This interview includes spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Yellowstone.”

“Yellowstone” is not Taylor Sheridan’s first rodeo. The creator of Paramount Network’s modern Western series has been credited with reviving the genre with “Hell or High Water,” which he wrote, and “Wind River,” which he wrote and directed.

The show casts the Western veteran Kevin Costner as a ruthless rancher named John Dutton. Aware of his mortality, he wages a scorched-earth battle to protect his family’s vast tract of land from threats external (urban cowboy developers gobbling up real estate) and internal (his fractious and flawed grown children).

“A good way to describe it is: What if ‘The Godfather’ took place on the largest ranch in Montana?” Sheridan said in a phone interview from Texas, where he was hauling some of his horses to the set of a friend’s film, “12 Mighty Orphans.” (Sheridan’s family still has a ranch in West Texas, where he grew up; he moved from Southern California to Wyoming not long ago.)

Although it airs on the still-fledgling Paramount Network, “Yellowstone” has been an unqualified hit since it premiered in June 2018. In its second season, which wrapped up Wednesday night, it has been the most watched cable series of the summer in total audience, averaging around 5 million viewers per episode. It has already been renewed for a third season.