Marshals season 2 brings back Jimmy and raises the stakes for Kayce and Tate

Kayce Dutton has 20 episodes to survive.

Marshals season two opened with 'All Hat No Cattle', and star Luke Grimes unpacked what happens next in an interview published on 5 October. The CBS drama picks up Kayce's story after Yellowstone, now with Kayce serving in an elite unit of U.S. Marshals.

Marshals is a spinoff, meaning a new series built around a character from an existing show. It is run by showrunner Spencer Hudnut, the writer in charge of day-to-day creative decisions. Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan remains an executive producer but did not write Kayce for this series. Grimes stars as Kayce and also serves as an executive producer, meaning he helps guide creative and business calls.

The series launched in March, with its first episode airing 1 March from 8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT. That premiere drew more than 20 million viewers in its first week, according to The Hollywood Reporter. CBS renewed the show after only two episodes, later billing it as the No. 1 new broadcast series and holding it at 8:00 PM in its 2026-2027 fall schedule.

Viewers coming from Yellowstone will notice a gap. Monica Dutton, Kayce's wife played by Kelsey Asbille, died off-camera between the end of Yellowstone and the start of Marshals. Their son Tate, played by Brecken Merrill, remains central. He was taken by Tom Weaver in the season one finale after Weaver betrayed Kayce.

Season one introduced Dolly Weaver, played by Ellyn Jameson, as a possible new partner for the widowed Kayce. She does not survive the opener. Dolly is killed in the season two premiere during a standoff between Kayce and her father Tom Weaver, played by Chris Mulkey, who enters the season as the antagonist.

Marshals works as a procedural, meaning it tells a largely self-contained law-enforcement story each week inside a longer character arc. That structure was new ground for Grimes, who has said he did not know what a procedural was before signing on. Familiar help is back. Jefferson White returns as Jimmy Hurdstrom, a Yellowstone favourite confirmed by CBS for season two, and Grimes said acting opposite him again felt like shooting Yellowstone.

A season two trailer had already warned that Kayce and Tate remain in harm's way, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Grimes also discussed bringing Asbille back in flashbacks to keep Monica present in Kayce's memory. He said he hopes for a crossover with Beth Dutton, played by Kelly Reilly, and the Dutton Ranch story.

For fans, this means the new cases keep moving each week while the old family ties stay close.