So Monica just isn’t going to be in the Yellowstone spinoff titled Marshals, is she?
Fans have been eagerly awaiting the premiere of Marshals ever since the Yellowstone spinoff focusing in on Kayce Dutton was announced. We’ve gotten little glimpses here and there, and the official teaser trailer that was released back in November finally gave viewers a longer look at what to expect out of the series focusing in on Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton.
The show’s first season is expected to be 13-episodes long, and the synopsis of the show makes it sound like the series will explore Kayce Dutton’s trained skillset a bit more:
“With the Yellowstone Ranch behind him, Dutton joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals, combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, where he and his teammates must balance family, duty and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence.”
If that doesn’t cause Yellowstone fans to lean in, I don’t know what will.
Admittedly, the premise of the show is a little surprising, considering much of Kayce’s storyline in Yellowstone was trying to get out from underneath all of the violence. But showrunner Spencer Hudnut insists that the story will all make sense, and explained how everything will work out when he spoke with Entertainment Weekly:
“He is a cowboy, but he is also a Navy Seal, so he has this incredible toolkit of skills to put to the test. He’s a guy who excels running into the fire. As we saw all through ‘Yellowstone,’ he is really the essence of being a protector, so it felt very natural for him to end up in a position like this where he’s putting others first.
Protecting the ranch and all he got up to in ‘Yellowstone’ kept him very busy. This downtime that he’s had between the end of that show and the start of ours has forced him to confront some of his demons and really focus on being a father. He’s a changed man.”
Some downtime for Kayce Dutton, eh?
It’ll certainly be intriguing to see how Luke Grimes’ beloved cowboy character handled the downtime, and fans will also be eager to see if Dutton’s wife, Monica, will return to the show. Yeah… that’s a real concern. If you watch the teaser trailer (either of them), she’s nowhere to be found.
And now, considering these quotes from the Y: Marshals showrunner, could Kayce be focusing on being a dad more because… he’s doing it by himself now? I would call that reckless speculation, but check out this other tidbit that Spencer Hudnut shared.
There’s even one point where he says Kayce used to leave the “parenting to his wife,” which comes off a bit weird:
“Kayce having this opportunity to spend more time at home and be more focused on continuing to evolve as a father is definitely one of the big storylines. I think Kayce primarily always saw himself as a provider and a protector to his son, but maybe left the parenting to his wife.
But as he’s had a little more time on the home front, one of the things we get to see is the bond between Kayce and his son and also just seeing Kayce beginning to see a lot more of himself in his son as well. Kayce finds himself echoing his own father in some ways as a parent. Through Tate, Kayce gets to understand his father better, even though he’s obviously passed away.”
No mention of Monica whatsoever.
I was thinking that it would be impossible to leave Kelsey Asbille’s Monica out of the show, but now hearing that from the showrunner, and nothing connecting her to the series as of right now… I’m starting to believe there’s a real possibility that Kayce Dutton is focusing on being a father because he’s a single parent. If that’s the case, I’m sure we’ll find out how that happened in the early portions of Marshals.
To add fuel to that fire, CBS released a Season 1 gallery for Marshals earlier today, and sure enough… there’s no Monica. We do see Tate Dutton, the son of Kayce and Monica, but that’s about it. The latest teaser trailer also features Thomas Rainwater and Mo Brings Plenty from the flagship series, but no Monica. The rest of the stills that were shared mostly show Kayce with his U.S. Marshals team. There’s also a photo that shows Kayce visiting a makeshift grave, and many are assuming that the headstone Kayce is leaning on could be the final resting place of his wife, Monica.
Maybe her passing motivated him to join the Marshals? Some early descriptions of the show do say that Kayce joins the U.S. Marshals after “momentous change” happens in his life, so losing his life partner could, in fact, be the catalyst. I guess we’ll find out how everything shakes out when the first episode of the series on March 1st.
CBS has confirmed that the spinoff sequel will air in the spring, and will fall into the coveted 8 E.S.T time slot. The series premiere of Marshals will go out to all Yellowstone fans on Sunday, March 1 on CBS. New episodes of the show will air in same time slot all the way through May – assuming no interruptions or mid-season breaks – until the season finale.
