Yellowstone’s fifth season will be temporarily hanging up its many hats as soon as the new year arrives, with the midseason finale airing on Sunday, January 1. The western drama set viewers up for some fireworks with the episode, titled “A Knife and No Coin,” but not necessarily any huge deaths or exits. However, one of the stars themselves has shared some thoughts that rather heavily imply their character won’t be returning down the road for the winter premiere.
Piper Perabo, who’s been rocking some pretty wicked facial makeup since her character’s brawl with Beth, spoke about the impending midseason finale during an interview with TV Insider, and her comments made it sound like Summer Higgins will no longer have a constant presence when Yellowstone returns for the back half of Season 5. When asked about the midseason capper, Perabo played coy when it came to specifics, but still may have unleashed some major info with what she did say. In her words:
There’s a lot coming. Things are on the move. I can’t wait to get back to the back half just because I want to know what happens. I personally only know what happens up to the midseason finale up to that last second, and I don’t know what happens when we come back.
Now, the easiest way to read into that answer would be: if she doesn’t know what’ll be happening in the show’s future, she probably wasn’t involved with it in any direct capacity. Even if Summer was used for a very limited narrative arc that kept her away from all of the other characters, with Taylor Sheridan hypothetically sending only script pages with her scenes and not other characters’, that would still mean she’d know something about the back half of the season.
Clearly, Piper Perabo could just be intentionally clamming up in order to avoid saying anything spoilery, and did say in the interview that blurting out secretive information can land someone in dire trouble, which was not on her to-do list. But that all could have easily been handled without her specifically noting she's up on everything up to the last moment of the winter finale, but then nothing beyond that.
Does it mean Summer will be killed off, or that her fate will be left a mystery due to a cliffhanger or two? I could easily envision Summer learning something about John and/or the family that reverses her softening attitude towards the cowboy rancher way of life, making her want to run for the hills. But the loose end here is that she's legally bound to the Y ranch via house arrest, so to leave in any way other than death would be to either go back to jail or to flee as a fugitive, and neither of those options sound right on board with the activist's way of thinking.
What does make sense here, of course, is that Piper Perabo is in the same boat with fans when it comes to the high levels of anticipation wrapped around waiting for the show to return in early 2023 with the remaining Season 5 episodes. We're right there along with her for that one as we also wait to find out whether or not Kai Caster's comments about Rowdy's death truly are tied to implications for Rip and Beth's future.
To reiterate, Yellowstone will air its midseason finale on Sunday, January 1, at 8:00 p.m. ET, which will be the same day that its universe-expanding prequel 1923 releases Episode 103. Grab a Paramount+ subscription to keep up with the Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren-starring drama, and head to our 2023 TV premiere schedule to see everything else that’s heading to the small screen in the new year, which will include even more Yellowstone spinoffs.
