Marshals Episode 8 Proves Kayce Dutton Is Yellowstone’s Most Tortured Man

Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton just can’t catch a break. This man has lost almost everybody close to him, and now episode 8 of “Marshals” has confirmed that his pre-“Yellowstone” years were no less tragic. “Blowback” introduces a new character from Kayce’s past named Garrett, played by country songster Riley Green. This tortured soul has had a rough time, but when you consider what we learned this episode, it should be Kayce who’s close to the breaking point, not Garrett.

For suffering through five seasons of non-stop drama and turmoil, Kayce seemed to get the happiest ending of any main character on “Yellowstone” when he sold the ranch and moved on with his wife, Monica Dutton (Kelsey Asbille), and son, Tate Dutton (Brecken Merrill). But with “Marshals” killing off Monica in the worst way possible, Kayce once again found himself immersed in tragedy.

It’s not as if he was new to it by that point, however. The youngest son of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton has now lost his mother, his older brother Lee Dutton (Dave Annable), his older brother Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley), his father, his wife, his unborn son, and now we’ve learned that his former Navy SEAL team lost one of their members while serving overseas in an event that still haunts them to this day. All of which raises the question of how Kayce is functioning at all, let alone “kicking doors,” as his fellow marshals like to say.

“Yellowstone” was never afraid of killing its characters, with pretty much everybody on the show either perishing in some awful way or coming far too close for comfort. By the end, even the patriarch, John Dutton himself, had been killed off — though that had more to do with the behind-the-scenes clashes between Kevin Costner and creator Taylor Sheridan. Thus far, nobody from the main “Marshals” cast has been killed off, but the show did debut having dispatched Monica Dutton off-screen.

Even with “Marshals” preserving its central cast, however, the show is still finding ways to torment Kayce Dutton. “Yellowstone” started with Kayce being given a front-row seat to his brother Lee Dutton’s death, and throughout the rest of the series, he endured consistent tragedy as other family members were slowly picked off. Now, we’ve learned that during a tour of Afghanistan, Kayce, Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green), and Garrett lost their Navy SEAL teammate Roner in a yet-to-be specified military operation.

This wasn’t just a fellow soldier being killed in the line of duty, either. As episode 8 of “Marshals” goes to great lengths to emphasize, Kayce, Pete, Garrett, and Roner were incredibly close. When Kayce tells Garrett that he can stay at his cabin, he says, “We might not be teammates anymore, but we’re still brothers.” This is partly why Garrett has had such a rough time since leaving the military: He’s haunted by the memory of Roner, and at one point even has to be shaken awake by Kayce during an intense nightmare about his former teammate. Kayce, meanwhile, has dealt with about 10 other major tragedies since losing Roner and seems to be holding it together pretty well.

At this point, Kayce Dutton should barely be able to function considering how much heartache he’s had to endure. This man must be the most tortured character in the entire “Yellowstone” universe, and that’s saying something, given how brutal and unforgiving Taylor Sheridan’s sprawling franchise can be.

For now, “Marshals” is holding back on the details of what exactly happened to Roner and who carries the most guilt for his passing, though it seems Pete Calvin might have been most to “blame” as the leader of the crew. No doubt when those details come to light, they’ll be just as horrific and unthinkably tragic as anything else that’s occurred in this godforsaken on-screen universe.

While absurd, over-the-top melodrama is part of the charm of the “Yellowstone” franchise, “Marshals” is carrying on some depressing trends from “Yellowstone,” and it’s starting to become repetitive. Most obvious is the trend of killing off main characters’ significant others, but piling on more tragedy from Kayce’s past ultimately kind of devalues the currency. This accumulation of loss starts to seem less effective as a narrative device than if Luke Grimes’ rancher had been allowed to enjoy at least a little peace. Alas, it seems the Dutton scion is doomed to remain the most beleaguered, haunted man in the Sheridan-verse, even if his laconic manner doesn’t betray the weight on his shoulders.

Long-time Paramount hit-making machine Taylor Sheridan will eventually make the move to NBCUniversal, where he’ll no doubt churn out more beloved shows such as “Yellowstone,” “Landman,” “Lioness,” “Tulsa King,” and “Mayor of Kingstown.” Of course, television isn’t the only space Sheridan has occupied. Some of his best stories have been on the big screen instead of the small.

