but also in that Sheridan, like ol’ Will, was never afraid to play to the cheap seats.
It’s popular, and that can be confused with populist; Yellowstone is sometimes dismissed as a series for flyover country and red states, but the way it both deifies and interrogates the foundational myth of the American west is complex and arresting.
And if that’s too much for you, there are gunfights on the reg and the occasional gag about a cowhand having to jack off a horse (no, really). It is vast; it contains multitudes.
