WITH Yellowstone Fans are still reeling from Sunday night’s intense series finale, and curious people want to know: How would the show have ended if Kevin Costner never left?

Yellowstone Executive producer Christina Alexandra Voros revealed just that—or at least as much as she could—in an interview with Variety posted on Tuesday, December 17th.

“I never had a specific conversation with them [creator] Taylor Sheridan on where it ends before Kevin leaves. I know cast members have talked about conversations they had with him early on — you know, Season 1 — where they got the sense that he always knew the ultimate ending had to be the loss of the patriarch and the passing of the legacy,” Voros explained, clarifying that “these the information is almost second-hand for me.”

Still, she said, “I know [Costner’s exit] she changed the “how” if not the “what” and noted that she “wasn’t able to talk specifically about what that difference was.”

As fans know, Costner’s John Dutton was killed off during the first episode of Season 5B, which aired in November. While patriarch Dutton’s death initially appeared to be a suicide, it was soon revealed that the girlfriend of John’s estranged son Jamie had hired a hit man to take him out.

The series finale, which aired on Sunday, December 15, focused on this storyline – John’s daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly) vowed at his funeral to avenge her father’s death by killing Jamie (Wes Bentley). After revealing to her estranged brother that they’ve sold the family ranch for a mere $1 million, Jamie looks set to kill her — until Rip (Cole Hauser) pulls him out of it at the last minute. Beth then takes a moment to kill Jamie by plunging a knife into his chest.

Costner — who announced his official departure from the show in June, amid long-running rumors of a rift between him and Yellowstone creator Sheridan — did not appear in the episode where his character was killed off or in the series finale. His last episode of the popular series was season 5, episode 8.

As for the Oscar winner’s departure influencing Sheridan’s reworking of the show, Voros was candid in her response.

“I think the limitations that were placed on Taylor with Kevin’s departure really brought out a side of his writing that I know people have mixed feelings about: the flashbacks and the way the season was structured overall,” she admitted.

In her view, however, “I actually thought it brought another layer, the way he struggled with how to tell this story with the absence of the person you’re telling,” Voros explained. “I thought it meant really interesting creative possibilities.”

Finally, she said, “Sometimes constraints can be good art’s best friend because they force you to think creatively about things in ways that aren’t as straightforward as you originally planned.”