However, as gritty and grounded as Yellowstone could be, Costner himself believes the show wasn’t just a Western. In a 2025 interview with ET, Costner explained that he viewed Yellowstone as a borderline soap opera. While that might sound like an unexpected label for a show so focused on land battles and cattle drives, it turns out there’s more than a little truth to it. Costner’s comments suggest that the show’s strength came not just from its genre trappings, but from the messy, emotional chaos that defined the Dutton’s world.

Kevin Costner Thinks Yellowstone Was “A Bit Of A Soap Opera”

The Dutton Family Drama Was As Intense As Any Daytime Soap

Kevin Costner didn’t hold back when reflecting on Yellowstone, especially when it came to the show’s dramatic undercurrents. During a conversation about the series’ legacy and his exit from the role of John Dutton, Costner delivered a surprisingly blunt yet insightful take on the tone of the hit Western:

“Well, it’s modern-day ranching. Yellowstone was able to capture that really so beautifully. I mean, it’s a bit of a soap opera. I mean, we all should be in prison.”

Fistfights, betrayals, secret deals, long-lost family members, murder cover-ups, love triangles – Yellowstone has all the twisty tropes of a solid soap. That’s before you even get to Beth Dutton’s scorched-earth vendettas or Jamie Dutton’s (Wes Bentley) ever-worsening identity crisis.

From a certain angle, Yellowstone is not far off from a primetime soap like Dallas, just with more violence and better cinematography. Costner’s line about the characters all belonging in prison isn’t hyperbole. The Dutton’s spend much of the series walking a legal and moral tightrope, resorting to blackmail, backroom deals, and even murder to keep their land and legacy intact.

Despite being the heroes of the story in the eyes of some fans, the Dutton’s tactics were often closer to organized crime than heroic ranching. Yet that’s precisely what kept viewers hooked. Taylor Sheridan’s writing injected traditional Western tropes with turbo-charged family drama, transforming ranching life into something rich in borderline-unbelievable volatility.

Costner’s John Dutton may have been the stoic patriarch, but he was also a man constantly dragged into personal chaos, much of it caused by his own children. The intensity of those dynamics, and the way they constantly exploded into emotional or physical violence, is exactly what you’d expect from a soap, just in cowboy boots.

Yellowstone Being A Soap Opera Is Why The Neo-Western Show Works

The Over-The-Top Drama Is What Made Yellowstone So Addictive

While it might sound like an insult on the surface, Kevin Costner’s observation that Yellowstone is “a bit of a soap opera” actually hits at the heart of why the show was such a runaway success. Yes, Yellowstone is predominantly a Western which also serves as a slick political thriller. However, the reason audiences tuned in week after week wasn’t just for land disputes or cattle wrangling – it was for the gut-wrenching betrayals, unhinged confrontations, and relationship meltdowns that erupted almost every episode.

Yellowstone works because it knows how to turn the dial up on the drama without ever tipping into parody. The show walks a fine line between gritty realism and outrageous melodrama, and it walks it confidently. Beth Dutton’s fiery monologues, Rip Wheeler’s vigilante justice, and Jamie’s deeply fractured psyche might feel heightened, but they never feel out of place in the morally grey, high-stakes world Yellowstone crafted. In fact, they’re what made the show’s characters so unforgettable.

Yellowstone didn’t just give viewers a sense of place – it gave them scandal, heartbreak, revenge, and catharsis. And while that formula may sound familiar to fans of Dynasty or Knots Landing, Sheridan made it feel fresh by packaging it inside cowboy hats and political intrigue. Kevin Costner saw that duality firsthand, and he’s right: Yellowstone might be the best Western of the decade, but it was also one of the best soap operas too.