Why show focused on murder, mortuary

On November 28, 2024By Pranco

‘Yellowstone’ spoilers ahead: Stop reading if you don’t want to know more about Sunday’s episode.

Two weeks after he was found dead in the YellowstoneSeason 5 part 2 premiere, patriarch John Duttonplayed by Kevin Costner, made for an eerie return on Sunday.

The latest episode features a flashback to the brutally efficient assassination of Montana’s governor. Three balaclava-clad professionals grab the sleeping Dutton (played by Costner’s stunt double), carry him to the bathroom, force a gun into his hand and kill him, making it look like a suicide.

The death is “a gross violation of everything that John Dutton’s character was and what it stands for,” director Christina Voros tells USA TODAY. “It’s brutal. It’s heartbreaking. Here is a strong, iconic character who has stood up to various forces of evil and adversaries. To be unsuspectingly taken down in his sleep, in his own home, is a terribly violent act.”

Still, viewers should witness Dutton’s death, Voros says. “It’s such a militaristic operation that no amount of explanation could make it work. You have to see it to understand what happened,” she says.

The trauma following Dutton’s death continues as the governor’s corpse is thoroughly examined at the morgue. Voros answers burning questions from Sunday’s episode:

Why was it important to show John Dutton’s body in the morgue?

Loyal son Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) urges the coroner to take another look at the governor as he questions the initial suicide verdict. Kayce even insists on going to the morgue to watch his father’s reexamination, much of which is seen in the episode.

Kayce represents every viewer who doesn’t want to look at the gruesome remains of a heroic character, but wants answers.

“Unless Kayce looks at the body, he won’t get the answers he’s looking for,” Voros said. ‘We see through Kayce’s gaze. It’s not death for death’s sake. It’s this bruise here, this tear. The answers that can bring us to justice lie in that body. It is the key to unlocking the truth and ensuring the right people are retained. responsible.”

Does the TV treatment of John Dutton reflect the disagreement between Costner and Sheridan?

Dutton has had a brutal time in these new episodes, written by co-creator and executive producer Taylor Sheridan after a lengthy battle with Costner. who officially announced that he would not return in June.

Is Dutton’s treatment a parting salvo or is it steeped in the feud between the show’s sole writer and its former star?

“I can’t speak for Taylor,” Voros said. “What I do know is that he always had some version of the (‘Yellowstone’) ending in mind, long before any off-screen drama. With generational dramas dating all the way back to Shakespeare and the Greeks, the death of the king is archetypal. Avoiding that was never the intention. I feel like this was always the intention.”

Still, the details of the death, and perhaps even the mortuary scene, would have been changed if Costner had been, and still could be, part of what was previously billed as the ending of “Yellowstone.”

“Whether we would have ended up here this way, in another universe. I can’t answer that,” says Voros. “Only Kevin (Costner) can talk about his decision to be a part of this past season or not. And I’m not in the rooms where such things are decided. But it’s a really interesting puzzle for storytellers to figure out. to tell the story of the king’s death without the king. You must see something.”

Were viewers denied a final showdown between Beth Dutton and Sarah Atwood?

It seemed likely that Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and lawyer Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) were headed for a ‘Yellowstone’ showdown. Beth knew that the lawyer had plotted with her boyfriend Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) to kill his father. The formidable characters faced each other in the past.

But in Sunday’s episode, it’s the secret assassin who attacks Sarah before Beth does. Sarah had hired the nefarious group to assassinate Governor Dutton. She even visited their secret office lair. Sarah was the only loose end when police reopened the Dutton case as a possible murder.

Sarah is murdered in her Range Rover by a couple posing as lost minivan drivers. Voros says sudden deaths like those of Sarah Atwood and John Dutton are part of Sheridan’s surprise master plan.

“Whether it’s John Dutton dying in the first episode or Sarah dying now, there are certain conclusions that feel like inevitable impasses,” she says. “But when you hit each of these points, there’s no surprise anymore. So places where (Sheridan) chooses to forego a final showdown works, for example. It keeps us as an audience on our toes.”