Warning: This article contains spoilers from Yellowstone Season 5, Episode 12, “Counting Coup.”

John Dutton. Sarah Atwood. And now Colby Mayfield. The final season of Yellowstone accumulates quite a few corpses.

In the latest episode, Colby (Denim Richards) makes his way to the barn and finds young Carter (Finn Little) trapped by the three-year-old horse that Lloyd (Forrie J. Smith) has declared a “man-eater.” try to tame him for a handful of episodes. When Carter went to refill the horse’s water, he was cornered. So Colby steps in to save Carter, but when he does, he gets a kick (or two) to the chest, and unfortunately that’s the end of the road for the cowboy who’s been with the show since the beginning.

Weekly entertainment spoke to actor Denim Richards about his departure.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I feel like I’m still processing this. After John (Kevin Costner) and then Sarah (Dawn Olivieri) died, I really thought everyone else would be safe.

DENIM RICHARDS: Yes, the cowboy life is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Of course bad things happen on the show, but I think sometimes between all the beautiful shots of Montana you can forget how dangerous it is.

Yes, it often happens that we mix between the wide sky country on horseback, the cattle, the poker, the bars and the whiskey drinking, and then suddenly we spice up a tragedy that, in my opinion, a little imitates life. We don’t always know when the end is. It was definitely an interesting and sad ending, but all good things come to an end. It was nice to see such an emotional reaction from our amazing fans, which hopefully means we did a good job.

Were you informed about the heads-up before the season started? How did you find out?

I found out I might think about it for a day until they send me the scripts. I was actually flying back from Texas and got the call that this was exactly what was going to happen. So that must have been in May. A huge part of our lives has been tied to this amazing show for so long, but the job itself, when boiled down to its simplest form, is to serve the story and hopefully provide a genuine and kind experience to the pride and that To overcome ego a little and serve the story. I hope we’ve done that with Colby over the last five seasons.

There are so many ways one could die Yellowstone. How did you react to how Colby turned out?

I feel like (creator) Taylor (Sheridan) really emphasizes the realities of cowboy life this season. We have a saying that everyone falls off a horse at some point in their life. It doesn’t matter if it’s bad, just when and how bad it is. This is not a phenomenon. These things actually happen, so I think there’s an element there that I think is about really emphasizing that this is a reality. It’s kind of poetic because Colby gets trampled by a horse in the river several times in Season 3. And perhaps it was the ancestors of these horses who came back to exact revenge. But most of all, it was as clean as one could expect from a death.

It took a really long time to shoot that scene over a couple of weeks because there were rain delays, lightning delays and all these other things. So you prepare to go in and do it for a day and then you realize, Hey, we’re not actually shooting it today. We’re actually going to shoot it in two weeks. So it was a bit of a challenge to stay in that pocket.

I wanted to ask you about the actual filming. Were you really in there with a horse? How was that?

There was a real horse in there. It was definitely a very expensive trust game, but we have the best wranglers and trainers in the world who are part of this show. As wild as this horse seems, he is very much in control. But when you hit a dead end with the stallion and it’s literally just you and the stallion, anything can happen, or at least that’s what it feels like. But it was exciting. And then of course you shoot so much with everything and you never know what will end up in the final edit at the end of the day. And I think they showed enough of what it was. I think this should be less about Colby trampling and more about the how and why and the result, and not necessarily how cruel it would be for a horse to trample on it multiple times in a locked stable.

Yes, I have to say, I’m glad you didn’t see him trampled on more.

Yes, it was definitely hard when we were rehearsing. We try so many different variations, and of course as an actor you really try to commit to the character. “Do we really need the extra stuff?” I’ve been able to be part of this show since 2017 and it’s been an incredibly great run. And when you’re in those moments, which everyone knows are very sensitive, I think everyone kind of understands what it is. And of course, when Taylor gets his hands on it, it turns into this beautifully woven fabric that everyone can kind of embrace.

And a lot of it was told through the other characters’ reactions, which I think worked.

Yes. I think that’s part of the thing, right? I think this has been a challenging season for everyone. It was a long break that we had and when we got back together it was a little bit different because maybe we thought there would be some kind of huge fanfare and we’re all in this together all the time doing all these things. We spent so much time together in such emotional trenches, and it was also a challenge to get to the end and not be able to be there. But it was definitely nice just being able to see the reactions. It really was a beautiful piece of cinema.

There are only a few episodes left Yellowstone Overall, were you able to stick with it?

Yes. I mean, it’s not as bad as SurvivorsRight? You’ve been voted out and you’re gone. I didn’t leave, but I didn’t come to the set after that either. Filming in Texas and Montana was just a completely different season, and I think everyone was really just trying to imagine what it all looked like. I was able to stay here and we had dinner and stuff like that, but I definitely didn’t show up for dinner after drawing straws.

The last thing I’m going to ask you is: Do you remember the very first thing you ever filmed on the show?

I think it was when we were all on horseback, Season 1, Episode 1. I just remember being in an arena or just outside the arena and getting some grandiose instructions from John Dutton and then we all had to pull out. And I was terrified if I was even going to be able to get my horse in line with all the other cowboys at the time. So if you watch the first few seasons of YellowstoneYou will see my horse often kicking around in moments when he needs rest. And that’s why I think it’s very fitting that I get trampled by a horse too.

Yellowstone airs Sundays at 8pm ET/PT on Paramount Network.

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