After 18 Episodes, Marshals Has Finally Separated Itself From Yellowstone

Published Nov 1, 2026, 9:30 PM EST

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Marshals has been dealing with its own identity crisis since its premiere, but after 18 episodes, the CBS spinoff has finally managed to separate itself from Yellowstone in a meaningful way. Throughout the run of Marshals, a spinoff of the hit Taylor Sheridan series Yellowstone following Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) as he moves into a new chapter working with a specialized unit of the US Marshals, the series has struggled to establish itself. Coming from Yellowstone and bringing characters from the series into a new series in an entirely different genre hasn't been as easy as it may have seemed.

While there are Yellowstone characters involved in Marshals, the series presented a whole new side to the universe with a new ensemble cast, trying to merge the two worlds in a way that feels messy at times. The first season, which spanned the course of 13 episodes, was able to establish Kayce and his son Tate (Brecken Merrill) in their lives, reconciling with the loss of their family matriarch Monica and finding a new status quo. Now, as Marshals season 2 has rolled out, the ensemble cast of the series has gotten more fleshed out and Marshals has started to find its way.

After a potentially devastating blast left Kayce and Marshals' potential answer to Monica's absence, Andrea Cruz (Ash Santos), with uncertain futures, Marshals' most recent episode delivered a story that helped solidify the show as its own entity. While the Yellowstone thematic elements remain a part of Marshals, the series is finally making it clear that it has its own cadence.

Marshals Season 2 Episode 5 Finally Found Its Own Identity

CBS

After the cliffhanger of episode 4 left Kayce and Andrea potentially trapped after a blast in a rickety, abandoned construction site, Marshals season 2 episode 5, "Secret Weapon," was a welcome surprise. Kayce and Andrea's fate is quickly resolved, but when the investigation turns into something larger and more conspiratorial, the larger team gets to show off their best moves. With all hands on deck, Marshals gets to see Kayce isolated in one story, while the rest of the team takes on a family of people who distrust the government and their agents at their core. The separation works well, allowing each character to shine in a different way.

While Kayce finds himself trapped alone with an injured suspect, viewers get to see an interesting side of the character that doesn't bubble up to the surface all too frequently. With Kayce's backstory, specifically the issues he's faced within the Dutton family, comes into play fairly frequently, getting to see him use his experiences to his advantage isn't the norm. Watching him work through how to use experiences that may have been more detrimental than helpful in a way that allows him to succeed in his work is a great way to distort the Yellowstone legacy for Kayce's gain.

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On the other hand, the rest of the team are independent characters who don't have experience with the wider Yellowstone scope, and this episode of Marshals didn't bog them down with that legacy. Rather than pushing Yellowstone's larger thematic elements onto characters like Cal and Belle, who both step up to the plate in different ways and how their strengths in their work this episode, Marshals lets them breathe. Getting to see the characters in their own natural elements, running a larger investigation and then working together to close a case, was refreshing and felt authentic to the spinoff show, not its parent series.

Marshals Uses Yellowstone's Thematics To Build Itself Up, But Finally Holds Its Own

CBS

Throughout the run of Marshals thus far, one of the biggest pain points of the series has been how much of Yellowstone it's pulled into every episode. Whether it's too many mentions of John Dutton himself weighing the story down or the fact that the Dutton family legacy is following Kayce into his work and weaving its way around the larger team, Marshals has had a difficult time separating itself from Yellowstone. The new CBS series doesn't just bring Yellowstone into Kayce's story – the series also focuses on Broken Rock in a way that doesn't feel as nuanced or interesting as its predecessor.

Generally, the fact that Marshals relies on Yellowstone to fill the gaps in its stories doesn't work well, but this episode made it clear that the CBS spinoff doesn't need to rest on its perceived laurels. Using the tones of Yellowstone within the story, Marshals tackled an episode that had to do with family secrets, legacy, and preservation without making it entirely about the past. Instead, the procedural elements of the series shined, its characters felt organic and fresh, and Marshals was able to truly feel like a product of the Yellowstone universe without making itself into a less-than-stellar copy.