Luke Grimes Talks About THAT Yellowstone Death and the Show's "Perfect" Ending
"It ended up happening in a way that none of us saw coming. It's shocking," the actor-musician told Jimmy Fallon.
Spoilers ahead for Yellowstone Season 5B!
Yellowstone has featured shocking deaths ever since its premiere — but the latest was surprising even for longtime fans of the violent Western drama.
The second half of Yellowstone's fifth and final season premiered on November 10, and the episode showed Kevin Costner's character, John Dutton, dead by apparent suicide.
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Luke Grimes, who plays Kayce Dutton on the series, spoke about the fate of his onscreen father when he stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 12.
The actor-musician admitted that "we always kind of knew it was coming. That's sort of how the show was set up, right? It was always gonna go there."
"But obviously it ended up happening in a way that none of us saw coming. It's very shocking," he continued, referring to John Dutton's suspicious death.
"He had terminal cancer when the show started. We always knew... But we couldn't let him go. We needed him around," Grimes explained. Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, he teased that John's death “is the beginning of the end. It launches the season forward with rocket fuel, is what it does.”
Luke Grimes on Yellowstone's final episode: "It's really perfect"
Since this season of Yellowstone is the series' last, Jimmy Fallon asked Grimes if he was happy how things end for Kayce.
"I think it's perfect. Taylor [Sheridan, Yellowstone creator] knew the end from the very beginning," Grimes told Fallon. "He told me, 'I don't want you to know how it ends, but I know how it ends." And then when I read it, I was like, 'Glad he saved it.' It's really perfect."
Grimes, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, said that the script for the final episode was "so beautiful, so profound. It was so perfect, I thought. I think it ends really perfectly and I can’t imagine it now ending any other way."
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Kevin Costner reacts to shocking Yellowstone death
Costner left the series after the first half of Season 5 concluded. During an interview on SiriusXM’s The Michael Smerconish Program, he said he didn't watch the Season 5B premiere.
“I didn’t see it. I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it,” revealed the Horizon star, who also questioned the real cause of death. "Maybe it’s a red herring. Who knows? They’re very good. And they’ll figure that out."
Catch up on Yellowstone Seasons 1-5 on Peacock.
