‘Yellowstone’ Director Reflects On Audience Reaction To John Dutton’s Death: “There Were A Lot Of People Who Were Outraged That John Was Killed — And You’re Supposed To Be”
According to episode director Christina Voros, despite the previous announcements that series lead Kevin Costner was leaving Yellowstone, the recent killing off of his character, John Dutton, sparked genuine outrage among some viewers – which, she says, was arguably the point of the entire event.
As previously recapped, in the opening moments the ninth episode of season five, the series’ now-former protagonist is discovered dead in his mansion from an apparent gunshot wound to the head, though it’s left intentionally unclear as to whether he took his own life or if he was outright murdered (unless you ask his daughter Beth, who upon learning of her father’s death immediately jumps to accuse her adopted brother Jamie of pulling the trigger).
An admittedly shocking ending for Dutton’s character, this development led to a number of reactions on social media, running the gamut from ‘That was about as good as we were going to get’ to ‘That was downright terrible’.
As such, during a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Jackie Strause, Voros was asked about whether she was aware of the outright stampede of user reactions shared to the internet following the episode’s premiere.
In turn, the director asserted, “I have. I’m interested. The reaction is what I expected.”
“I think any time you come to a final season of a beloved show, historically, you are going to get a mixed reaction,” she said. “You’re going to have the people who love it down to the last drop, and you’re going to have the people who hate that it’s ending. Everyone who has fallen in love with this show has their own ideas on their favorite characters and how they want it to end. It’s impossible to live up to every single person’s version of how things should have been dealt with.”
Continuing in her thoughts, Voros noted, “I was reading Twitter and it’s strange the number of people who seemed upset that John Dutton was killed off, despite knowing that Kevin himself said he wasn’t coming back to the show.”
“I think even in the face of that information, people don’t want it to be true,” she opined. “And in a weird way, it’s life imitating art. There were a lot of people who were outraged that John was killed — and you’re supposed to be outraged he was killed. The characters are outraged that he’s killed. So in a strange way, it is the point. You are not supposed to be OK with it.”
Referring back to a previous conversation she had with Strause prior to the episode’s airing, Voros added, “We spoke last week about how I thought it was a bold decision to approach a story that way, and to deal with [John’s fate] right off the bat. What I look forward to is seeing the response as the season goes on, because that’s where it gets complicated and nuanced and beautiful without the impact of this big chess move at the top of the season.”
“But, the story is not over,” the director posited as she drew her thoughts on this particular topic to a close. “You still have the rest of the season and no one knows, really, where that’s going now. A lot of people expected the season to resolve in finding out that John is no longer with us. But when you go there first it’s disorienting: Where are we gonna go next?”
While the actual answer to that question remains in the air, in a more practical sense, fans can go to Paramount Plus every Thursday to catch new episodes of Yellowstone‘s final season.
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