Kevin Costner Announces He Won't Be Returning to 'Yellowstone,' Making This a Dark Day for Fans of Dad TV

As I've mentioned before in different capacities, I'm an old, suburban father. A man who's always cut his own lawn so it has those perfect criss-crosses, puts his tools away just right, keeps the inside of his car clean, and loves few things more than I love a Saturday with nothing to do but hit the hardware store and work on some project around Stately Thornton Manor. In other words, boring as all fuck. 

As such, I'm right in the 10-ring of the target demo of Dad TV:

And as you can tell by that choice of GIF, no show has embodied that genre like Yellowstone. It also belongs to that specific sub-genre of TV centered around a family empire that's under constant threat from outside and in. I'm talking about shows like The Sopranos, Succession, Ozark, Empire, Breaking Bad, The Righteous Gemstones. Even Arrested Development. And if you want to go back a generation or two, Dallas and Dynasty. 

But Yellowstone holds a special place all its own in the cholesterol-laden hearts of us Dad TV viewers. Because at the center of it all is Kevin Costner's John Dutton. He's the patriarch we all dream about being when we're sitting on the back patio after a day of yardwork, sipping a High Noon and debating whether to have our burger without a roll because we've already had a lot of carbs today. Fiercely protective of his family. Willing to kill anyone who poses a threat to them. Someone who sees himself as caretaker of his legacy, passing his ranch down from his father to his own children, and hoping he gave it to them better and more secure than he inherited it. The kind of man who'll lead a cattle round up in the morning, take his grandson fishing in the afternoon, toss a dead body off a cliff after dinner, then sleep like a baby. Basically, he's the man every father wishes he was in his heart of hearts. 

Unfortunately, that whole paragraph should've been written in the past tense. Becase the days of Costner playing this role are over:

This has long been speculated to be happening. Still, it comes as a shock to the system. The bad news is, John Dutton is now purely a reruns character. The good news is that Costner is focusing instead on his four-part movie franchise, which looks like it has even more Dad Appeal:

But the even worse news is that is sounds as though showrunner Taylor Sheridan is going to try and move forward without Costner. For a little while at least. Perhaps to bring the show to a conclusion. He might be able to stick that landing. He's a talented writer who has made a lot of great television. But the track record of such attempts to carry on without the central character has been consistently awful. Think The Office after Steve Carrell left. The X-Files without David Duchovny. House of Cards after they canned Kevin Spacey. All collapsed in on themselves and fell into the giant hole in the story where the main character used to be. And ultimately felt like cynical money grabs, with everyone trying too hard to make it work. 

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I'd like to think cooler heads will prevail and Yellowstone won't try to go forward without him. But we all know better. It's too popular and can sell too many penis medicines to guys my age to simply go off the air. All I ask is that, if they're going to try and go on without Costner, they go all in and cast the greatest replacement actor in TV history, Ted McGinley. The Patron Saint of shows Jumping the Shark: