‘Yellowstone’ Spinoff ‘Marshals’ Turns Taylor Sheridan Franchise Into a Workmanlike CBS Procedural: TV Review
“Marshals” is a new kind of “Yellowstone” spinoff. Rather than a prequel series tracing the Dutton family back through generations of Western migration and conflicts over land, it’s a contemporary show following an actual “Yellowstone” character — Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), youngest son of deceased patriarch John (Kevin Costner) — past the events of the flagship show. And rather than a streaming series boasting lavish period detail 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 sprawling portfolio.
For starters, “Marshals” is the extremely rare Sheridan show not created by Sheridan himself, a notoriously hands-on writer who once claimed to have no idea what a script coordinator does. (The show was originally called “Y: Marshals,” but shed the explicit tie-in along the way.) Instead, the CBS series is merely “based on characters created by” Sheridan and “Yellowstone” co-creator John Linson and led primarily by Spencer Hudnut, whose credits include “SEAL Team” and “The Blacklist: Redemption.” “Marshals” is as much in line with Hudnut’s résumé as it is with Sheridan’s mega-popular neo-Western, often reductively but not-totally-inaccurately described as “red state ‘Succession.’” Compared to such serialized dramas, “Marshals” has the lowered production value and case-of-the-week structure of more meat-and-potatoes broadcast fare, i.e. the Eye’s stock and trade. “Yellowstone” has shifted shapes 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 Montana’s fictional Broken Rock reservation, whose marriage often puts him at odds with his family. When Kayce’s onetime war buddy Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) asks him to join the tactical unit Calvin leads within the U.S. Marshals, that makes the prodigal Dutton 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 killed off abruptly and in 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 disclosing the details of Kayce’s grief — absurdly, since the sudden absence in his life is effectively the inciting incident of “Marshals” and colors the entire plot — but suffice it to say it leaves him even more protective of his teenage son Tate (Brecken Merrill) and eager for Piya Wiconi, the Lakota language term for a new beginning that gives the series premiere its title. “Marshals” can’t quite overcome the abruptness of this shift in Kayce’s life, nor its lack of a real explanation. (In the three episodes provided to critics, a specific cause of death is only implied, but never named.) The context nonetheless renders 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 is a predictably ragtag bunch: Belle (Arielle Kebbel), a former ATF undercover operative whose personality is as guarded as her tightly fitted clothes are revealing; Andrea (Ash Cruz), a cop’s kid who pisses off the local cowboys by putting Latin hip-hop on the jukebox at the country bar; and Miles (Tatanka Means), a Broken Rock force member who decides to join up with the feds. Between assignments like running crowd control at an anti-mine protest and thwarting a fentanyl deal between neo-Nazis and a Latino gang (sure!), the gang drinks beers and bros down — in the gender-neutral sense, of course — in a field office that’s closer to a clubhouse. Even though they are the authorities, the crew is still given a father figure to roll their eyes at and rebel against: U.S. Marshal Harry Gifford (Brett Cullen), an arrogant egotist eager to remind anyone who will listen he’s a presidential appointee.
All this is cookie-cutter stuff, 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, small-c conservative mythmaking. (The “protector” rhetoric is a staple of military media like the “Terminal List” franchise, which is not a Sheridan product while still being deeply Sheridan-coded.) There’s something interesting in how Calvin sells Kayce on the new gig as the “antidote” to the trauma of combat, channeling one’s aggression into helping communities rather than harming others, but any potential commentary on the American 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 absorbed most of the Yellowstone ranch after John Dutton’s death and is flanked by his deputy Mo (Mo Brings Plenty). Not only does Birmingham, familiar not just from “Yellowstone” but decades on screen in projects such as “Twilight,” afford “Marshals” some gravitas; the Broken Rock storylines and the Marshals’ role in policing face-offs between the reservation and aggrieved locals are far more interesting than generic drug dealers and fugitives. “Marshals” would do well to lean in, though I suspect Birmingham is mostly there to pass the baton.
“Marshals” lacks the campy panache of a true Sheridan project; this isn’t “Landman,” in which teenagers have alarmingly frank sex talks with their parents and Billy Bob Thornton swears a blue streak. It’s a more humble, less volatile and thus potentially more durable way to expand “Yellowstone” into an even more mainstream space after it’s already taken hold of the culture. These Marshals are here to get the job done with minimal fuss, and so is their namesake show.
