TV

There's Yet Another Bump in the Road for Yellowstone Season 5 Comeback

There's Yet Another Bump in the Road for Yellowstone Season 5 Comeback
Image credit: Paramount

We're all getting pretty tired of waiting endlessly for the second part of Yellowstone's season five, but alas, it seems unlikely that new episodes will be released this summer as previously expected.

Recently, the news about Paramount Network's popular neo-Western drama has been quite devastating for fans. As the channel itself is keeping quiet about the latest developments, the public continues to discuss rumors about the departure of the show's main star, Kevin Costner, and the fact that the series will reportedly end with season five.

According to a report from Deadline, Costner has decided to leave the show due to a scheduling conflict as he wants to devote most of his time to the upcoming movie titled Horizon, on which he serves as director, producer, and co-writer. While this news hasn't been confirmed yet, Cole Hauser, the actor playing fan-favorite Rip Wheeler, has recently broken the silence about the future of the series — and his words are both hopeful and sad.

On March 14, Hauser met with fans at the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in Houston, Texas, where Fox 26 Houston was able to record his answers to fans' questions about season five and its long-awaited conclusion.

"You know, we'll see what's next, but right now I'm focused on giving you guys 5B, you've been waiting for it a little while! But we're trying to go back to work in May, so hopefully that'll happen," Hauser said.

Just like the series' fandom, the actor seems unsure about the future of Yellowstone, but the news of the production resuming in May gives us hope and pause for thought. Will Costner be involved, and if so, how much screen time will he get before possibly being killed off in the script?

Although his lawyer denied the rumor, it's been reported that Costner demanded that the shooting time be reduced to just one week.

And while fans are willing to accept the possible death of John Dutton III, it's very likely that showrunner Taylor Sheridan just wants to end the series and instead focus on the production of a spin-off show starring Matthew McConaughey (according to the Deadline report).

The future doesn't get much brighter for Yellowstone, and fans are still unsure about how much time they'll have to wait before the release of the second part of season five. If the production really starts in May, then we should expect the new episodes to arrive at least in the fourth quarter of this year — if not later.