@glennganges Published March 2, 2026, 10:30 a.m. ET “Where’s the rest of the team?” Somewhere on a scarred hillside, under fire from the enemy, Navy SEAL Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) is protecting his people. Something is off about this, though. Something overwhelming. And suddenly, a phone is ringing. Why is Kayce’s wife calling him in the middle of this firefight?
She’s not calling him, actually. He’s just being fucked with by his new reality. As Kayce awakens from another nightmare, calling his wife’s name – and with the ‘Y’ brand on his bicep prominently displayed – Marshals reveals why Kelsey Asbille didn’t appear as Monica Dutton in any of this Yellowstone spinoff’s advance promotional material. Monica has died of cancer, leaving Kayce to raise their teenage son Tate (Brecken Merrill) at East Camp alone. It was supposed to be them together, representing the Dutton legacy as stewards of the land, after the vast ranch was sold back to the Black Rock people. But without Monica, Kayce and Tate have a relationship that consists of grunts and ignored requests to eat breakfast. “Look, I know your mom was better at all this,” Kayce tells his son one morning, after they’ve brought the cattle in from pasture. But Tate just leaves for school without responding. They both have healing to do, and demons to search for.
Both a spin-off and a sequel, Marshals is the fourth official series in the Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone saga. But while it brings back Kayce, Tate, and people we know from that world – Moses Brings Plenty, and Gil Birmingham as Black Rock leader Thomas Rainwater – Marshals isn’t a straight Sheridan-O-Verse joint. While the prolific creator is an exec producer, Marshals creator and showrunner Spencer Hudnut comes from CBS’s recently-concluded SEAL Team. As the character of Kayce enters the world of this new series, he will be encountering the episodic focus of CBS shows like NCIS…well, like any of the NCIS’s. There is a leader. With a team. Their personalities clash, but they get the job done. There will be a camera in a dynamic swirl around them as they figure out a plan of action, and each teammate will take on a task to save the day.
But we’re getting a little ahead. Because as Marshals begins, Kayce’s nowhere near being part of a team. We saw Pete Calvin (Logan Marshal-Green) in the earlier flashback to their SEAL days, and Kayce greets him as he arrives at East Camp. Calvin went “full gong show” after leaving the Navy, he tells his old buddy. But joining the Marshals Service saved him. He’s in Montana spinning up a brand-new team, designed to front face the kinds of threats that local law enforcement apparently can’t. They’re “cracking a lot of skulls.” Taking out gangs, cartels, “race warriors.” Montana is God’s country, but it’s full of devils, and Calvin has a sales pitch for his old pal. “I could sure use another door-kicker.”
While Kayce is reluctant to just join up – he relinquished his livestock agent’s badge, says his kill-or-be-killed days are behind him – he does come on in an interim capacity. One that has him taking out targets with Calvin’s team within minutes, so how interim it is, we’ll see. With Calvin is Belle Skinner (Arielle Kebbel), and Andrea Cruz (Ash Santos). Also Miles Kittle (Tatanka Means), a local, part of the Black Rock people and a former Marine. And one of the first things Belle tells Andrea about Kayce is a quick version of the Dutton family’s very dramatic recent history. The richest landowning family in the region, with a patriarch who as governor was killed in office. Andrea’s first impression of Kayce is even quicker. “I dig his hat.”
The cancer that killed Monica has stricken many on the Black Rock reservation, and in typical fashion, the federal government is looking the other way. When a protest to remember the victims is targeted by violence, Calvin, Kayce, and the team spring into action, and manage to save the family of a Native American man who was forced to attack his own people. As Kayce takes out the guy holding a little girl hostage, he says “You’ve…stopped…nothing” before he croaks, so there are glimmers of something larger occurring in the region. But as Calvin said, they’re staying busy with all kinds of threats. While Kayce considers his options for full-time door-kicking employment, he has no problem driving thugs’ faces into mirrors.
As we know, violence follows the Duttons. It always has, since they arrived in the West 150 years ago. But Kayce was always the most soulful member of the family. He always valued his personal belief system most, even as he respected and defended that of his family. With Marshals, he has the Dutton reputation to consider even as he understands the need to move toward something new with Tate. “East Camp is your home,” he tells his son. “It’s not your destiny.” This is another subtle reminder of the shift this series is taking toward the Yellowstone narrative – Tate was and is an heir, to both the name and land. Whether he wants that, or whether his father even wants it for him, is now an open question.
After an eventual few days with Calvin’s marshals team, Kayce rides out to Monica’s gravesite at East Camp, located on a hill she picked out before her death. Mo and Thomas told him, despite his family’s history, that he is a protector by nature. Not a killer. And when she was living, Monica always told him to fight for the life he wanted. Well, the life he wanted was with her. He’ll have to begin a new life for himself and Tate. Start a new chapter. And yeah, fight for it. But maybe protecting this land with the US Marshals Service is best way to do that.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
