00:00Yellowstone returned Sunday night and quickly revealed the fate of Kevin Costner's character
00:04John Dutton following the actor's exit from the show. We're breaking down just what happened
00:09during the premiere and how producers kept the big secret. Warning, major Yellowstone spoilers
00:15ahead. Right out of the gate, Sunday's premiere revealed that John Dutton has indeed died,
00:20and it initially appears that he has taken his own life. However, it turns out Sarah Atwood,
00:25the fixer-girlfriend of estranged Dutton brother Jamie, put a hit out on John following the
00:29explosive mid-season finale, and instructed her murder for hire to make John's death appear to
00:35be a suicide. Sunday's episode ended with Beth vowing once again to kill Jamie. Executive producer
00:40Christina Voros, who directed The Hour, told The Hollywood Reporter how the show kept the big
00:45reveal a secret. We didn't talk about it as a death. Anytime there is a death or some sort of event,
00:50we called it an arrival, and we gave John's character a pseudonym. We called him Crosby.
00:55We were calling the opening scene, Beth discovers that Crosby has arrived. It was on the call sheets,
01:00and the crew were like, who is Crosby, and where's he coming from? As for the origin of the pseudonym,
01:05she said, I did some random research. John Schuyler Crosby was the last governor of Montana before
01:10Montana was turned into a state in the 1800s. It was a very random, obscure, esoteric reference by
01:16Taylor Sheridan. Ahead of the big reveal, the cast spoke to THR at their red carpet premiere for part two
01:22of season five about how they thought the show's audience might react to John Dutton's fate.
01:26I think, like the rest of us, they're going to be bummed. You know, that's a big presence.
01:31That's Kevin Costner. He's an icon. He's John Dutton. He's the rock, the patriarch of the family.
01:38And it's hard to imagine the show without him. But that was always where the show was headed. It was,
01:43can these kids do it without him? You know? So we all knew it was going to get there. We just didn't
01:48know how or when. And clearly it was different than we thought. But what it did do was ramp the
01:54show up to a 10. And now, you know, everything starts to unravel. You know, it's going to be
02:00difficult. I think a lot, you know, a lot like for Jamie, who's his whole focus in the world was
02:05on John Dutton. And I think at times the show feels like that. And, you know, we definitely,
02:10we miss him. He's a huge part of the show. And he's a great guy to have around and wonderful to
02:15work with. And so, you know, I wish him all luck in the world, but we definitely miss him.
02:19As for what viewers can expect from next week's episode, Voros said,
02:22I think there's a lot to unravel. There's a map that has to be drawn as to how to move forward.
02:27And I think the next episode begins to outline the way that map is drawn.
02:30For much more on this story, go to THR.com. This is The Hollywood Reporter News.
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