Before we even knew who John Dutton was and what it meant to be “taken to the train station,” Taylor Sheridan was making a name for himself writing movies before really having a go at directing them. As with his television output, there have been some weak misses and some massive hits among the movies, and some you might be surprised he even played a part in helping create. Here’s the ranking of every Taylor Sheridan movie project to which he has a writing or directing credit attached, beginning with his first time behind the camera when he dared to dabble in the horror genre.

Every director has to begin somewhere, and for Taylor Sheridan, it was in a genre miles away from where he’d eventually find his footing. “Vile” is his only dip into horror, and we should be thankful for that. A ropey watch from beginning to end, this “Saw” replica cuts like a rolling pin as a group of friends finds themselves trapped in a house with six other strangers and are forced to torture each other to survive. Trust us when we say you, the viewer, are the only one who’ll genuinely suffer.

Shot on a shoestring with some dreadful performances to support it, “Vile” doesn’t necessarily live up to its name, but if the camera sits still long enough, it can be an eye-rolling watch at times. While Sheridan might’ve stitched some wince-inducing moments into his stories in the years that followed, the ones he handles here lack any kind of terror. In a Rotten Tomatoes interview, he described “Vile” as “an excellent opportunity to point a camera and learn some lessons that actually benefited me on ‘Wind River,'” the film he deems his true directorial debut. With that in mind, we can just be glad that whatever nuggets of knowledge he took from “Vile” put him leagues ahead of where he started.

Though he might have been up to his cowboy boots in building his “Yellowstone” universe, Taylor Sheridan helped Paramount flesh out another film in 2021, co-writing with Will Staples an adaptation of the 1993 Tom Clancy novel “Without Remorse.” The film sees Michael B. Jordan as John Kelly, a U.S. Navy SEAL and eventual leader of the fictional special forces team, Rainbow Six. In Clancy’s books, Kelly (later renamed Clark) is a recurring ally of Jack Ryan, who had been brilliantly rebooted on Amazon Prime Video by this point. The streaming service nabbed the movie from Paramount, releasing it during the pandemic to tee up another franchise, but unfortunately it doesn’t start with a great introduction.

“Without Remorse” has all the tools to be a hit but feels dated and frustratingly dull with the story it’s spinning. Sheridan, who is no stranger to handling heroes with vengeance on their mind, plays this far too by the book as Jordan’s hero aims to settle a score after his pregnant wife and members of his team are murdered. Directed by Stefano Sollima, the film lacks the same energy and suspense that audiences were otherwise binging on with “Jack Ryan” and other Sheridan projects by that time. Even the movie’s final big shootout is considerably stale and fails to make a case for what was supposed to be Jordan’s all-new franchise. “John Wick” director Chad Stahelski is set to helm the sequel, “Rainbow Six,” and will hopefully give Kelly the jolt that Sheridan and Sollima simply couldn’t.

Whereas “Without Remorse” fights to break free of ’90s clichés, “Those Who Wish Me Dead” proudly owns them, making for a fun, old-fashioned cat-and-mouse movie starring Angelina Jolie. Besides directing this one, Taylor Sheridan has a co-writing credit alongside Charles Leavitt and novelist Michael Koryta, who wrote the book from which the film is adapted. Jolie plays a heroic smokejumper (initial wildfire responder) who takes a stranded young boy under her protection from two hitmen (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult), hoping to cover their tracks from a job gone wrong.

Running on the fumes of films like “Hard Rain” and “Cliffhanger,” “Those Who Wish Me Dead” really doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel and is all the better for it. Aiden Gillen, who filled a corner of the market for lethal and logistical bad guys thanks to “Game of Thrones” (and would later be in villain mode for Sheridan’s own “Mayor of Kingstown”), does what’s needed. Nicholas Hoult, meanwhile, has an early stab at being a bad guy, which works as an okay warm-up act for whatever he has in store in “Superman” as Lex Luthor. They don’t make them like this anymore, but it’s great to see Sheridan keeping the fire burning for them with this entertaining watch.

After such a massive hit with “Sicario,” it was hardly a surprise that Taylor Sheridan would deliver a second chapter revisiting that world, narrowing his focus even more on Benicio del Toro’s steely-eyed killer, Alejandro Gillick. In “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” del Toro’s hitman is sent across the border once more following a terrorist attack in Kansas City that links back to Mexican drug cartels. Just as before, our heartless hero is laser-focused on his mission, until he draws in a young bystander to this dark and lawless land along the way.