“Marshals” will premiere on CBS and Paramount+ Premium on March 1 at 8 p.m. ET, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Sundays and streaming the next day on Paramount+.
For starters, “Marshals” is the extremely rare Sheridan show not created by Sheridan himself, a notoriously hands-on writer who once claimed to have no idea what a script coordinator does. (The show was originally called “Y: Marshals,” but shed the explicit tie-in along the way.) Instead, the CBS series is merely “based on characters created by” Sheridan and “Yellowstone” co-creator John Linson and led primarily by Spencer Hudnut, whose credits include “SEAL Team” and “The Blacklist: Redemption.” “Marshals” is as much in line with Hudnut’s résumé as it is with Sheridan’s mega-popular neo-Western, often reductively but not-totally-inaccurately described as “red state ‘Succession.’” Compared to such serialized dramas, “Marshals” has the lowered production value and case-of-the-week structure of more meat-and-potatoes broadcast fare, i.e. the Eye’s stock and trade. “Yellowstone” has shifted shapes 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 Montana’s fictional Broken Rock reservation, whose marriage often puts him at odds with his family. When Kayce’s onetime war buddy Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) asks him to join the tactical unit Calvin leads within the U.S. Marshals, that makes the prodigal Dutton 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 killed off abruptly and in 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 disclosing the details of Kayce’s grief — absurdly, since the sudden absence in his life is effectively the inciting incident of “Marshals” and colors the entire plot — but suffice it to say it leaves him even more protective of his teenage son Tate (Brecken Merrill) and eager for Piya Wiconi, the Lakota language term for a new beginning that gives the series premiere its title. “Marshals” can’t quite overcome the abruptness of this shift in Kayce’s life, nor its lack of a real explanation. (In the three episodes provided to critics, a specific cause of death is only implied, but never named.) The context nonetheless renders 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 is a predictably ragtag bunch: Belle (Arielle Kebbel), a former ATF undercover operative whose personality is as guarded as her tightly fitted clothes are revealing; Andrea (Ash Cruz), a cop’s kid who pisses off the local cowboys by putting Latin hip-hop on the jukebox at the country bar; and Miles (Tatanka Means), a Broken Rock force member who decides to join up with the feds. Between assignments like running crowd control at an anti-mine protest and thwarting a fentanyl deal between neo-Nazis and a Latino gang (sure!), the gang drinks beers and bros down — in the gender-neutral sense, of course — in a field office that’s closer to a clubhouse. Even though they are the authorities, the crew is still given a father figure to roll their eyes at and rebel against: U.S. Marshal Harry Gifford (Brett Cullen), an arrogant egotist eager to remind anyone who will listen he’s a presidential appointee.
All this is cookie-cutter stuff, 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, small-c conservative mythmaking. (The “protector” rhetoric is a staple of military media like the “Terminal List” franchise, which is not a Sheridan product while still being deeply Sheridan-coded.) There’s something interesting in how Calvin sells Kayce on the new gig as the “antidote” to the trauma of combat, channeling one’s aggression into helping communities rather than harming others, but any potential commentary on the American 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 absorbed most of the Yellowstone ranch after John Dutton’s death and is flanked by his deputy Mo (Mo Brings Plenty). Not only does Birmingham, familiar not just from “Yellowstone” but decades on screen in projects such as “Twilight,” afford “Marshals” some gravitas; the Broken Rock storylines and the Marshals’ role in policing face-offs between the reservation and aggrieved locals are far more interesting than generic drug dealers and fugitives. “Marshals” would do well to lean in, though I suspect Birmingham is mostly there to pass the baton.
“Marshals” lacks the campy panache of a true Sheridan project; this isn’t “Landman,” in which teenagers have alarmingly frank sex talks with their parents and Billy Bob Thornton swears a blue streak. It’s a more humble, less volatile and thus potentially more durable way to expand “Yellowstone” into an even more mainstream space after it’s already taken hold of the culture. These Marshals are here to get the job done with minimal fuss, and so is their namesake show.
“Marshals” will premiere on CBS and Paramount+ Premium on March 1 at 8 p.m. ET, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Sundays and streaming the next day on Paramount+.