Yellowstone Season 5 Premiere

Yellowstone Season 5 Premiere

Web Desk
November 9, 2022

Yellowstone Season 5 Premiere

Season 5 begins with John Dutton (Kevin Costner) in his biggest position of power yet.
The two-episode premiere is packed with promise.
The show’s third season was a bit of a narrative jumble.

Since its debut four years ago, Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone has grown into a distinct entity. The popular series has produced a successful offshoot this year called 1883 as well as a verifiable television universe that will soon include the follow-up 1923. Sheridan has established a true TV empire that rivals the likes of Succession, Dallas, House of the Dragon, or any other show you can think of that centres around a dynasty, much like the fictional family whose domain spans substantial portions of Montana.

It would be reasonable to assume that adding more Dutton-centric stories to the mix could negatively affect the flagship program, and that quantity could not always equal quality when adding to the home Sheridan constructed. To emphasise that point even more, Yellowstone’s third season was a bit of a narrative jumble, with the series appearing to be dragging its feet until making its next risky choice after the spectacular cliffhanger of Season 3’s finale. With its upcoming fifth season, Yellowstone has the ability to drastically upend the Duttons’ lives or continue along its current course. Either way, the two-episode premiere is packed with promise.

John Dutton (Kevin Costner), the family patriarch and ranch owner, has been elected governor of Montana, but as we’ve already seen, it’s a spiteful chess move primarily made to deny adopted son Jamie (Wes Bentley) his political aspirations, all in the name of perceived transgressions. Season 5 of Yellowstone begins with John Dutton in his biggest position of power yet. Ironically, John doesn’t even appear to want to be governor, and if the course of the show has shown anything so far, it’s that he has never had much patience for playing the game that is necessary. It wasn’t just a clever metaphor when he referred to himself as the rock that progress runs up against. In his first weeks in office, John chooses to act in ways that not only reveal his discomfort with the burden of new power but also show that his goal isn’t democratic at all. For example, he quickly fires his appointed chief of staff and elevates daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly) to the position, and he cancels numerous scheduled appearances solely for his own benefit.

The fact that John can still be an engaging character on screen is a tribute to Costner’s portrayal of the part, but there are also believable boundaries to how long his worst quality—his stubbornness—may persist. Lynelle Perry (Wendy Moniz), his on-again, off-again love interest and outgoing governor, calls him out on it. The voters may have supported him to defend Montana against outsiders, particularly those like Market Equities who want to level Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, but that doesn’t mean John should manage the state’s top office the same way he does his residence. Even though there’s a sneaking suspicion that John will only give them attention for a split second before carrying out what he was planning on from the beginning, the season does automatically improve itself by surrounding the new governor with voices who are knowledgeable enough to point out the risks in his decision-making. The family’s decision to reintegrate Jamie, albeit under blackmailing terms, may have led to a more tense peace, but it also made for some of the most exciting scenes in the Season 5 premiere, such as a Jamie-Beth face-off that highlights how good Bentley and Reilly are when they’re left alone in a room together.

Putting aside all of those quandaries, it’s still early and this is only the first episode of a season that will be split into two parts, so we still have a lengthy wait to see how all of these developing plots turn out. Whether Yellowstone’s most recent episode will be able to grow into its most ambitious one yet, one that sinks its teeth into us and refuses to let go, or if it will break by fighting against its own progress — the type of wild, dynamic storytelling that this series’ best version of itself has successfully embraced in the past — is still up in the air.