I think it’s because it’s turned into a soap opera.
This season has been a mess of scenes where anyone with a brain says, “Really?”
It was bad enough where they would murder people in the same place for decades, dump them off the side of the road…and drive away. Over and over again. At least take them away from the road for God’s sake.
Now the adult daughter of the Governor is getting into bar fights.
I don’t blame Costner for getting sick of it.
I watched the first episode. Between the supposed right to kill people and the supposed right to divert water anywhere and anytime you wanted rather than owning “water rights” and being sued into total poverty if violated...well, I gave up after one episode.
I may watch the latest season...after the $40 cost comes down, sometime after the season ends. Either way, I can live my life with or without it.
That misses the details of how "the train station" worked. It was not dumping bodies "off the side of the road" but was off the top of a remote ravine that sloped into a neighboring state where the bodies were virtually inaccessible and would simply not be found or looked for. Dutton and other cattle barons who used "the train station" to dispose of problem bodies did so with the tolerance of local lawmen who were aligned with them and part of the Western code that some SOBs deserve killing.
There are many examples of that sort of thing, it being an elaboration and institutionalization of the common criminal maneuver of dumping bodies in remote places and on the other side of jurisdictional boundaries.
And yes, Yellowstone often veers into soap opera, but soap opera is usually based in truth even as it suffers from too much compression of time so as to intensify the drama. The bar fight with Beth Dutton reminded me of an incident from years ago when my father was a circuit judge and my sister -- a Beth Dutton type in personality and looks -- got her picture in color on the front page of the local newspaper when she was called to testify for the defense in a trial of two DEA agents falsely accused of walking out on a bar bill.
The episode was a set up in order to wreck the DEA led task force that was getting close to how the local drug trade was protected. My sister got sucked in because she went for a drink with a court reporter friend who was dating one of the DEA agents. The bar owner -- a prominent local businessman -- arranged the entire incident. My father was furious because he had warned my sister never to go into that particular bar even though it was a bright, shiny, popular place full of tourists. My father knew who the crooks in town were.
The success of Yellowstone and other Taylor Sheridan series come from an emphasis on story and character with a lack of wokeness. Golly, who ever suspected that our entertainment industry was still capable of that sort of thing.