Yellowstone EP Calls Season 5 Episode 12’s Death ‘Tragic’ & ‘Gut-Wrenching’

Yellowstone Season 5 has entered its final phase, and the characters in the show are dying in almost every episode. The latest entry on this list is an employee of the titular ranch, and their death in Episode 12 seems to have caught many fans by surprise, especially due to how it happened. Now, executive producer and episode director Christina Voros has unpacked the “profoundly tragic” and “gut-wrenching” scene and explained how it came to be.

Christina Voros reflects on Colby Mayfield’s ‘powerful’ and ‘grounded’ death

Colby Mayfield (Denim Richards) died in Yellowstone Season 5 Episode 12 while trying to protect the young recruit Carter (Finn Little) from a bucking horse. Voros directed several episodes in the latest season, including Episode 12. In a new interview, she reflected on Colby’s “powerful” and “grounded” death.

“The thing that I think is such a gut-punch about Colby’s death is that in a season where there are all these twists and turns and dark forces and giant narrative swings, Colby’s death is so powerful because it’s so simple,” Voros told The Hollywood Reporter. “For anyone who really understands the lifestyle of cowboys and working with animals and the risks of the jobs — and Rip [Cole Hauser] says it about himself — it’s a dangerous job, and this kind of thing happens and it happens in a split-second,” she further stated.

Voros noted that her husband is a cowboy and wrangler, whose friends have gone in the same way as Colby. “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,” she added.

The TV director also spoke about the impact Colby’s death would have on Teeter [Jennifer Landon], his romantic interest. Even though they are still very much in a relationship, the two had to put some distance between themselves after the herd was sent to Colorado and Texas for grazing.

“And especially because of the way that Colby and Teeter’s relationship has been playing out — absence makes the heart grow fonder; and their relationship had really just begun to take root in a different way — the timing of it is just gut-wrenching,” Voros explained.