The End of Yellowstone, and America, As We Know It

It’s not everyday that one spots a sea of cowboy hats filtering into New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Butwhat else would one wear to the premiere of the Yellowstone’s final episodes, which begin airing on Sunday, November 10 at 8 p.m. on Paramount Network? Guests in their bougiest western-wear mingled with the sprawling cast of TV’s top-rated drama series on Thursday night, including Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser, Kelsey Asbille, Piper Perabo, Hassie Harrison, and Gil Birmingham, among others.

Missing from the pack was series head Taylor Sheridan and former leading man Kevin Costner, who departed the series amid reported offscreen tensions with its creator just before the back-half of its fifth and now final season. Costner has busied himself with his own Western epic, a four-part film project titled Horizon that he risked everything to co-write, direct, and star in. The first film premiered at the 2024 Cannes in May; but a theatrical release of its sequel was scrapped in August, which Costner said has only “increased his desire” to ride on with the last two installments.

Meanwhile, Sheridan got a shoutout early in the evening by Paramount co-CEO Chris McCarthy, who thanked the mega-producer as part of his opening remarks. “Let’s face it–the show hasn’t exactly been the easiest journey,” he said to the show’s cast, “and you have leaned in from the very first day, whether it was dueling schedules, working through COVID, incredible weather conditions—you’ve given it your all and this is why we have this incredible program.” He later added, “This show is not only the talk of the town, but the talk of kitchen tables from around the world.”

That was the closest acknowledgment that since its 2018 premiere, Yellowstone has been viewed as red meat entertainment for the heartland—a dynastic soap opera like Succession or Shōgun, with boardrooms and feudal battlegrounds swapped out for a barn coated in chipped paint. This is partly due to the optics of the Dutton family, as led by Costner’s John: a group of gun-wielding, Bourbon-soaked ranchers whose life’s mission is to preserve their generational land ownership. But it also lies in the show’s thematic tilts. Press is sworn to secrecy regarding Yellowstone’s return, but it does include the series’ typical commentary on political correctness, jokes about higher education, and fear of the day that cowboys go extinct.

In real-life, Costner is politically left-leaning and Sheridan has rejected the premise that his show caters to the right-wing. “They refer to it as ‘the conservative show’ or ‘the Republican show’ or ‘the red-state Game of Thrones,’ and I just sit back laughing,” he told The Atlantic in 2022. “I’m like, ‘Really?’ The show’s talking about the displacement of Native Americans and the way Native American women were treated and about corporate greed and the gentrification of the West, and land-grabbing. That’s a red-state show?” In a separate interview with The New York Times, Sheridan declared: “The people who are calling it a red-state show have probably never watched it.”

Yet, large swaths of the people who do watch Yellowstone live in the very places that only this week opted to re-elect Donald Trump to the presidency. Paramount confirmed that Yellowstone is most popular across middle America and the South. Not surprisingly, those responsible for the show have been careful not to alienate Republican audience members. In 2017, Sheridan reportedly referred to then-president Trump in an interview by saying, “Can we just impeach that motherf***er right now?” When asked about the comment by The Atlantic, he said he didn’t recall saying it.

In season 5 of Yellowstone, Costner’s John Dutton waded into political waters by running for Montana state Governor, promising, “I am the opposite of progress. I am the wall that it bashes against.” Later in the season, his son Jamie (Wes Bentley) lobbies to impeach the patriarch from political office. But the premiere crowd, made up of die-hard fans, complete newbies, and those who simply needed a refresher since the season’s first half bowed back in 2022, seemed eager to experience a show they didn’t necessarily have to pin political subtext upon—and imbibe a stiff drink or two in the process.

After the screening, starry guests from all corners of our culture, including Brooke Shields, former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler, Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, Real Housewives star-turned-critic Bethenny Frankel, and Paramount Global’s Shari Redstone, passed a Dutton Ranch-emblazoned black pickup truck parked outside the 53 Restaurant for Manhattan’s take on a down-home hoedown. That meant the kind of city-slicker-friendly affair that would never fly in the actual Yellowstone universe. A bandana embroidery station was sponsored by the boho fashion retailer Free People. Top shelf Yellowstone-themed cocktails were served on a bar adorned with a brown leather saddle. And an upscale caviar bar separated the cast from the other party cattle.

Some of those in attendance (including this reporter) discussed the Republican elephant in the room in worried tones between sips of Bourbon-based beverages. This was the first big foray out of the house since the election for more than one of us. Some eyes were drawn to a pair of partygoers in cowboy hats embellished with American flag pins and the logo of a company that also outfitted a hat for Trump. One attendee, an actor who aspires to one day work with Taylor Sheridan, said she’d never thought about the connection between Yellowstone and the political landscape “until today.”

Cultural critics have long grappled with how to politically classify Yellowstone, and something Tressie Mcillan Cottom once said seemed especially on-point by the end of Thursday’s event. “Yellowstone is a powerful cultural object in large part because it does not feel like a political object to millions of people,” she told Vulture in 2022. Cottam went on to explain that “the conservative principle of Yellowstone is withdrawal. It is to withdraw from social institutions and double down on the family as the only thing that can save you.”

Regardless of your political leanings, the 2024 election signaled a shift in our way of life—a notion with which Yellowstone has always been preoccupied. “I don’t know if it’s a uniquely American fear or just a human fear: the fear that a way of life is ending,” Sheridan told the New York Times back in 2021. “It’s what drives our politics right now. I think it’s a massive theme, this fear of losing someone that you love or a place that you love. That’s pretty universal.”