‘Yellowstone’ spinoff is workmanlike CBS procedural
‘Marshals’ is a new kind of ‘Yellowstone’ spin-off. Instead of a prequel series that follows the Dutton family through generations of western migration and land conflict, it’s a contemporary show that follows a real-life “Yellowstone” character – Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), the youngest son of the late patriarch John (Kevin Costner) – through the events of the flagship show. And instead of a streaming series with lavish period details and movie stars like Harrison Ford, “Marshals” is a network law enforcement procedural that bears only a passing family resemblance to “1923,” “1883,” “Yellowstone” or even other shows in executive producer Taylor Sheridan’s extensive portfolio.
For starters, “Marshals” is the extremely rare Sheridan show not created by Sheridan himself, a notoriously practical writer who once claimed to have no idea what a script coordinator does. (The show was originally called “Y: Marshals,” but lost the explicit link along the way.) Instead, the CBS series is merely “based on characters created by” Sheridan and “Yellowstone” co-creator John Linson and primarily led by Spencer Hudnut, whose credits include “SEAL Team” and “The Blacklist: Redemption.” “Marshals” is as much in keeping with Hudnut’s resume as it is with Sheridan’s mega-popular neo-Western style, often reductively but not entirely inaccurately described as “red state ‘Succession’.” Compared to such serialized dramas, “Marshals” has the lower production value and the week-of-the-week structure of more meat-and-potatoes broadcast fare, i.e. Eye’s stock and trade. “Yellowstone” has changed shape to fit its new habitat.
Of all the Duttons, Kayce has long been the closest to a conventional hero: a military veteran and loving husband to Monica (Kelsey Asbille)., a native woman from the fictional Broken Rock Reservation in Montana, whose marriage often puts him at odds with his family. When Kayce’s former war buddy Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) asks him to join the tactical unit Calvin leads within the US Marshals, it makes Dutton’s prodigal son a better candidate for hunting down bad guys than, say, his sister Beth (Kelly Reilly), who’s getting her own spinoff on Paramount+ sometime later this year.
In addition to his father, who was abruptly murdered and an apparent middle finger to Costner after public disputes with Sheridan over filming schedules and other conflicts, Kayce is mourning another recent loss. CBS has forbidden me from divulging the details of Kayce’s grief — absurd, since the sudden absence from his life is essentially the inciting incident from “Marshals” and colors the entire plot — but suffice it to say that it makes him even more protective of his teenage son Tate (Brecken Merrill) and longing for Piya Wiconi, the Lakota language term for new beginnings that gives the series premiere its title. “Marshals” cannot quite overcome the abruptness of this shift in Kayce’s life, nor the lack of any real explanation. (In the three episodes provided to critics, a specific cause of death is only implied but never mentioned.) The context nevertheless makes Kayce even more of a stripped-down lone actor, ready to be plugged into a new setup with minimal “Yellowstone” baggage.
Kayce’s new team consists of a predictably ragtag group: Belle (Arielle Kebbel), a former undercover ATF agent whose personality is as guarded as her form-fitting clothing is revealing; Andrea (Ash Cruz), a cop who pisses off the local cowboys by putting Latin hip-hop on the country bar’s jukebox; and Miles (Tatanka Means), a member of the Broken Rock force who decides to join the FBI. Between assignments like crowd control at an anti-mining protest and thwarting a fentanyl deal between neo-Nazis and a Latino gang (sure!), the gang drinks beer and heads to a field office closer to a clubhouse, in a gender-neutral sense of course. Even though they Are Against the authorities, the crew is still given a father figure to roll their eyes and rebel against: U.S. Marshal Harry Gifford (Brett Cullen), an arrogant egotist eager to remind anyone who will listen that he’s a presidential candidate.
All this is a piece of cake, with just enough sweeping panoramas of Western landscapes and talk of “protectors” – as opposed to “killers” – to place it in the Sheridan school of muscular little conservative myths. (The “protector” rhetoric is a staple of military media, like the “Terminal List” franchise, which is not a Sheridan product but is nevertheless deeply Sheridan coded.) There’s something interesting in the way Calvin Kayce sells the new gig as the “antidote” to the trauma of combat, channeling one’s aggression into helping communities rather than harming others, but any possible commentary on the U.S. military isn’t interrogated very deeply.
“Marshals” gets a much-needed boost from its other major import from “Yellowstone”: Gil Birmingham’s Thomas Rainwater, the Broken Rock chief who seized most of the Yellowstone ranch after John Dutton’s death and is flanked by his deputy Mo (Mo Brings Plenty). Not only does Birmingham, known not only for ‘Yellowstone’ but featured for decades in projects such as ‘Twilight’, ‘Marshals’, offer some gravitas; the Broken Rock storylines and the Marshals’ role in overseeing the confrontations between the reservation and the aggrieved locals are far more interesting than generic drug dealers and fugitives. “Marshals” would do well to step up, although I suspect Birmingham is mainly there to pass the baton.
“Marshals” lacks the campy panache of a true Sheridan project; this isn’t ‘Countryman’, in which teenagers have alarmingly frank sex conversations with their parents and Billy Bob Thornton swears a blue streak. It’s a more modest, less ephemeral, and therefore potentially more sustainable way to expand “Yellowstone” into an even more mainstream space after it has already taken hold of the culture. These Marshals are here to get the job done with minimal fuss, and that extends to their namesake show as well.
“Marshals” premieres March 1 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+ Premium, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Sundays and streaming the next day on Paramount+.
