‘Yellowstone’ Alum Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton Goes Rogue in Marshals’ Sex Trafficking Case

Yellowstone‘s spinoff Marshals featured a chilling sex trafficking case with Luke Grimes‘ Kayce Dutton pushing his authority as a U.S Marshal.

During the Sunday, March 29, episode of the hit CBS series, Kayce and Miles (Tatanka Means) paired off after a teenage girl from the Reservation — who went missing — was seen by Tate (Brecken Merrill). This led to them discovering multiple women who were catfished into sex trafficking, with Kayce and Miles determined to find justice for them under any means necessary.

That involved giving Mo (Mo Brings Plenty) one of the accomplices to deal with as they decided to in Broken Rock. It also took them on a mission where they appeared to find the missing girls — except they weren’t there once the Marshals tracked them down. A “To Be Continued” message appeared as the case remained unsolved — for now.

Yellowstone, which aired from 2018 to 2024, introduced Us to Kayce as a former U.S. Navy SEAL who became the new owner and operator of his family’s Yellowstone Ranch. He sold the property by the finale, but there was still more story to tell.

“They started bringing it up when we were filming the last few episodes of the original series. There started to be some offers for a spinoff, and I hadn’t gotten one yet, and I was like, ‘I guess that’s it for me,’” Grimes recalled to Entertainment Weekly in February. “And then I got a call and it was like, ‘It’ll be CBS primetime, and it’ll be more of a procedural format.’”

Despite getting the chance to lead his own show, Grimes was unsure what the story would be.

“In that first conversation with Luke, he was like, ‘Kayce’s happy. That’s not very interesting,’” Marshals creator Spencer Hudnut told EW about working with Grimes on a Yellowstone spinoff. “So we knew that something had to shake him out of that.”

Hudnut and Grimes hinted that Marshals will throw fans for a loop, with the actor teasing, “There’s a reason why Kayce is the only one with the black hat. He’s got a lot going on in his soul. Clearly, he’s got demons, and his arc was trying to heal and find his path. In the original Yellowstone, he did that.”

Grimes also addressed the criticism that Kayce isn’t a Dutton who deserved his own Yellowstone spinoff, Marshals.

“I’m my own worst critic,” Grimes said. “I was like, ‘If you take a poll of who people want to have a spinoff, I don’t know if Kayce would be top of that list. I think there’s other characters that they would rather see.’”

Grimes used that as motivation, adding, “So there was a fire under me. Like, it has to be good. If it’s not good, I’d rather not do it. We tried really hard to make sure that any of the original Yellowstone fans would have something to grasp onto.”

He continued: “But if you’d never seen Yellowstone, we wanted this show to make sense on its own as well. I think we accomplished that as much as we possibly could.”

Marshals airs on CBS Sundays at 8 p.m. ET.