Yellowstone Fans Left Confused As Luke Grimes Officially Set To Reprise Role As Kayce Dutton For Spinoff –“Y: Marshals”

The flagship Yellowstone series might have come to an end last year, but the spinoffs are just getting started.

Fans of Taylor Sheridan’s western drama series will be happy to know that not one, but two spinoffs that are continuations of the Yellowstone story will be here sooner rather than later. A continuation of Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler’s saga, Dutton Ranch, will premiere this Fall. One could argue that’s the one show post-Yellowstone that the most people are excited about.

That’s not even mentioning the prequel series that are set to also air in the next year or two. The Madison, which many believe will be connected to 1923 in some way, will come to Paramount + later this year. And another titled 1944 (hard to keep all of these specific year titles straight, am I right?) is expected to grace television screens in 2026.

But I mentioned two sequel shows earlier, right? That’s correct, and the second one was originally rumored to be a Kayce Dutton spinoff. There was speculation that CBS had great interest in bringing back Luke Grimes, the actor turned country singer, to be the main character. Just a couple of months ago, the show apparently didn’t have many plot details etched into stone… though it was well on it’s way to being greenlit.

And now it’s official.

Variety reports that CBS has given a 13-episode order for a program called “Y: Marshals,” and Luke Grimes – A.K.A. Kayce Dutton – has been attached to the project. Yellowstone fans know well that one of the main character qualities of Kayce, the youngest of the Dutton siblings, was his prior military experience – specifically as a Navy SEAL. Based on the show’s proposed log line, it appears the series will explore his trained skillset a bit more:

“With the Yellowstone Ranch behind him, Dutton joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals, combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, where he and his teammates must balance family, duty and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence.”

Sign me up.

Though I will say… this new sequel seems to undermine Kayce Dutton’s ending in the main Yellowstone arc. Remember when he gave up his badge, sold most of the Yellowstone Dutton ranch, and spoke about how he was grateful to finally be free from all of the violence? I guess he got over all of that real quick. I mean, the entire show was about his inner turmoil, balancing his obligations to his wife and son vs his obligation to (usually violently) help his father keep the ranch. And when he finally gets that slice of inner-peace, he breaks down into tears.

BUT… forget all that, give him a gun and a badge and let’s make some money on a new series. Then again, what other show could you do with the bad*** character of Kayce Dutton? It’s not like people would tune into a show about Kayce Dutton living a modest, mundane life and learning how to bake sourdough bread with Monica and Tate. I say that… and I might be wrong. If Taylor Sheridan’s name is attached, people tend to tune in…

And it sounds like Sheridan will be involved, but considering he’s got a lot of plates spinning at the moment, it might not be to the level that he was with Yellowstone. Amy Reisenbach, CBS Entertainment president, spoke on that in this quote, which also addressed why the sequel show landed on CBS instead of Paramount+:

“I think all of our shows right now are both streaming and linear. That’s what we’re focused on, is trying to make our shows work on both platforms. It certainly did occur to us that the show will do really well on streaming, because all the Taylor shows have.

But ‘Yellowstone’ and ‘Tulsa King’ also did really well for us when we aired them on the network. So, in terms of Taylor’s involvement, we’re still early in the process. He’s a very busy guy, but we’ll take what we can get.”

I will say I’m intrigued, but the plot synopsis certainly doesn’t jive with the series finale. But maybe for the folks tuning in on CBS, it doesn’t have to. Let’s be honest, some of the most exciting moment in Kayce Dutton’s character timeline were when he had a gun in hand. Rescuing Tate from those neo-Nazis, fighting off the attackers in his office, and perhaps the best part of the entire series for him… sneaking into the back seat of that assassin’s car after a soccer game… if there’s one thing that we can be sure of, Yellowstone fans love bad*** Kacey Dutton. In fact, most of his drama with Monica just left fans bored and annoyed.

Stay tuned…