Yellowstone · Season 5 · Paramount Network
Yellowstone Season 5
Yellowstone Season 5 is a WORTH-IT, BollyMeter 7.0/10. 14 episodes on Paramount Network from 13 November 2022.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
The fifth and final season aired across two parts - eight episodes in late 2022 and six in late 2024 - with Kevin Costner's departure over a production dispute creating narrative gaps the writing visibly struggled to fill. Critics at 79% Rotten Tomatoes from 62 reviews were broadly positive about the season's ambition, but an audience score of 41% indicated viewer frustration with a finale that could not fully deliver on five seasons of investment. Entertainment Weekly's Kristen Baldwin acknowledged the show's historical significance - proving linear television could still produce a gargantuan hit - while noting the ending felt constrained by real-world production circumstances. The spinoffs (1883, 1923) absorbed the ongoing Dutton universe appetite.
BollyAI hasn't watched this. BollyAI has read everyone who has.
The Room
“It's a lusty, larger-than-life soap opera harking back to Dallas and Dynasty, with a hint of Cormac McCarthy's cowboy stoicism.”
Daily Telegraph
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E17.8
A patient season premiere that lays its chessboard with care, leaning hard on its actors while planting the war to come.
Full review of E1 → - E27.4
Power is damage control in a slow, surgical hour where the new governor signs orders and fires his daughter before she can start the job.
Full review of E2 → - E3Happy Hunting Grounds7.1
A Rainwater-centred hour that earns its title by taking the longer historical view seriously.
Full review of E3 → - E47.6
A quiet, well-paced hour that weaponizes silence, but its open loops promise more than they deliver.
Full review of E4 → - E5Watch 'Em Ride Away6.9
A contemplative elegy for choices that cannot be undone, strongest in its quieter passages.
Full review of E5 → - E67.6
A quiet, character-true hour that argues John will always choose retreat over duty, and trusts you to see the cost in ten seconds of news footage.
Full review of E6 → - E77.8
An hour that methodically binds every Dutton to the consequences of their violence, even as it postpones the explosion it so carefully builds.
Full review of E7 → - E8A Knife and No Coin7.3
The Part 1 finale earns its cliffhanger by making every institutional threat feel visceral.
Full review of E8 → - E96.8
A searing family portrait anchored by a devastating silence, but the plotting stalls where the grief should propel.
Full review of E9 → - E10Desire Is All You Need7.2
Beth's grief converted to aggression is Part 2's sharpest argument, and this episode makes the case.
Full review of E10 → - E11No Such Thing as Fate7.4
A sharp consequence machine that earns its tension by tracing every crisis back to a specific choice.
Full review of E11 → - E12Counting Coup7.5
The season's tightest hour - every confrontation is a strategic contact, every scene advances the board.
Full review of E12 → - E13Infernal Revenue7.2
Tax law as thriller: the episode makes bureaucratic threat feel visceral and sets the finale's table.
Full review of E13 → - E14Broken Rock7.6
A finale that earns its weight by honouring historical complexity and refusing to declare a single winner.
Full review of E14 →
Season Over Season
Costner's reduced then absent presence reshapes the season's centre of gravity; the split structure and production disputes give the final run an uneven quality the first four seasons avoided.