Will ‘Y: Marshals’ Kill Off Monica Dutton?

Y: Marshals, the Kayce Dutton-centered Yellowstone spinoff, released its first trailer on November 24, and there’s one major character missing: Kelsey Asbille‘s Monica Dutton. Kayce (Luke Grimes) and Monica Dutton’s relationship was a major storyline throughout all five seasons of Yellowstone. In fact, their relationship was a major motivator behind Kayce’s estrangement from his father, John Dutton (Kevin Costner), in Yellowstone Season 1. Kayce, Monica, and their teenage son, Tate (Brecken Merrill), got a fairly happy ending in Yellowstone‘s final season. Asbille’s absence from the trailer and cast list begs the question: Is Y: Marshals going to kill off Monica?

With the Yellowstone Ranch behind him, Kayce joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals in Y: Marshals, combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, where he and his teammates must balance family, duty, and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence. The CBS drama premieres on Sunday, March 1, and features Grimes and Merrill reprising their roles as Kayce and Tate Dutton. It also features original Yellowstone stars Gil Birmingham as Thomas Rainwater and Mo Brings Plenty as Mo. But the rest of the characters are new.

Kayce mourns at a grave in the Y: Marshals trailer, but he’s talking about losing his parents and brothers in voiceover at that moment, so that tombstone made of stacked rocks could be in tribute to his brother, Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley). Jamie was killed by their sister, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly), in the Yellowstone series finale. She had his body dumped at the infamous train station. Kayce had complicated feelings about Jamie, whose partner, Sarah (Dawn Olivieri), had John murdered. But it wouldn’t be uncharacteristic for Kayce to build a memorial for him, especially after his unceremonious “burial.”

The grave’s land looks similar enough to the former Dutton Yellowstone Ranch terrain to believe that it’s located on East Camp, the acreage that Rainwater let Kayce keep when he sold him the Yellowstone. Notably, this grave doesn’t appear to be near the Dutton family burial plot, which is being protected by Rainwater and the people of the Broken Rock reservation in tribute to the Dutton family’s century of protecting the land.

CBS

A tombstone separate from the Dutton plot would make sense for Jamie, as Beth would never let him have a spot among the family (whether that’s a deserved punishment or not is up for debate). But it would make less sense for Monica if she is, in fact, dead because her and Kayce’s child, John Dutton IV, is buried among his Dutton family. Monica would surely want her remains to be buried close to her baby, who died shortly after his birth, after a horrible car accident sent her into labor. On the other hand, it’s possible that this is the Dutton graveyard, and it just looks a little different than in Yellowstone.

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Regardless of who occupies that grave, Monica’s absence is a head-scratcher. The Y: Marshals trailer shows Kayce wearing his wedding ring and gives a first look at Tate, who appears in a short clip in a car with his father. Both of them look angry and concerned. Kayce talks about “skeletons” in his closet and a need for a fresh start in the teasers and trailer, which implies that something major has happened in his life from which he wants to create distance.

Kayce went on a rampage to avenge his father in Yellowstone‘s final season, going so far as to hold a young girl at gunpoint to threaten a man connected to John’s assassination. The fallout from his father and brother’s deaths was triggering for Kayce, a former Navy SEAL with PTSD. Kayce seeking a fresh start in Y: Marshals could be a response to these events, but it would be boring for this spinoff to only use the plot of Yellowstone‘s final season as its jumping-off point; it needs its own inciting incident to not only establish the drama but to justify the spinoff’s existence.

Killing off Monica would be a shocking, controversial start. Another possibility is that Monica, whose plot was rather underdeveloped in Yellowstone‘s final season, leaves Kayce because she couldn’t abide his violence after John’s death. Both would explain Kayce’s emotional struggles on display in the trailer, and why he’s still wearing his wedding ring (even when they were separated in Yellowstone, Kayce never stopped loving Monica). But neither of these options is really desirable. It would be a shameful waste of Monica and Kayce’s story arcs to kill her off at a young age just to give Kayce a new purpose. Ending their marriage after years of working to strengthen it — and countless traumas endured together — would be just as wasteful.

Hopefully, Monica is in Y: Marshals, and there’s a more compelling reason for keeping her presence a secret until the show premieres. Asbille hasn’t posted on Instagram since the Yellowstone series finale in December 2024, and her last post was a photo of her and Grimes in character as Kayce and Monica. Her caption read, “One episode left. To share the screen with Luke over these past 7 years was such a dream.” Here’s hoping Yellowstone isn’t the last time this onscreen couple is seen together.

Y: Marshals, Series Premiere, Sunday, March 1, 8/7c, CBS