Well that’s slightly disappointing… the new Yellowstone spinoff Marshals premiered on CBS a couple weeks ago, which focuses on Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) and his life as he faces tragedy in his personal life and finds himself working as a U.S. marshal.
And spoiler alert, in case you haven’t watched the first couples of episodes yet, it is revealed very early in the first episode that Kayce has lost his wife Monica (played by Kelsey Asbille) to cancer, which leads to a rally on the Broken Rock Reservation and sets up the first episode in an action-packed way.
It seems like a simple enough storyline, but in real life, there was actually a lot of thought put into how they were going to kill Monica off, and Luke Grimes said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he was “incredibly bummed” to learn that he wouldn’t be working with Asbille on this new spinoff, as they’ve played onscreen husband and wife for nearly a decade, starting when Yellowstone first aired in 2018 (though they started filming in 2017).
He called her “the coolest actor I’ve ever worked with,” saying they’re still good friends:
“I was not at all expecting that when I got the call that that’s their idea. And I felt two things simultaneously. One was I was incredibly bummed because Kelsey’s one of my really good friends and the coolest actor I’ve ever worked with. We’re really close, and for a while I couldn’t imagine doing it without her. I was like, ‘That doesn’t even make sense.”
He explained that he later realized that after Kayce loses Monica, it does make for a much more intriguing storyline in terms of Kayce’s motivation to become a Marshal and upend his life after finally finding peace when the Dutton’s sell the Yellowstone Ranch to Chief Thomas Rainwater and the Broken Rock Reservation, which is where Kayce, Monica and Tate remain at East Camp, a smaller section of the land that was also owned by the Dutton family, when the show ends.
But of course, it obviously begs the question of whether or not Kayce will have a new love interest this season, and I kind of felt like they were setting up Andrea Cruz, one of the US marshals Kayce’s working with who is played by Ash Santos, to potentially be a fling or something for him at the very least, but if that does end up happening, it sounds like it will be a little while.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly this week, Grimes says they don’t want to force anything, because Kayce and Monica were so deeply in love for so many years that it would be like a betrayal if he moved on too fast because Monica’s passing is such an earth-shattering, tragic event in Kayce’s life:
“I just felt like if we went there too quickly, it would feel like we were doing it to have a storyline. It would feel very obligatory and, like, that’s the thing you have to do with your number one.
Not in this case. Not when you’ve seen a guy for years and years and years be so madly in love with someone. It would almost feel like, ‘Was that all bulls***?’ If it ever happens, it should happen really organically and over time.”
He even says that shooting a scene where he was kissing someone else would “feel like cheating,” and he would feel “guilty” because Monica was that important to Kayce. Of course, moving on in some way and potentially even finding new love will take time, as it should:
“Shooting a scene where I was kissing someone would feel like I was cheating. Like, I would feel so guilty. I really would… feel like I was cheating on someone because it was just that important to him. It’s gotta take some time. Maybe this will happen down the line, but it’s gotta take a sec.”
Showrunner Spencer Hudnut says that doesn’t mean the show will be “without romance,” though:
“Anytime you put people in these intense jobs, feelings happen. And you know, we have a fairly attractive group of Marshals. You go through a gun fight and you can’t go home and talk to your partner about it. You can talk to your teammate. That’s something that we’ll probably explore.”
But for the first half of the season, it will focus on Kayce’s journey with grief and how he starts to pick up the pieces from such a tragic loss.
It sounds like they’re taking a very practical approach, which will definitely make it all more believable, and maybe there will be just a little bit of romance as the season goes on, even though it’s unlikely any wedding bells will be ringing or anything close to that happens, and that’s perfectly fine by me.
Marshals has already been green lit for a second season after a monster debut, so maybe there’s potentially for a more substantial love storyline in the next season.
Marshals airs on CBS on Sunday nights, and you can stream it on demand on DIRECTV or Paramount+. Check out the trailer here:
