With the news that Luke Grimes is set to reprise his role as Kayce Dutton in CBS’ highly anticipated Yellowstone sequel spin-off series, Y: Marshals, there’s a lot to be excited about. But as we look forward to seeing Kayce back in action, upholding the law across Big Sky Country, there is one other aspect of this project that ought to give long-time Taylor Sheridan fans hope for the Dutton family’s future. Maybe now, after five seasons and seven years, we’ll finally get better material for Kelsey Asbille‘s Monica Dutton. Frankly, it’s about time.
‘Y: Marshals’ Needs to Give Monica Dutton Better Material
It’s no secret that one of the most purposeless characters on Yellowstonewas Monica Dutton. Sorry, that was harsh, but it’s (sadly) true. Monica had very little to do on Yellowstone other than complain about the rest of the Dutton family, teetering between reprimanding Kayce for working with them and encouraging him to. As with Kayce himself, Taylor Sheridan never had a clear direction for his character, other than a few controversial moments that we still talk about today. After the drama of Season 1, where Monica wrestled with the fact that her husband had killed her brother (who had previously killed her brother-in-law), she flipped from being a temporary university teacher to becoming bait for a Rez rapist. In both cases, those storylines were dropped pretty quickly with little real resulting development. No character in the entire Yellowstone universe has been so poorly mishandled as Monica, and it’s not even close.
Only when Season 5 began did Yellowstone really give Monica some emotional fuel to chew on. After the death of her newborn son, whom she and Kayce named John Dutton IV, Monica’s grief hung over the first half of the season. As she worked through the pain of losing a child, a child she was responsible for carrying, we see a deeper, more introspective side to the character. But by Part 2, that introspective look at Monica was tossed to the side after Kayce took center stage following the death of her father-in-law. This was, of course, entirely understandable, but it means that Yellowstone has left Monica in a place where she can now move and grow into the next phase of life, a phase we hope to see on Y: Marshals.
