With Kevin Costner leaving ‘Yellowstone,’ who is his replacement?

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Yellowstone season 5, episode 9.

With the return of Yellowstone for a final 6-episode run, people who had been away from the news circles were surprised to find that the show’s main anchor, the lynchpin that brought it all together, was making a prompt and unexplained exit. But why did Kevin Costner leave the show and who is going to replace him now?

Costner’s departure from Yellowstone is pretty much old news at this point, but the reality of the situation wasn’t going to hit us until the show returned with another episode. That may have taken two years, and in no small part thanks to Costner’s sudden exit followed by the SAG-AFTRA strikes, but this latest Yellowstone outing hardly felt like the show we all fell in love with all those years ago.

Yes, it feels odd that out of such a star-studded cast of talented thespians, it is John Dutton who made the whole premise work. Beth is still a force to be reckoned with, Kayce always manages to bring a smile to my face, and Jamie is his usual unresolved self, but without John Dutton to put on the cowboy hat and offer unsolicited monologues about the meaning of life, this all feels like an exercise in futility.

Yes, if that doesn’t make it clear, I became a Yellowstone fan thanks to Kevin Costner’s wonderfully nuanced, succinct, and compelling portrayal of John Dutton. As did many of you, no doubt. Now, Yellowstone is coming to an end, but without the main guy there to bow out by riding off into the sunset.

And so we come back to the question at hand: Why did Costner leave Yellowstone and who is going to replace him now?

Will Kevin Costner be replaced in Yellowstone?

The first few moments of Yellowstone season 5, part 2 make it clear that Costner never made it back to the Sheridan set. The show kills off the character without actually showing his face and from there the whole story spirals into a chaotic mess as everyone scrambles to figure out why Old Man Dutton will no longer be with them.

As for why he left the show, well, there are many stories out there, but Costner himself claims it all boiled down to scheduling conflicts. “We very rarely started when we said we would and we didn’t finish when we said we would,” Costner told GQ about the show’s repeated production delays. “And I was OK with that. I really was. I was OK with it, but it wasn’t a trend that could continue for me.”

There was also Horizon to consider; a Western film franchise produced, directed, and co-written by Costner. The simple truth of it was, our cowboy wanted to leave his mark on this genre he loves.

Will another actor replace Costner as John Dutton? Well, the latest Yellowstone episode makes it clear that is out of the question, but there have been talks of a sequel series starring Matthew McConaughey, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kurt Russell.

That’s quite the list Taylor Sheridan is considering to succeed Kevin Costner in the burgeoning Yellowstone universe, but I’m sure every fan will tell you that it’s never going to be the same without him.