Yellowstone fans were so upset about the death that took place midway through Ep. 12 of Season 5 that they missed something obvious about how it happened.

OK, most Yellowstone fans missed it.

Anyone with experience around horses probably caught it quickly and started texting their friends in all caps.

The loss was so avoidable, and in the real world Rip, Beth and the ranch would get sued for gross negligence.

• Yellowstone Season 5, Ep. 12 aired on Sunday (Dec. 1). Two episodes remain in the series.
• The Dutton Rules podcast breaks down what happened during this week’s episode.
• Consider this your spoiler alert warning.

Related: Yellowstone: What Is Counting Coup?

Who Died on Yellowstone?

Bunkhouse favorite Colby (Denim Richards) dies after he enters a horse stall to try to save Carter (Finn Little), who’s pinned against the wall. A particularly angry horse is bucking and threatening to stomp the teenager, so Colby distracts it while the kid escapes.

In a matter of seconds, the horse kicks Colby in the chest and stomps on him before Carter is able to shoot and kill it. Rip pronounces Colby dead immediately, and fans everywhere begin to cry. Nobody saw this coming, and it was heartbreaking to see the tragic end to a genuinely good person on this show (they’re in short supply).

Plus, he had just told girlfriend Teeter “I love you” and she said it back, and it was adorable.  But back up, why was Carter in the stall to begin with?

He needed to give the horse water, so he entered, grabbed the bucket, filled it and put it back. That was his big mistake.

“Not even the kid would go deep into a stall with a horse like that,” an observant YouTuber remarks in the comments of our latest video. “Since when did we start placing water buckets to the back of a stall?”

She — and dozens of others with experience around horses — are totally right. There was no reason that Carter couldn’t have just opened the stall door, set the bucket just inside and walked off. Or …

“Looked after an angry horse, if her water needed topping up the hose went over the door,” writes another viewer. “Why take the bucket to the hose … ridiculous!”

A good man died because the ranch had half-thought processes in place for how to do things. In the real world that’d cost the Duttons millions of dollars, adding to their woes. On TV it only cost them a friend, boyfriend and ranch hand.