‘Dutton Ranch’ Fired Someone Before Season 1 Even Started

The best way to explain what’s happening on Dutton Ranch is through a sports analogy.

Pretend you’re a fan of the Chicago Cubs and you learn they just fired their manager after one season. That’s not good, right? Unless there was some impropriety, it means the team stinks.

Now imagine the Cubs just played a full season in secret, and all you know about that season is that they fired the manager afterward because the team’s owner and star players weren’t satisfied.

That’s pretty much what’s happened with Dutton Ranch.

• Dutton Ranch begins on Paramount Network and Paramount Plus on May 15.
• The Yellowstone spinoff follows the lives of Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler in Texas.
• It’s one of three new shows from the Taylor Sheridan universe to debut in 2026, after The Madison and Marshals.

Matthew Belloni at Puck shares that showrunner Chad Feehan has been fired because Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, 101 Studios head David Glasser and stars Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser (Beth and Rip) were unsatisfied.

A new showrunner will need to be installed for Season 2 (not yet confirmed), but obviously viewers are going to get what they get for Season 1, because it’s just three weeks away.

READ MORE: Dutton Ranch, Everything We Know About the Yellowstone Sequel

Deadline adds a report that the exit was due to how he handled the cast (which includes Annette Benning and Ed Harris), but they say his writing was solid, so maybe there’s hope. The problem is that other Taylor Sheridan show that Feehan helmed.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves (2023) is the only Sheridan show that nobody ever asked for a second season of. It was aimless and dull, and in the end, uncomfortable without purpose.

The Dutton Rules podcast team allowed that the pandemic could have been a factor in how it was all produced — we’re nothing if not forgiving over here — but the inner workings were never really shared.

Important to know is that showrunners have been known to struggle on Sheridan projects, so maybe the blame can’t be placed at the man shown the door.

Both Tulsa King and the upcoming Frisco King have had disturbances in that position. The others (Landman, Lioness and both Yellowstone prequels) were helmed by Sheridan himself.