Editor's note: The below contains light spoilers for Season 5 of Yellowstone.It's easy to be a fan of Josh Lucas. Whether it is through his work in Sweet Home Alabama or for those of us (me, I'm talking about me) who loved him in American Psycho, he's one of those actors that you realize you love without actively thinking about it. And if you're not watching him on Yellowstone, then you are really missing out on some of his best work — especially in the most recent episode.
The series doesn't play with flashbacks constantly, but there are enough in there that you get to see a lot of different takes on the characters you've come to know. There are many different child actors who have been cast to play younger versions of Wes Bentley's Jamie, Kelly Reilly's Beth, and Luke Grimes' Kayce — and we even get to live a bit more with Lee Dutton, who we lost in the first episode of the series and was briefly played by Dave Annable. But it is Lucas' role in the series that really does work.
Who Does Josh Lucas Play in 'Yellowstone'?
Lucas plays a younger version of John Dutton, the current patriarch of the Dutton family and when you really stop and think about it, you realize that he does, in fact, give off a bit of a younger Kevin Costner vibe, so it works. The first time Lucas appeared via flashback was a shock and ever since that moment, the inclusion of the younger John scenes has been a highlight of the show. That's because Lucas knows exactly what he needs to do in those scenes to remind us of the man that John once was — a man that still connects back to the modern-day John we're seeing from Costner.
What is so fascinating about it, especially in Season 5, Episode 7 "The Dream Is Not Me," is that he's not exactly doing a perfect Costner impression, because that wouldn't work. You change and evolve as you get older — and a character would, ideally, do the same thing. So Lucas' take on John is a bit brasher in how he reacts to things, but that is easily attributed to his youth and the sudden loss of his wife Evelyn (Gretchen Mol) we see in the flashbacks. But let's talk about why this most recent episode's flashback worked even better than the rest.
Josh Lucas Isn't Doing an Exact Kevin Costner Impression, but Enough of One
For the most part, the John Dutton we see in these moments is worried about his ranch but cares for the young men and women in his care. We see it more in his relationship with younger Rip (Kyle Red Silverstein) than his own children, but he cares for them and is doing the best he can with how he has been raised himself. John Dutton is a loving man when he needs to be, but he's also a cowboy, and he isn't going to sugarcoat things or make it obvious that he's doing something out of love. He's just going to do it and be done with it.
In Lucas' take on the character, it's a bit more obvious that he does love his kids and is trying his best without Evelyn to make his love for them known, but he's still John about it. Lucas' performance in "The Dream Is Not Me" manages to walk the line between gruffness and the way he reacts to the news that Rip has accidentally killed someone. It's truly something the John we know in 2022 would do. Lucas isn't trying to talk exactly like Costner — because again, your voice changes as you age, so he doesn't have to — and he's not trying to act like a more seasoned John, either, but the way he is responding and how he's handling the situation itself is the same.
What Lucas' performance does do, though, is make me hope that Yellowstone will continue in its current trend with even more spinoff shows; I would easily watch an entire season of something set in 1993 before Evelyn died, or even 2003, when she's been dead for a few years and Lucas' younger John is still trying to figure out his life on the ranch with the four kids he now has to raise on his own. The fact that these flashbacks make us want to spend more time with these earlier versions is proof of why Lucas is so incredibly good in them — and how he deserves way more credit for the work he's putting into the role of a younger John Dutton. You really do believe that this man would age into Costner's John, and that's all thanks to the amazing work that Lucas is doing on Yellowstone.