Kayce Dutton’s ‘Yellowstone’ Journey Recapped Before ‘Marshals’
It’s no secret that Kayee (Luke Grimes) is one of the most underrated members of the Dutton family. Between his super sweet love story with Monica (Kelsey Asbille) to his heroic save of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, he truly is one the best characters on TV. To celebrate that, as well as his highly anticipated return to TV later this spring, we have decided to recap everything Kayce Dutton went through during the five Yellowstone seasons. Read on for more.
Kayce Dutton in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 1
In Season 1 of Yellowstone, Kayce’s storyline mainly revolves around his relationship with his wife Monica.
While living on the Black Rock Reservation with Monica and their son Tate (Brecken Merrill), a herd of Dutton cattle wander onto the land, creating a land war between the family and the Native Americans. As a Dutton family member and husband of a Native American, Kayce finds himself stuck in the middle, but in the end he decides to rejoin his family at the Yellowstone Ranch. Monica hates this decision, believing that the family’s way of life is too dangerous for them, but Kaycee disagrees. He wants his son to know his grandfather, John Dutton III (Kevin Costner.)
In the end, Kayce stays on the Dutton ranch and Monica takes Tate to what she believes is a much safer location.
Kayce Dutton in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 2
Season 2 of Yellowstone opens with Kayce living on the Dutton Ranch alone; Monica and Tate are in an apartment in Bozeman. He sometimes sees them, but his primary focus is on his family’s ranch. Monica realizes that and decides that it’s time for her son to be with his father and the two of them, along with Kayce, decide to move into the main Dutton house at the end of the season.
This move comes after Tate gets kidnapped by a rival ranching family, which results in Kayce hunting down his son and saving him. It’s one of the hardest plot lines to watch in Yellowstone, and is something that does get mentioned several times after the events unfold.
Kayce Dutton in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 3
Yellowstone’s third season follows Kayce after he becomes the Livestock Commissioner, which means that he investigates cattle theft and helps manage conflicts between the Native American reservation and the Dutton ranch.
The job also has a lot of dangerous aspects to it, often resulting in shootouts between him and others. Along with that, that Jamie Dutton’s (Wes Bentley) biological father Garrett Randall (Will Patton) puts out on Kayce, John and Beth (Kelly Reilly). They all survive the threat, but it’s rough for a couple of episodes—especially after a bomb explodes in Beth’s office in the Season 3 finale.
Kayce Dutton in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 4
Season 4 of Yellowstone is a very spiritual one for Kayce. Through these 10 episodes, he begins to come to terms with his Navy SEAL past, family trauma and more. He also begins to see the future, and even says, “I saw the end of us,” towards the season finale. This would serve as foreshadowing for Season 5, which many Yellowstone fans argue is “the end” of the great Dutton legacy in Montana.
Kayce Dutton in ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5
Kayce’s journey ends with him selling the Yellowstone Ranch to Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), which in turn keeps the land from being turned into a resort. He also helps Beth kill their brother Jamie, which they said was revenge for what he did to their dad.
All in all, Kayce seems happy at the end of Yellowstone, which is the perfect way for him to start his journey on Marshals.
“Seven years is a long time to do anything, and I had never played a character for more than a few months before. I’ve loved all of it. But there is a part of it that—once you read those final episodes—sees that there’s a finality to it. There’s always talks of spin-offs. I’d do it [but] I just don’t understand how it would work once the story ends,” Grimestold Esquire in December of 2024. “Kayce wants to be a cowboy and be happy with his family. He doesn’t want to kill people anymore. He doesn’t want the weight of a huge mega ranch that isn’t sustainable in today’s times. He wants his little slice of heaven. It’s that simple.”
Kayce’s spinoff show Marshals (formerly known as Y:Marshals) will follow him as he joins the U.S. Marshals. It will debut on CBS on Sunday, March 1. It will also be available for streaming on Paramount+.
“It will be weird,” Grimes told People magazine of the show back in June of 2025. “There’s going to be some familiar faces, but there’s going to be a lot of new faces too, so we’ll see how that all feels.”
“We definitely wanted to make sure to give it a real story and make it interesting and make it believable,” he continued. “If it was just like, ‘Well, he’s happy’ — we’re just going to watch him be happy? That’s not very cool. But I’ll say this, the idea that was pitched to me is very, very good and very interesting and it really roped me in and I think it will rope the audience in as well.”