When Josh Holloway’s slick, slippery, and slimy Roarke Morris met his end in the Yellowstone Season 4 premiere, it instantly entered the franchise’s pantheon of most memorable — and debated — death scenes. A rattlesnake to the face, delivered via hard cooler by Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser), was the final nail in Roarke’s designer-wearing coffin. The scene in question sees Rip casually stroll up to Roarke while he’s fishing, toss down a hard-sided cooler, and walk away as an agitated rattler is unleashed.

The snake lunges. Roarke gets bitten in the face. He stumbles, foams at the mouth, and drops dead. But as it turns out, not everyone on set was sold on the realism, including Holloway himself. While the visuals are undeniably striking, some fans — and even Holloway — questioned the speed of the death. Real snakebite fatalities, especially from rattlesnakes, don’t usually happen that fast, as Holloway told USA Today.

“We had this argument. Taylor and I talked about that. I agree [it shouldn’t happen that fast]. I said, at least do the jugular, so we could at least say it was a direct shot. We could say that. And he was like, ‘But it looks better here.’ And I was like, ‘But I wouldn’t die that fast!’ He said that it’s drama, and it looks better this way. Do it. And it did come out great.”

Josh Holloway Loved His ‘Yellowstone’ Death Scene

Despite the creative disagreement, Holloway admits the scene ended up looking killer — literally. It’s a moment that perfectly blends Yellowstone’s aesthetic with Sheridan’s flair for theatrical western vengeance. And we know he loves the theatrical. From Rip’s slow, menacing approach to Colter Wall’s “Plain to See Plainsman” kicking in as he walks away, the entire sequence feels like a showdown from a Spaghetti Western — if Clint Eastwood had a cooler full of venomous reptiles. Real rattlesnakes were wrangled for the shot, but the actual bite used a prop snake — and a clever camera trick.

“It’s a fantastic scene,” Holloway said. “When they made that [rattling] noise, everyone was just like, ‘Wow.’ For the close-up, you have to act backwards. So it felt ridiculous. But then, when they flipped the sequence [in editing], it looked really great.” Even with the snake controversy, Holloway calls his brief Yellowstone return the “best job ever.” It was filmed in Montana during the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic — and Holloway made the most of it.

“There were elk running by all the time. And I’m a fly fisherman, so I fly-fished on the Bitterroot River for nine days straight. I would take one fish home every night and grill it. It was fantastic.”

If you’re missing Holloway’s sly charisma, you can catch him in the Max original series Duster, created by J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan. New episodes of Duster drop on Thursdays at 9 PM ET.