Taylor Sheridan's 'Yellowstone' Spin-Off Needs a Season 2 Change To Keep Surging on Streaming

6 days ago 33
Logan Marshall-Green as Cal standing outside and looking concerned in Marshals Image via CBS

Published Oct 17, 2026, 5:11 PM EDT

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Season 2 of Marshals is currently airing on CBS, but Taylor Sheridan’s latest Yellowstone spin-off is also finding an audience on Paramount+. Continuing Kayce Dutton’s (Luke Grimes) story after the Dutton family’s troubles, the series sees him find new purpose when an old friend from the U.S. Navy SEALs arrives in Montana and offers him a place on the U.S. Marshal team. For Kayce, his family history and the resentment townsfolk still hold toward the Duttons make his new role ironic. After all, he’s now tasked with protecting Montana through the very law and order his family has often found itself at odds with.

While Marshals benefits from its connections to Yellowstone, it also brings a fresh perspective to the franchise through Kayce’s new role and the challenges that come with it. The show may be finding its footing on the streaming charts, but building on that early momentum will take more than the Yellowstone name. Season 2 still has work to do to establish its own identity and give viewers a reason to keep coming back.

What Is 'Marshals' About?

Marshals is set 15 months after the Yellowstone finale, an event that was anything but peaceful. As a refresher, Kayce’s father and the formidable Dutton patriarch, John Dutton (Kevin Costner), is brutally murdered. To avoid inheritance and generational conflict, Kayce and his surviving sibling, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly)—who stars in her own spin-off, Dutton Ranch—sell the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch to Chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) and the Broken Rock Indian Reservation, breaking the age-old Dutton curse by giving back sacred land to its original Native American stewards.

Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan
Show Do You Belong In?
Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown

Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn't write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.

🤠Yellowstone

🛢️Landman

👑Tulsa King

⚖️Mayor of Kingstown

FIND YOUR WORLD →

01

Where does your power come from? In Sheridan's world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.

ALand, legacy, and a name that's been feared and respected for generations. BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first. CReputation. I've earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it. DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan's universe is always absolute — and always costly.

AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me. BThe company — or whoever's signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract. CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don't abandon them for anything. DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I'm the only thing stopping it from blowing.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it's crossed.

AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching. BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I've moved. CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences. DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan's worlds are as much about place as they are about people.

AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away. BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them. CA mid-size city where the rules haven't quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve. DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone's life is shaped by what's inside those walls.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.

AI do what has to be done to protect what's mine. I'll answer for it eventually — but not today. BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what's at stake, and I move with it. CI have a code — it's not the law's code, but it's mine, and I don't break it. DI've made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don't have the stomach for.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they're defending.

AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase. BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal. CRelevance. I've been away, I've been written off — and I'm proving that was a mistake. DWhatever fragile order I've managed to build — because without it, everything burns.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan's world is never given — it's established, maintained, and constantly tested.

ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I'm protecting — and because they know what happens if they don't. BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don't need people to like me — I need them to need me. CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it. DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.

AThey'll learn. Or they won't. Either way, the land was here before them and it'll be here after. BI figure out what they want, what they're worth, and whether they're an asset or a problem — fast. CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect. DNew players destabilise everything I've built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.

NEXT QUESTION →

09

What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.

AMy family's peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I've let it take too much. BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn't nailed down. CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can't get back — but I'm not done yet. DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.

NEXT QUESTION →

10

When it's over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan's characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.

AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it. BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table. CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms. DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.

REVEAL MY SHOW →

Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…

The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you're complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.

🤠 Yellowstone

🛢️ Landman

👑 Tulsa King

⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown

You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world's indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you're willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family's weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what's yours, you don't escalate — you finish it. You're not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone's world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn't make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.

You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You're a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they'll do to get it. You're not naive enough to think this world is fair. You're smart enough to be the one deciding who it's fair to.

You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you're not above reminding people that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they'd be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they're more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don't need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.

You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you're the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky's world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You've made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Unfortunately, that’s not the end of Kayce’s problems. In Marshals, Kayce and his son Tate (Brecken Merrill), who now live at East Camp, are hit by the death of Monica (Kelsey Asbille). Also no longer serving as Montana’s Livestock Commissioner, life seems purposeless for Kayce. That is until his former Navy SEAL Senior Chief Pete “Cal” Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) visits him in Montana and offers Kayce a chance to join the U.S. Marshals Service, given his experience in the military and vast knowledge of the Montana grounds. It might not be the cowboy life Kayce was raised on, but it’s a new chapter where Kayce feels like he may be doing some actual good for once.

'Marshals' Is Fighting Its Way Up the Streaming Charts

As of this writing, Marshals ranks No. 4 on Paramount+’s U.S. Top 10 TV chart, trailing Sheridan’s Lioness at No. 3. Still, Marshals faces an uphill battle, with a 48% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score and a 28% audience score, both among the lowest for Sheridan’s shows. That’s a stark contrast to Lioness, which boasts a 77% Tomatometer score and a 76% audience score. More concerning, however, is that Marshals is supposed to be Kayce’s redemption-seeking spin-off following the events of the Yellowstone finale, yet its reception is a far cry from Yellowstone, which holds an 83% Tomatometer score and a 76% audience score.

Much of the criticism stems from Marshals’ NCIS-style case-of-the-week format, which trades Yellowstone’s layered, philosophical storytelling for a more conventional broadcast formula. Its rushed pacing, awkward transitions, and quickly resolved conflicts often make the action feel like spectacle for spectacle’s sake. The Season 1 finale also struggled to make its villain’s betrayal land, relying on an anticlimactic twist rather than organically building toward the reveal. But perhaps the biggest criticism is how Marshals kills off Monica, a longtime Yellowstone character, in an unceremonious, off-screen manner, which feels like a betrayal to longtime fans.

'Marshals' Can't Rely on the 'Yellowstone' Legacy to Attract Old and New Fans

Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton in a cowboy hat while taking in his surroundings outside in Marshals Season 2 Image via CBS

Ironically, just as Kayce tries to escape his father John’s shadow, Marshals is attempting to establish its own identity beyond Yellowstone. Its No. 4 streaming-chart position suggests the spin-off still has an audience, but its long-term success depends on whether it can develop a stronger identity without losing the franchise’s appeal. Season 1 brought viewers back to familiar Montana territory while introducing a more fast-paced, procedural tone. Now, Season 2 faces a new challenge: giving audiences a reason to stay. Because Marshals differs so much from Yellowstone, it cannot simply rely on the original show’s legacy and fanbase to sustain itself.

Season 2 of Marshals must give viewers more reasons to care about the show, and one way it can do that is by digging deeper into the Marshals’ personal struggles established in Season 1. Apart from Kayce’s post-Yellowstone identity crisis, Cal faces a cancer diagnosis, Belle (Arielle Kebbel) tries to protect her family after an assassination attempt, and Miles Kittle (Tatanka Means) struggles to balance serving a government institution with his loyalty to the Broken Rock Reservation. These conflicts leave room for deeper emotional storytelling, allowing Season 2 to get audiences invested in the people behind the badges. More importantly, it allows the new cast to shine on their own without relying solely on action and the Yellowstone legacy.

marshals-poster.jpg
Marshals

Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00

Showrunner Spencer Hudnut

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