Since its 2018 debut, “Yellowstone” has grown from a hit cable drama into its own TV ecosystem, spawning prequels (“1883,” “1923”) and sequels that stretch its mythology across decades, turning Taylor Sheridan’s frontier fatalism into a durable form of prestige Western storytelling.
Its success has never rested solely on gunplay or land disputes, but on an operatic sense of legacy: that our every choice leaves an imprint on the generations to follow. As such, a spinoff centered on Dutton scion Kayce, perhaps the saga’s most inwardly conflicted figure, feels like a logical next step.
“Marshals,” a CBS procedural created by Spencer Hudnut with Sheridan and star Luke Grimes among its executive producers, extends that world into more familiar network terrain. Here, Kayce trades the quiet life on the former Yellowstone Ranch’s East Camp for an elite U.S. Marshals unit operating across Montana.
The structure is straightforward: a crime-of-the-week format anchored by a protagonist whose military background and rancher instincts make him uniquely suited to tracking dangerous men across wide-open country.
On paper, the setup promises propulsion alongside introspection, a character study nested within a law-enforcement procedural. In practice, the series settles into a rhythm recognizable to broadcast audiences: suspects identified, pursuits mounted, confrontations resolved, with larger emotional undercurrents simmering in the background.
It’s sturdy, accessible storytelling, if rarely surprising. For a franchise built on moral abrasion and generational consequence, the edges here feel comparatively smoothed. Sheridan remains credited as an executive producer, but his authorial imprint feels lighter here, and his relative absence from the day-to-day storytelling is noticeable in the show’s more conventional rhythms.
The most notable narrative shift comes in the absence of Kelsey Asbille’s Monica, Kayce’s wife on “Yellowstone,” whose presence served as both his emotional grounding and cultural counterbalance. Where the earlier series left Kayce tentatively balanced between violence and domestic peace, “Marshals” returns him to more familiar terrain: solitary, haunted, defined primarily by duty. The move simplifies a character who once felt meaningfully caught between worlds.
That simplification extends to the show’s broader ambitions. “Yellowstone” derived much of its power from its meditations on land as inheritance, battleground and burden. “Marshals” gestures toward similar ideas, particularly in its emphasis on service and psychological toll, but those tensions tend to surface in dialogue rather than in the fabric of the storytelling itself. The themes are there, they just don’t carry the same weight.
Mind you, the cast is definitely committed, offering steady performances even when the material hopscotches over deeper excavation in favor of procedural shorthand. Welcome returnees like Gil Birmingham’s Thomas Rainwater and Mo Brings Plenty’s Mo provide connective tissue to the larger saga, as do periodic appearances by Kayce’s now-grown son Tate (Brecken Merrill).
Among the new additions, Native American actor Tatanka Means makes a strong impression as Deputy U.S. Marshal Miles Kittle, another man navigating layered identities within institutional structures. Logan Marshall-Green’s Pete Calvin, Kayce’s former comrade now serving as unit commander, adds shared history the series intermittently explores.
Brett Cullen also recurs as Harry Gifford, head of the Montana Marshals division, whose longstanding resentment toward the Dutton clan — particularly Kayce’s deceased daddy, John — positions him as a pointed institutional foil.
Yet with Calvin serving as operational leader, Gifford looming as a skeptical superior and Kayce framed as the emotional center, the storytelling can feel slightly split — as though its ostensible protagonist isn’t always the one driving the action. It remains to be seen if future installments will address this imbalance.
Meanwhile, the broader franchise machinery shows no signs of slowing. Even after “Yellowstone” concluded its five-season run in December 2024, Sheridan’s frontier continued to expand, with new offshoots arriving in rapid succession.
With “The Madison,” centered on a New York family who relocate to Montana and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, set to debut on Paramount+ in March, and a spinoff focused on fan favorites Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) and Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) reportedly in development, the so-called Yellowstone-verse appears far from running aground.
By virtue of its lineage, “Marshals” will likely find an immediate audience among loyal “Yellowstone” viewers, and its accessible case-of-the-week format makes it easy to step into.
But just as Kayce has long wrestled with the Dutton name, a legacy that grants him standing while burdening him with expectation, this spinoff arrives under the “Yellowstone” banner with a similar duality. The brand ensures attention while inviting inevitable comparisons.
What it has yet to demonstrate is the mythic gravity that made its predecessor feel so elemental. Competent and occasionally engaging, “Marshals” nonetheless plays less like the next chapter in the Dutton saga than a side expedition, adjacent to the family legacy but not meaningfully advancing it.
“Marshals” premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.