Marshals
MarshalsFred Hayes/CBS
Marshals, CBS’ Yellowstone spinoff starring Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton, closed out its freshman finale with another firefight, a new bad guy and a love interest that seems to have cemented herself with full “Romeo and Juliet vibes”.It’s clearly still pretty violent in the mountains of Montana, long after John Dutton passed away.

The finale ended on a pretty major cliffhanger with two of Kayce Dutton’s fellow Marshals – Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Pete “Cal” Calvin, played by Logan Marshall-Green and Deputy U.S. Marshal Isabel “Belle” Skinner-Turek, played by Arielle Kebbel – in imminent danger after being led to a house where they encounter two men with big guns shooting at them.

One would surmise that the pair make it to Season 2 given they are key members of the team (and series regulars), but then Taylor Sheridan has never exec produced a network procedural before.

 

There’s also the potential exit of Deputy U.S. Marshal Andrea Cruz, played by Ash Santos, who is on a will-they-or-won’t-they finally leave Montana tour that will also likely play out in its sophomore season.

Then, there’s Kayce Dutton’s love life. The man lost his wife somewhere between the end of Yellowstone and the start of Marshals, but he’s been dancing around at least two potential romances across the season. There was the moment in episode nine where it looked like he and Cruz were getting close and he held hands with Dolly Weaver, played by Ellyn Jameson, after the accident involving Garrett, played by country star Riley Green.

But towards the end of the season finale, Dutton is seen, once again, riding off into the sun with the blonde transplant Dolly Weaver. Whatever would Monica think?

However, Dutton is, at this point, unaware that Dolly’s father, Tom Weaver, played by Chris Mulkley, the Wall Street trader turned rancher who has been trying to buy his East Camp, is not quite the stand-up guy that everyone’s been led to believe.

Tom Weaver, it turns out, is just like all of the New York baddies that Sheridan has written over the years. He’s just after their land, man.

The other problem is that Weaver senior is taking Dutton’s son Tate, played by Brecken Merrill, bass fishing in Texas while his father “cleans this mess up”. Dolly will stay in Montana by Dutton’s side. “Who cares about Texas, my heart’s in Montana,” she tells him, a line that likely isn’t setting up a crossover with Sheridan’s other Yellowstone spinoff, Dutton Ranch, which is set in the fictional Lone Star town of Rio Paloma, but could.

Tom Weaver, it seems, is behind the multiple assassination attempt on Thomas Rainwater, the elected high chief for the Confederated Tribes of Broken Rock played by Gil Birmingham. It’s his money and his bad guys that are doing the shooting.

Marshals (Fred Hayes/CBS)

While Marshals is largely a fairly, run-of-the-mill CBS procedural with gun-toting cases of the week, it does like to remind you that it’s still a Yellowstone spinoff. When the guns are down, creator Spencer Hudnut and his team love to throw in a nice shot of the Montana landscape and some land lore.

“My family’s had this land for almost 150 years, a lot of blood, pain and heartache came with it, lord knows I’ve had my share,” Kayce Dutton says in a speech that could have been straight out of the mothership series.

Dutton doesn’t really want to sell his land, much like his father, played by Kevin Costner, didn’t across five seasons on Paramount Network.

“Carrying out the ashes of a fire that killed my friend, standing in the shadow of a house where my wife died, there’s definitely been a dark cloud over East Camp,” he adds. “Come spring, the grass will grow, the calves will start hitting the ground and this ranch will be full of life. My life’s been defined by losing the things I love, East Camp’s one thing that I can hold on to.”

His son is also getting in on the act, after gunning down another villain in his home to protect Rainwater. “You always fight for family, right,” he says.

Marshals has clearly been a huge success for CBS; the premiere episode nearly tripled its audience over 28 days, amassing 26.5M viewers across broadcast and streaming over its first month, and becoming the second most-watched show on TV after Stranger Things, per Nielsen.

 

That’s not to say it hasn’t had its detractors. The procedural turn has seen some social media users refer to it as “NCIS: Billings”, which, honestly, could well be on the CBS development slate.

Hudnut, who serves as showrunner, previously ran SEAL Team, so he’s likely heard it all before and is currently gearing up for season two in Utah right now.

Marshals is produced by Paramount Television Studios and 101 Studios. It is exec produced by Hudnut, Grimes, Sheridan, David Glasser, John Linson, Art Linson, Ron Burkle, David Hutkin, Bob Yari, Michael Freidman and Greg Yaitanes.