After Watching Yellowstone’s Final Season, I’m Convinced I Know Exactly What Kayce Dutton’s Spin-Off Will Be About

With the exciting news that Yellowstone‘s finale was not the end of the Dutton story, many are thrilled at the prospect that the Luke Grimes-led spin-off is set to continue Kayce Dutton’s long-winded television journey — and I’m certainly one of them. Tentatively titled Y: Marshals, the series promises to do something that Yellowstone could never quite deliver with John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) prodigal son, setting him on a path of his own. But for those like me, who were largely impressed with Kayce’s arc in the final leg of the flagship program, the real excitement lies in seeing what the former cowboy is going to do next.

‘Yellowstone’s Final Season Sets Kayce Dutton on His New ‘Marshals’ Path

On Yellowstone, it took his father’s death and selling the ranch for Kayce to truly fight for what was important to him. Now the CBS series will have to continue with the process. In fact, one of the best things about Yellowstone Season 5B was that Kayce was forced to come into his own, forging a destiny and career path entirely separate from the specter of his father. Leaving the Livestock Commission was certainly a bold step, but it was the way that the character engaged with the changing world around him that really gripped my eye. Easily the season’s most engaging story was that of Kayce’s investigation into his father’s murder. Back when Season 5B was airing, I wrote that Kayce had finally found his true purpose in investigating John’s death, and I firmly believed that to be true.

While many have been focusing so much on the Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser) continuation drama (currently titled Dutton Ranch), I’ve been psyched at the prospect that Kayce could not only lead his own series, but that it may do exactly as I unknowingly predicted. While Taylor Sheridan won’t be writing Y: Marshals — which may be for the best, considering he spent years not knowing what to do with Kayce — if the show builds off what made Kayce’s Season 5 arc so interesting, we’re in for a great show. Of all the Dutton characters in Yellowstone, Kayce often felt like the odd one out, and perhaps that’s because he belongs in a procedural-style format, solving weekly and long-form cases with an array of resources and personnel at his disposal. Whether he’s solving murders as he did with his father or working on other types of cases (missing persons, cattle rustling, etc.), Y: Marshals is certainly a concept that this author can get behind.

‘Y: Marshals’ Should Lean Further Into Kayce Dutton’s Investigative Skills

Leaning strongly into Kayce’s investigative skills would bring out this character’s strong suits. While Kayce is a decent rancher and cowboy (and hopefully we’ll see some of that as well), the moments where he’s forced to spring into action display his full array of capabilities. We first see this in the Yellowstone pilot, “Daybreak,” where Kayce is forced to kill his brother-in-law. We see it again in Season 2 when, after Tate (Brecken Merrill) was abducted, Kayce returned to his warrior ways to take vengeance on the Beck Brothers and find his son. This isn’t to mention the fact that he went all Navy SEAL on the man who killed his father in Season 5B, in an intense moment that, frankly, I thought crossed a line. Certainly, Kayce won’t go to those extremes again on Y: Marshals (the series being a network show and all), but that doesn’t mean that it can’t follow in the footsteps of shows like SEAL Team that utilize intense action sequences. It doesn’t hurt that Marshals‘ showrunner is the same guy behind that series.

But while we do want to see Kayce’s SEAL side come back out (and would love to see him deal with some of the things he did or experienced overseas), it’s his detective work that ought to come into play most here. Previously, ABC’s Big Sky was the main “Montana procedural” on television, but with that show long gone, it’s up to Y: Marshals to tell compelling weekly mysteries while simultaneously driving a long-form narrative that will compel both those who carried over from Yellowstone and series’ newcomers interested in a new cowboy-driven crime drama. It seems that, in some sense, Y: Marshals wants to echo previous successes like Longmire and Justified. It certainly has that potential, and I’d love to see the show evoke some of the procedural elements of both. It would certainly help the series stand apart from the likes of Yellowstone — and whatever other spin-offs Sheridan has in mind.

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Of course, what most excites me about Y: Marshals is that the series will put Kayce back front and center. It wasn’t really until Yellowstone Season 5B that the series was able to do that with the character. Beforehand, it always felt like Kayce, Tate, and Monica (Kelsey Asbille) were something of an afterthought. But if Y: Marshals is smart, the show will emphasize the stronger aspects of Season 5B, pushing Kayce into a leadership role as he seeks justice for those across Big Sky Country. If that last batch of Yellowstone episodes proved anything, it’s that the franchise doesn’t have to stick to the prestigious television drama format. Some of the strongest elements of those episodes felt more procedural in style, with Kayce connecting the dots to solve a murder that, by all accounts, he shouldn’t have been able to solve.

By allowing Kayce Dutton to finally come into his own as a cowboy lawman, Y: Marshals will not only become the neo-Western drama that so many of us wanted Yellowstone to be in the first place (okay, maybe just me, but hey, I’m a major Longmire fan), but it will give Luke Grimes better material to work with. Of course, the show will likely introduce a new cast of characters alongside some Yellowstone favorites, but here’s hoping that, however the ensemble turns out, it still feels very much like the Kayce Dutton show. Maybe a better name for the series would be Marshal Dutton. It certainly has a nice Gunsmoke-inspired ring to it…