This article contains spoilers for “Yellowstone” season 5, episode 12.
There’s a scene in the “Yellowstone” season 5 episode “Cigarettes, Whiskey, a Meadow, and You” where Emmett Walsh (Buck Taylor), an elderly rancher, dies peacefully after helping John Dutton (Kevin Costner) during a soul-enriching trek into the hills and prairies. John refuses to mourn him, though, as Emmett dies the way a cowboy should. It’s also one of the rare deaths on “Yellowstone” that comes across as realistic. Colby Mayfield’s (Denim Richards) demise in season 5, episode 12, “Counting Coup,” has a similar effect, but his is more tragic than old Emmett’s.
Colby dies after being trampled by a horse while saving Carter (Finn Little) from the aggressive steed. While the rancher’s final moments are heroic, some viewers might deem his death unnecessary, especially since he’s a background character whose most meaningful storyline — a romance with Teeter (Jennifer Landon) — just started finding its groove. However, “Yellowstone” director Christina Voros told The Hollywood Reporter that Colby’s death wasn’t supposed to create meaningless shock value:
“In a world of very high-stakes drama, this death comes as a shock because it’s so simple and it’s so grounded in the world in which all these characters work that it’s profoundly tragic because there’s no enemy here. It’s the risk of the job.”
It seems that Colby’s death was intended to add more authenticity to “Yellowstone” amid an outlandish season of murder and mayhem. That said, the creators also hope that it portrays grief from a unique angle.
Why Colby’s Yellowstone death is tragic
John Dutton getting whacked infuriated some “Yellowstone” fans, but the character’s violent lifestyle always put him at risk of being taken out this way. The same can be said about Sarah Atwood’s (Dawn Olivieri) shocking assassination in season 5, episode 11, as she was as corrupt as they come. Colby Mayfield’s death hits harder because he was a good-natured rancher with a blossoming romance and his whole life ahead of him — and that’s supposed to be the main takeaway from his passing, according to Christina Voros:
“[Colby] had a love in his life; they were making plans. There was a future ahead of them. So it has a very different impact, I think, than the murder of John Dutton, because it happened because he was doing what he’s meant to be doing. It didn’t happen because someone was out to get him or because he did anything wrong. He was trying to protect Carter and did what he thought was the right thing, and it was a freak accident.”
Regardless of how one feels about Colby’s death, it is different from the violent send-offs most of the characters on this series receive, and it highlights the dangers of working with horses. Furthermore, it’s yet another “Yellowstone” season 5 moment that suggests all bets are off heading into the final episodes, so viewers can probably brace themselves for more shocking surprises.
New episodes of “Yellowstone” premiere Sundays on Paramount Network.