Has Yellowstone jumped the shark? Some seem to think so…
Obviously, Yellowstone will be coming to a close at the end of Season 5, seemingly cut down in its prime of life. But if you were thinking Yellowstone was ever gonna pull a Walking Dead, and try to ramble on for 10 or more seasons, milking the popularity for every penny… that was never the plan.
Anybody who started watching The Walking Dead right at the beginning was obsessed with it. But 11 season later, it got stale, viewership dropped, and it’s ultimately remembered for being the show that didn’t know when to end.
And while Yellowstone sorta fizzled out for a number of other reasons, primarily behind the scenes reasons like trouble managing schedules, delivering scripts and Kevin Costner’s own western movie dreams, writer and creator Taylor Sheridan always had the end in his mind according to an interview with the New York Times:
“Well, I know how it ends. I’m writing to that ending. There’s only so much hovering one can do before the story starts to lose its locomotion; you can’t put it in neutral just because it’s successful.
It will go as many years as it takes for me to tell the story, but you’re not going to see nine seasons of it. No way.”
He echoed that sentiment in a previous interview with Deadline, hinting that show could possibly conclude after Season 6, which might be sooner than fans want, but there’s no sense in dragging the story out for the sake of more seasons (looking at you How I Met Your Mother).
“Well, I know how it ends. I know how the series ends, and you have to move in a straight line toward that end. You can’t walk in circles, waiting to get there, because the show will stagnate.
So, you have to keep moving forward, and there have to be consequences in the world, and there has to be an evolution toward a conclusion. Can that be another two seasons beyond this? It could.”
However, some would argue that it’s already there. And maybe it doesn’t matter at this point, with the show already coming to an end soon. But according to Yellowstone fans on Reddit, or perhaps ex-Yellowstone fans on Reddit, there were a number of different moments when the show seemed to go overboard.
Here’s what they had to say:
“Monica helping catch a serial killer” storyline absolutely sent me.”
“The scene where Monica takes her college group to a Native American rap concert.”
“John’s emergency ruptured ulcer surgery by a vet in a horse barn.”
“The brawl between Beth and Summer- specifically the moment Summer turned out to be a secret judo master or whatever.”
“Beth surviving getting blown up by a bomb.”
“Kayce in the ghillie suit.”
“When basically a commando squad came into downtown Bozeman with bombs and machine guns and was shooting people in the streets.”
“When Rip drove his truck right through that group of parked motorcycles.”
“The scene where Monica shits on her class for using their phones while they were outside. Totally unnecessary.”
“The scene where Beth screamed at Jamie that she was going to make sure to take away his child. Like…..how? How are you going to take him away? Kidnap him?”
“When the governor tells John he has to step down from being livestock commissioner due to “controversy” over all the deaths in the raid but doesn’t blink an eye at Kayce, the guy who led the raid, taking his place.”
“John surviving the season 3 finale.”
“Kayce put a bomb designed to go off at a specific altitude in the Beck Brothers plane on season 2.”
“For me, having Tate kidnapped by a group of white supremacists that only appear in one episode, having the good guys put on military gear & talk “tactics”, which basically equates to them charging forward and firing guns wildly in every direction.”
“The whole ending of season 3. I mean come on hit squad shooting up a government building just gets brushed aside the following season like that?”
“Monica lecturing her students for taking a cell phone break before class… the speech was so over the top and sanctimonious.”
Seems like Season 4 is where it all went south, huh…
Either way, Season 5 and Yellowstone as we know it will wrap up this coming fall, premiering sometime in November… until then, relive some of your favorite shark-jumping moments in this Season 4 recap:
