Taylor Sheridan Doubled Down on Yellowstone’s Biggest Plot Hole

Taylor Sheridan builds rugged worlds better than almost anyone on TV right now. He also has a quirk I can’t unsee: he sets up meaningful child-and-horse moments that look important, then quietly drops them like they never happened.

The Yellowstone horse that just... vanished

Back in Yellowstone Season 2, Tate Dutton begs his granddad John to buy him a horse. They bring home a gelding Tate names Lucky, but John makes it a teachable moment first: Tate has to feed, water, and care for the animal himself. Great idea on paper. In practice? We barely see Tate and Lucky together after that. While Tate is out tending the horse, the Beck brothers kidnap him, and Lucky basically exits the show along with the scene. What starts as a rite-of-passage story beat turns into a plot device for the abduction and then gets ghosted by the narrative.

Those Who Wish Me Dead does the same dance

Sheridan repeats the move in his thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead. Early on, the kid at the center of the story, Connor, has a quiet, carefully shot moment bonding with a horse while traveling with his dad. The way it’s framed, you expect it to matter later — symbolism, character insight, something. It never comes back. The film barrels ahead, and that tender beat becomes retroactively hollow.

One time is a quirk; twice starts to feel like a habit. In Western-flavored stories, leaving that kind of emotional setup hanging can undercut the weight the genre thrives on.

Quick refresher: what Those Who Wish Me Dead is about

Sheridan directed the 2021 survival thriller and co-wrote it with Michael Koryta and Charles Leavitt, adapting Koryta’s novel. The story follows Connor, who witnesses his father’s murder and becomes a target for professional assassins. He flees into the Montana wilderness and crosses paths with Hannah, a smokejumper still wrecked by a past tragedy. As a wildfire closes in, Hannah fights to keep him alive and, with some timely help along the way, they take the killers down. The cast includes Angelina Jolie, Finn Little, Jon Bernthal, Aidan Gillen, and Nicholas Hoult. You can rent it on Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.

About that 6666 spin-off everyone keeps asking about

Yellowstone has spawned a whole ecosystem of spin-offs, and 6666 was among the earliest announced — which is why the silence around it has fans antsy. Rumors keep swirling that it might be dead, and now there’s a new damp blanket: Jefferson White, who plays Jimmy Hurdstram, told the Daily Mail (via The Express) he hasn’t heard a thing about it. Asked if Jimmy would be back for 6666, he kept it simple:

"I don’t know anything about it."

Not the update fans were hoping for, especially if you wanted future shows to circle back to some of Yellowstone’s unresolved threads.

Yellowstone in a nutshell

• Title: Yellowstone
• Type: American neo-Western drama TV series
• Creators: Taylor Sheridan and John Linson
• Main cast: Led by Kevin Costner as John Dutton, with a large ensemble supporting cast
• Premise: The Duttons own the largest ranch in Montana and wage constant wars — legal and otherwise — against land developers, politicians, and neighboring reservations to keep control of their territory
• Original network: Paramount Network (cable)
• Original run: Premiered June 2018; final episodes aired in 2024

If you want to catch up or rewatch: Yellowstone is streaming on Paramount+. Those Who Wish Me Dead is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.