By JUDY SLOANE

HOLLYWOOD-Luke Grimes reprises his “Yellowstone” role as Kayce Dutton in CBS’ new action/drama “Marshals.” With the running of the Yellowstone ranch behind him now, Kayce reunites with an old Navy SEAL teammate and their elite Marshal unit to track down a bomber targeting the Broken Rock Indian Reservation, where he used to live with his Native American wife Monica and their son.

Executive Producer/Showrunner Spencer Hudnut and actor Luke Grimes spoke with members of the TV Critics Association about their new series, which premieres on March 1, 2026 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT).

Q: Spencer, was the idea to develop a “Yellowstone” spin-off for a broadcast network?

Spencer Hudnut: When I was approached, it was specifically for CBS to try to bring the “Yellowstone” show to network television, and so that was the aim. And trying to do it in a non-traditional network way has been our goal, and hopefully we executed that.

Q: What, if any, is Taylor Sheridan’s involvement in this series?

Spencer Hudnut: Taylor’s fingerprints are obviously all over this show. He created these great characters. He created this great universe. He was very generous to me in terms of his time and helping shape this show. He’s been incredibly gracious throughout, whenever we hit a problem, to be there to help solve it. Hs influence is in every aspect of this show.

Q: Being a spinoff of “Yellowstone,” how much do you have to take into consideration that people would come with some knowledge of the history? And how much do you have to keep in mind there are people who may have never seen an episode of “Yellowstone?”

Spencer Hudnut: That was the challenge of this. But I think given what “Yellowstone” is and was, we’d be foolish to turn our backs on that rich history and all that great backstory. What’s great for us is a lot of Kayce’s (new) teammates are learning about him, which offers a way for those that are new to this world to learn about him.

Q: Luke, where is Kayce now emotionally?

Luke Grimes: Where we meet him, he’s at the end of his emotional road. Obviously in the original series, so many hard things have happened to this guy with his family, with his past, suffering PTSD from things that happened to him at war. And then, right when you meet him here, you pretty much find out that his wife has passed away. They were twin flames, they belonged together. And so, he loses his soul mate. There’s nothing darker than that.

I remember thinking how is this going to work, maybe that’s too sad. Maybe that’s too much drama to just watch this guy be in so much pain. But the really great device of our show is that Kayce finds a purpose and a reason to get up in the morning, and that comes from his old SEAL buddy who comes and finds him and says, “Hey, I figured out a way to turn my life around and deal with my demons and it’s becoming useful to other people in using our skill set to help out others.” So, through that, Kayce slowly but surely starts to find his way; starts to find a reason and a purpose. Obviously, he has his son, but beyond that, I think we find a really lost man.

Q: Spencer, can you address what happened to Monica?

Spencer Hudnut: We don’t come out and explicitly say it in the pilot, but it’s pretty clear, hopefully people can piece together that she did get sick, she got cancer and passed away. Our show picks up about a year to 15 months after the end of “Yellowstone.”

For me and for Luke and for others who were involved in “Yellowstone,” it was important that we used that death. We’re shining a light on an issue; on reservations the cancer rate is extremely high. That is what pulls Kayce into this world. At least in my mind, Monica is guiding Kayce as he’s trying to find his new path. And so, really honoring that character who was such a great, important piece of “Yellowstone,” was important to all of us. So, she exists and lives on in this series.

Q: Luke, when did you find out that your character was going to be continuing and what was your feeling about that with this new saga?

Luke Grimes:  I’ll just say that I thought “Yellowstone” was over. I didn’t see any chance of it continuing, especially because Kayce’s arc ended so perfectly, and I thought, anything past that is going to be boring to watch. He’s happy, so that’s no fun. There’s no drama there. And when they started bringing up the fact that they were considering doing this, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it until I met Spencer. He and I had a Zoom (meeting,) and I really liked him, and I liked his ideas, thinking there really is something there to explore. And Kayce can do some things in this show that people wished he could’ve done in “Yellowstone,” so that was exciting for me.

Q: Is there a cowboy hero from old westerns that you see just a hint of in your character of Kayce?

Luke Grimes: Yeah. I don’t know if you ever saw the first poster we put out for this, but it’s nod to “Unforgiven”. Obviously, Clint (Eastwood) in “Unforgiven” is a character that I love, and I’m not saying that it reminds me of Kayce, but I obviously would like to emulate some of that guy’s career because I think he’s incredible. But, when you find him, he’s just lost his wife and he’s not doing too well. He’s not a hero. He’s kind of a loser and throughout “Unforgiven,” he gets his powers back, so I saw a bit of that in Kayce.