The latest Yellowstone casualty talks about that shocking death

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 is racking up quite the body count.

In its latest episode, Colby (Denim Richards) makes his way into the barn to find young Carter (Finn Little) trapped by the 3-year-old horse that Lloyd (Forrie J. Smith) has declared a "man-eater" after trying 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 takes a kick (or two) to the chest, and sadly, that's the end of the road for the cowboy who's been with the show from the very beginning.

Entertainment Weekly spoke with actor Denim Richards about his goodbye.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I feel like I'm still processing this. I really thought with John [Kevin Costner] dying and then Sarah [Dawn Olivieri] that everybody else was safe. 

DENIM RICHARDS: Yeah, the cowboy life definitely isn't for the faint of heart.

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

Yeah, it does oftentimes get mashed between the big sky country on horseback with the cattle and poker and bars and whiskey drinking, and then all of a sudden we kind of pepper in some tragedy, which I guess it kind of emulates a little bit of life. We don't always know when the end is. It was definitely an interesting and sad end, but everything good ends. It was beautiful to be able to see such a visceral response from our amazing fans, which hopefully means that we did a job well done. 

Were you given the heads-up before the season began? How did you find out? 

I found out I think about maybe a day before they sent me the scripts. I was actually flying back from Texas and I got the call that this was what was going to be happening. So this had to have been back in May. So much of our lives have been tied to this amazing show for so long, but the job in and of itself, when you deduce it down to its simplest form, is to serve the story and to hopefully be living a real experience and you kind of get over the pride and the ego a little bit, and serve the story. That's what I hope that we were able to do with Colby the last five seasons.

There are so many ways one could die on Yellowstone. What was your reaction to how Colby went out?

I feel like this season, [creator] Taylor [Sheridan] is really emphasizing the realities of cowboy life. We have this saying that everyone's going to fall off a horse at some point in their life. It's not if, it's just when and how bad. That is not a phenomenon. These things do happen, so I do think that there's that element where I think it is about really wanting to emphasize that this is a reality. It's kind of poetic because in season 3, Colby gets trampled by a horse multiple times in the river. And so maybe this was those horses' ancestors coming back to get retribution. But more than anything, it was about as clean as you could possibly do a death.

It did take a long time to shoot that scene over the course of a couple of weeks because we had rain delays and lightning delays and all these other things. So you're kind of gearing up to go in for a day and do it and then you realize, hey, we're actually not shooting it today. We're actually going to shoot it two weeks from now. So to kind of stay in that pocket was a little bit challenging.

I did want to ask you about the actual filming of it. Were you really in there with a horse? What was that like? 

There was a real horse in there. It was definitely a very expensive game of trust, but we have the best wranglers and trainers in the world that are part of this show. As wild as that horse seems, it's very in control. But when you're walking into a pin with the stallion and it's literally just you and the stallion, anything could happen, it feels like at least. But it was exciting. And then of course with everything, you shoot so much and you never know what's going to make it in the final edit at the end of the day. And I think that they showed enough of what it was. I think that this was supposed to be less about the trampling of Colby more of the how and the why and the outcome of it, and not necessarily the gruesomeness of what getting tramped on by a horse several times in a locked-off pen would be. 

Yeah, I have to say, I'm glad you all didn't show any more of him getting trampled.

Yeah, it was definitely tough when we were doing the rehearsals. We're trying so many different variants, and of course you, as the actor, are really trying to advocate for the character. "Do we really need the extra stuff?" I've been able to be a part of this show since 2017 and it's a tremendously amazing run. And so when you're in those moments that everybody knows is very sensitive, I think everybody kind of understands what it is. And of course then by the time Taylor gets his hands on it, it turns into this beautifully woven fabric that everyone kind of gets an opportunity to wrap their arms around. 

And so much of it was told through the other characters' reactions, which I think worked.

Yeah. I think that's part of the thing, right? This was a challenging season, I think, for everybody. It was a long layoff that we had had, and so coming back together, it was a little bit different because there might've been this thought that there would be kind of this giant fanfare, and we're all together all the time doing all of these things. We spent so much time together in these kind of emotional foxholes, and to get to the end and not be able to be a part of that was also challenging. But it was definitely beautiful to be able to see just the reactions. It was really a beautiful piece of cinema.

There's only a couple episodes left in Yellowstone overall, so were you able to stick around?

Yeah. I mean, it is not as bad as Survivor, right? You're voted off and you're gone. I didn't leave, but I didn't really come to set after that. This was just such a different season with it shooting in Texas and Montana, and I think everybody was really just trying to wrap their heads around what it all looks like. I was able to stick around and we had dinners and things of that nature, but I definitely didn't show up to set after my straw was pulled. 

The last thing I'll 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 we were in an arena or right outside the arena, and we were getting some type of grandiose instructions from John Dutton, and then we all had to pull off. And I was terrified if I could even get my horse in alignment with all of the other cowboys at that time. So if you watch the first couple of seasons of Yellowstone, you'll see my horse oftentimes trampling around in moments of needing to have stillness. And so I guess because of that, it's very fitting that I would then also get trampled by a horse.

Yellowstone airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT, on Paramount Network.

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