Marshals Episode 2 Revisits An Infamous Yellowstone Location... Sort Of

"Marshals" episode 2 sees Luke Grimes' Kayce Dutton and his team of U.S. Marshals visit the "Zone of Death," an area that's home to the Train Station from "Yellowstone." For whatever reason, however, the show doesn't actually take us to that infamous dumping ground for victims of the Dutton family.

Luke Grimes was reluctant to star in "Marshals" and it's not hard to see why. The show will always fall in the shadow of one of the most successful TV series of all time. But beyond that, it's a strange idea for a show in the first place. "Marshals" is basically a version of "Yellowstone" that's not written by Taylor Sheridan and which turns Kayce into an action hero. It's set in roughly the same area as the mothership series, there are several "Yellowstone" characters from that series in the spin-off, and now the show has gone back to a major "Yellowstone" location without actually visiting the location itself. In so doing, "Marshals" has only reinforced the idea that it's sort of like "Yellowstone" but not as good.

Episode 2 of the spin-off sees Kayce and his team venture into the Zone of Death to intercept a Fentanyl deal between two gangs: the Aryans and the 406 Royals. This area, just over the Wyoming border, is described by Ash Santos' Andrea Cruz as a place where there's "no citizens, no law enforcement, no judges or juries, so there's no way to prosecute crimes." Brett Cullen's U.S. Marshal Harry Gifford adds, "Local legend has it that it's been a dumping ground for the region's most depraved criminals." Yeah, the Duttons. Naturally Kayce looks very concerned about the Marshals discovering the Duttons' mass grave during their mission. 

In "Yellowstone," the Dutton family referred to the place where they dumped the bodies of their victims as the Train Station. This isolated cliff-edge overlooking a canyon provided the perfect place for the family to kill their adversaries without being caught. It also became the final resting place for Wes Bentley's Jamie Dutton, who died in the "Yellowstone" finale.

Season 2, episode 4 of the prequel series "1923" explained the origin of the Train Station as a location discovered by Timothy Dalton's Donald Whitfield, who comes across the secluded area between Gallatin County, Montana, and another county in Wyoming. In "Yellowstone" Lloyd Pierce (Forrie J. Smith) describes this area as having "no people, no law enforcement, no judge and jury of your peers, and no one living within a hundred miles." This is close to how Andrea Cruz describes the Zone of Death in "Marshals" episode 2 and that's because the Train Station sits within the borders of that zone — which, as it happens, is a real 50-square-mile area on the edge of Yellowstone National Park where you could technically get away with murder. Heck, the Duttons did multiple times.

All of this sets up the central tension of episode 2. Kayce is headed back to the area of land where his family has been dumping bodies for years and where his brother's body still lies. This time, however, he's going back as part of a law enforcement team that could very well stumble upon those bodies and prompt an investigation into the Duttons. As Kayce and his crew drive to the drug deal, they pass the ominous blue Wyoming sign, which in "Yellowstone" signaled the route to the Train Station. Kayce's anxiety is palpable, but it turns out he needn't have worried.

On their journey to the Zone of Death Andrea Cruz asks Kayce Dutton, "Do you really not know where your brother, Jamie, is?" Of course, Kayce does know where Jamie is. He's lying at the bottom of a canyon in the exact location he and his team are headed for. Once the Wyoming sign shows up it's all but confirmed that we're headed back to the Train Station.

When the drug deal eventually goes awry Kayce chases two fleeing gang members, eventually flipping their car and killing the last surviving criminal. We then watch as Kayce hoists the body onto his horse. Surely this is where our Train Station revisit comes in? Well, it's not entirely clear. Kayce does ride his steed up a dirt track to a cliff edge and rolls his victim's body into a ravine, but it doesn't look like this is the same location as the Train Station itself, which in "Yellowstone" was located next to a road. After that, he reconvenes with the rest of the Marshals and their excursion into the Zone of Death is over.

What was all that build-up for? "Marshals," which is already continuing a depressing trend from "Yellowstone," seemed to be teasing fans with a major "Yellowstone" callback only to half-deliver on the promise. Had someone discovered a Dutton victim we might well have had the basis of a truly tense series on our hands, with Kayce doing all he can to remain a Marshal while simultaneously protecting his family from the investigation. As it stands we have a near-miss in a show that's clearly still trying to figure out what it's about.