Taylor Sheridan’s First Yellowstone Sequel Is an Instant Streaming Hit, Officially Breaking a 7-Year Record

Taylor Sheridan has built a TV empire off the back of his hit show Yellowstone, but that series ended in 2024. However, Sheridan has been expanding Yellowstone into a franchise universe since the 2021 prequel series 1883, which chronicled the Dutton family’s nightmare journey from Tennessee to Montana (during the titular year), and settled there to start the Yellowstone Ranch. Now the first Yellowstone sequel series has premiered, and the premiere ratings broke a seven-year record for TV debuts.

Yellowstone character Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) has stepped out into his own spinoff series, Marshals. The show premiered on CBS to a same-day audience of 9.52 million viewers; that’s the biggest debut since law enforcement procedural FBI premiered to 10 million viewers in 2018. It’s noted that Marshals‘ premiere was bigger than many of Yellowstone’s seasonal premieres; the spinoff show also drew higher ratings than the finale of Dancing With the Stars (9.43M viewers), which is another impressive feather in its cap.

Marshals Just Proved That the Yellowstone Franchise Is Still Strong

The Yellowstone franchise has done well enough with its two prequel series, 1883 and 1923, but both of those shows aired on the Paramount+ streaming platform. It’s a whole different measurement when a show airs on television – and one of the “Big 3” networks, at that (CBS, NBC, ABC). It remains to be seen what the total viewership number looks like after Marshals has gotten its run on Paramount+.

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Marshals follows Kayce Dutton (an Ex-Navy SEAL) after he leaves the Yellowstone Ranch. Kayce takes a job with the U.S. Marshals. As Kayce uses his cowboy experience and military training to take down Montana’s criminal element, he also struggles to deal with the PTSD of his violent past… and a tragic loss.

Marshals Shocks Fans With A Major Yellowstone Character Death

When Marshals was being developed as a spinoff of Yellowstone, the creative team (including showrunner Spencer Hudnut and Grimes) hit a major hurdle: Kelsey Asbille, who played Kayce’s wife Monica on Yellowstone, couldn’t do the spinoff. Hudnut, Sheridan, and the creative team decided to take a bold swing (SPOILERS): killing Monica off (via cancer) and having the loss be a major conflict for Kayce when the show begins.

“It wasn’t like Luke and I were sitting there saying, ‘We should kill Monica,’” Hudnut explained to THR. “It was more like, ‘If she’s not available for this, then what’s the best way to move on from that character in the least exploitive way?’”

Monica may be gone, but Marshals does bring back some other familiar faces from Yellowstone. That list includes Mo Brngs Plenty (who plays “Mo”), Gil Birmingham (“Chief Thomas Rainwater”), and Brecken Merrill (“Tate Dutton”). Actors who are joining the franchise via Marshals include Logan Marshall-Green (Upgrade), Arielle Kebbel (9-1-1), Tatmanka Means (Killers of the Flower Moon), and Ash Santos (Mayor of Kingstown).

Marshals airs on CBS and streams on Paramount+. Discuss your thoughts on the show with us over on the ComicBook Forum!