Yellowstone may have ended in a massive blast of “Kevin Costner doesn’t wanna anymore,” but some of its characters—and, bizarrely, only the very first letter of its name—are destined to live on on network TV. This is per Deadline, reporting that CBS has gone ahead and pulled the trigger on the procedural spin-off of the mega-hit cable show, which will follow Luke Grimes’ character Kayce Dutton, and which is currently laboring under the working title Y: Marshals. (We have no evidence that this is from the same people who were presented with the possibility of a sheriff-themed spin-off of Fire Country and decided to call it Sheriff Country, but it certainly feels of a piece.)
Unlike some of the other Yellowstone spin-offs over the years—most of which have been historical dips back into the Dutton family past—Y: Probably Not The Last Marshal seems like it’s being fit into the CBS mold, rather than asking the network to adapt to it: The show is being produced by SEAL Team showrunner Spencer Hudnut, and will see Kayce Dutton “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.” Which, yes, sounds kind of a lot like SEAL Team, except now there’s a Dutton in it; it’s not clear how much Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan is expected to be involved in this, beyond cashing the requisite checks. (The same question also applies to the other Yellowstone spin-off in the works, centered on Kelly Reilly’s Beth and Cole Hauser’s Rip.)
Yellowstone itself had a brief run on CBS, airing edited episodes on its 2023 schedule. Meanwhile, we’re just fascinated by the naming decision here, even for what’s just supposed to be a working title. Presumably, the whole point of spinning off the original series is to get some of its slightly diminished, but still quite potent, “biggest show on cable” heat; is the assumption that Grimes is so well-known as Kayce Dutton that one glimpse at his face and the letter Y will do all the necessary marketing work, rendering the “-ellowstone” part superfluous? That’s before we even get into the general weirdness of a drama series spinning off into a procedural; it’d be a bit like Mad Men going off the air and then finding out NBC was rolling out a new show where Pete and Roger run a detective agency together. (Note to Vincent Kartheiser and John Slattery’s agents: We would watch the shit out of this.)
