'Yellowstone' premiere: Record ratings, Rip's ride and Billy Klapper's tribute

Spoilers ahead! Stop reading if you don't want to know what happened to Kevin Costner's John Dutton in "Yellowstone."

In case you've been working cattle off the grid in Texas like Rip Wheeler, "Yellowstone" finally returned Sunday night after two years. The premiere of the six-episode second half of Season 5 on Paramount Network, and its broadcast last Sunday on CBS, pulled in a record same-day audience of 16.4 million viewers, according to VideoAmp, the ratings service used by Paramount Global.

Creator and executive producer Taylor Sheridan made news by immediately killing off Kevin Costner's franchise cornerstone character, patriarch and Montana Governor John Dutton. His death was a casualty of a real-life battle: Costner and Sheridan collided, often publicly, over a series of work issues, prompting Costner to announce in June that he would not be returning to Season 5.

Director Christina Voros, a longtime Sheridan collaborator who is also directing the Michelle Pfieffer-led Sheridan Universe spinoff "The Madison," tells USA TODAY even she was "shocked" at how quickly John Dutton left the stage. Onscreen, the death is made to look like a suicide, but it is actually a murder orchestrated by Attorney General Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) and his girlfriend, lawyer Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri).

But there was much to Sunday's premiere, as Voros explained to USA TODAY.

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Question: John Dutton is now dead, but will we continue to see Kevin Costner's character in "Yellowstone" through flashbacks?

Christina Voros: We use flashbacks, but everything on the screen was shot for this year. One beautiful thing about (Sheridan's) use of flashbacks is that it always adds a layer to the storytelling.

Rip riding off at a full, dust-stirring gallop to get home from Texas is impressive. Does Cole Hauser really ride horseback?

That's definitely Cole riding. You can't make a show about cowboys without people being good on a horse. But we also have a tremendous team of stuntmen and women, wranglers and trainers that are working with them to get them where they are.

Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) tells her husband Rip (Hauser) to get home pronto, but he takes a few detours. Did Rip stop at the 6666 Ranch because Sheridan owns it, or because the ranch is destined to become a "Yellowstone" spinoff?

It doesn't get more cowboy and more authentic Western than The Four Sixes Ranch. It's a desire to honor the men and women who authentically live this life. It isn't about a spinoff or that Taylor owns the ranch. It shows cowboys and ranchers who share a similar heartbeat, and we pay homage to that lifestyle.

The episode is dedicated to legendary bill and spur craftsman Billy Klapper, who is featured with Rip in the episode. Why was that appropriate?

Klapper died in September, about two weeks after we got to work with him. It is one of my life's great honors to do that scene, which was actually shot in his workshop. It was like being in Michelangelo's studio. We didn't touch anything.

Yellowstone aired on CBS Sunday night, after its Paramount Network premiere. What kind of changes are needed for network TV?

We do our cut the way it's initially intended to air. They usually have to clean up a few choice words from Beth's language. It usually comes down to a couple of extra syllables that aren't network-permissible.

Speaking of Beth, she's mourning her father in the premiere. But we see a flashback of Beth being Beth while doing community service on a road crew after a bar fight. Why was that important to show?

Anytime there is the death of a loved one, flashbacks show how amazing life can be one day. Everything is fine. And then the next day, the world is forever changed. These moments of levity juxtaposed with the loss of the patriarch are powerful and amplify how much is lost. The world will never be the same. And it gives the audience a reprieve from the heaviness.

You're still shooting "The Madison," a spinoff starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Patrick J. Adams about a different Montana family. How do they fit into the "Yellowstone" universe?

It's a different perspective on Montana, a different world that feels adjacent, We went with almost the entire crew on the last day of "Yellowstone " to start on "The Madison." We're on the same train, but it's a very different story.