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MAJOR spoiler warning: This article details specific plot points for Yellowstone, season 5, episode 9

Well, that's one way to die in the West.

In case you haven't seen it yet (and are apparently very OK with spoilers) the part 2 premiere of Yellowstone's season 5 has indeed bumped off John Dutton, formerly the series's main character played by Kevin Costner. After his much publicized exit from the series, fans were expecting something like this to happen in-canon, though perhaps not with the, shall we say flippantness?, the show ended up going with. One person who certainly has thoughts about the character's demise is Costner himself, but with an important caveat: as of November 11, the day after the episode's airing, he hadn't actually watched the show.

Let's take a step back and get some context here. Part 2 of Yellowstone season 5, reportedly its last season, kicked of November 10 with episode 9. In it, we see a bloody body (without Costner's face, of course) and get the story that John Dutton has been killed, off-camera, by a gunshot wound to the head. At first, there's the assumption of suicide. Even though we'll learn more later, that's a pretty grim way to kick off the season, as Costner himself explains.

"I didn’t see it," Costner told the Michael Smerconish radio show, which was reported on by Variety. "I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it."

That interview went down the day after episode 9 aired, and as of this writing, Costner has yet to come out and say whether or not he has watched, or will watch, the show. In fact, the Horizon star even told the SiriusXM presenter, "I’m going to be perfectly honest. I didn’t know it was actually airing last night."

What makes the story even more interesting, though, is that Costner apparently doesn't have to watch it.

So as I mentioned earlier, there was more to Dutton's demise than was previously assumed. Later in the episode, we hear Wes Bentley's Jamie Dutton on the phone with someone who sounds very much like an assassin, confirming the elder Dutton's death. If that sounds like a shocking twist to you, you might've been a bit more surprised than Costner. 

"[The Yellowstone creators are] pretty smart people," he said. "Maybe [the suicide is] a red herring. Who knows? They’re very good. And they’ll figure that out."

Despite the fact that he's off the show, this shows just how well Costner knows the story he led for four and a half seasons. It wouldn't be very surprising if his insights predict other character's fates even beyond his. The verdict's out, though, on whether or not he'll watch it.

Yellowstone season 5, part 2 airs Sunday nights on the Paramount network. Seasons 1-4 are streaming now on Peacock.

Let Popverse guide you through the wildest west on TV with our guide to the Yellowstone spinoffs.