While it’s a decent follow-up mapped out by Sheridan, there’s no doubt that “Day of the Soldado” lacks Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant direction and Roger Deakins’ haunting cinematography, which filled every frame of its predecessor. The only winning element is del Toro, trying but not entirely elevating the film to the heights of what came before, no matter how cool he might look gunning down crime bosses.

Director Stefano Sollima bravely fills the chair as Villeneuve’s stand-in (when Sheridan might have been a better option), trying to lend a hand in what feels like the “Yellowstone” creator’s attempt at big-screen world-building. Since then, producers have promised a third movie is in development while Sheridan has been busy making a dynasty out of the Duttons, but the wait has been a long one. For now, there’s no ETA on when Gillick will return but given how deathly silent he often is, we’ll never hear him coming anyway.

In Taylor Sheridan’s film and television projects, some of his best work often features a perfectly matched pair at the center. For “Hell or High Water,” which Sheridan penned for director David Mackenzie, Chris Pine and Ben Foster are just such a double act. Toby (Pine) and Tanner Howard (Foster) are brothers who start robbing banks in order to hold on to the family home. Unfortunately, hot on their tail and handling one last case is Jeff Bridges’ seasoned Texas Ranger, Marcus Hamilton.

It might carry classic tropes of some superior heist movies, but Sheridan still manages to add his familiar tone and unflinching management of mortality to a thriller cooking in the West Texas sun. Bridges delivers the classic model of the perma-frowning lawman close to retirement, even with a trustworthy partner along for the ride (the always-welcome Gil Birmingham). However, the one place that he plays with the formula in particular is with the Howards themselves.

Foster, who has often stepped in as the short fuse in films like “3:10 to Yuma” and “Alpha Dog,” is just as unpredictable here but often equally as chilled as his on-screen sibling from Pine. Their chemistry is encapsulated perfectly in a memorable trip to the gas station as Toby lets rip on a pair of naive thugs while Tanner doesn’t even leave the car. When listing the best heist movies of all time like “Heat,” “The Town,” and “Point Break,” “Hell or High Water” easily deserves to steal some time in the conversation.

The 2017 film “Wind River” is undoubtedly Taylor Sheridan’s best example of handling the double duty of writing and directing, culminating in a simple but sinister detective story. Elizabeth Olsen is an FBI agent sent to handle the murder case of an 18-year-old girl and member of the Northern Arapaho tribe on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Joining her on the hunt is U.S. Wildlife Service Agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), who has a dark past that he’s forced to revisit. Together, both find themselves on the trail of a grisly cover-up, a pulse-pounding shoot-out, and a cold but tearful bit of justice being paid at the end of it all.

While its final act rests on an unsettling flashback, there’s no doubt that Sheridan masterfully builds mountains of tension getting there in this sub-zero detective story, with Olsen and Renner putting in the work. By this point, both stars had already established a flawless dynamic thanks to their work together in the MCU as Hawkeye and the Scarlet Witch. Here, the film lingers on emotional scenes that are only strengthened when they handle them individually. Olsen delivers a commendable Clarice Starling-like performance as the brave woman in a man’s world, but Renner offers what might be some of his best work as a father dealing with grief in his own way. By the time the truth in “Wind River” gets out, you’ll have chewed your fingers to the bone if they haven’t been frozen off already.

The best film from Taylor Sheridan might not be one he directed, but it’s the movie that put his name on the map more than anything else, and rightfully so. Under the impeccable direction of Denis Villeneuve, who was another up-and-comer at the time, Taylor Sheridan’s “Sicario” delivered a cold-blooded blockbuster that perfectly merged both artists’ handling of unforgiving terrain and gripped its audience from beginning to end.

Boasting an outstanding selection of talents, including Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and an early appearance from Daniel Kaluuya, the greatest asset in “Sicario” is Benicio del Toro as the terrifyingly cool Alejandro Gillick. As the titular assassin, or “Sicario,” in this murky battle against drugs and gang warfare, Gillick is the immovable, stone-faced killer from which many of Sheridan’s future characters would be cut.

When del Toro’s killer steps into a scene, a chilling atmosphere comes with him, making him something to be feared and fascinated by for both the audience and Blunt’s Kate Macer, who “is lost in a land of wolves.” Play that out in the searing cinematography from Roger Deakins and one of the greatest gunfights in cinema history and “Sicario” is still Taylor Sheridan’s finest work, even if someone else called the shots.