Marshals Star Luke Grimes' Favorite Yellowstone Scene Makes Total Sense

For a moment, it looked as though Luke Grimes' Kayce Dutton might have escaped the never-ending Dutton drama. But with "Marshals" killing off his wife in the worst way possible and pushing him into a new life as part of an elite U.S. Marshal team, it seems Brett Cullen's Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Harry Gifford was right when he said, "Duttons are born with dysfunction in their blood." As such, it sort of makes sense that Grimes' favorite "Yellowstone" scene captures a relatively subdued moment early on in the show's run before all the strife and tumult descended.

In the "Yellowstone" pilot, "Daybreak," Kayce sits with son Tate Dutton (Brecken Merrill) and his two brothers Jamie (Wes Bentley) and Lee (Dave Annable) by a river. As they cook the fish they've just caught, the brothers give each other a hard time over their life choices, but there's a warmth to their teasing which culminates in Tate throwing a fish at his uncle and the group sharing a laugh. The whole scene sets up the bond between the brothers, and compared to how the rest of the episode plays out, it's a moment of real calm.

As lethal as his Navy SEAL training allows him to be, Kayce is mostly a fairly chill dude, and Grimes seems particularly suited to portraying that aspect of his personality. It's not surprising, then, that this fishing trip sit-down was his favorite scene from across five seasons of "Yellowstone." The actor told Entertainment Weekly that this was actually his audition scene. "I still have that audition on my computer from years ago," he said. "That's what got me the job. And then doing that scene on the day was really special. It's one of the best scenes in all of 'Yellowstone' that I was in."

"Daybreak" wasn't all brotherly bonding and fishing trips. The "Yellowstone" pilot was full of the kind of soapy drama that became the show's calling card, and by the end, one of the Dutton brothers had been put down. Lee Dutton suffered a brutal fate when he was shot dead by a member of the Broken Rock tribe and Kayce's own brother-in-law, Robert Long (Jeremiah Bitsui). The pilot then saw Kayce kill Robert in a moment that stood in stark contrast to the comparatively blissful fishing trip scene earlier.

Luke Grimes' favorite scene is interesting in that it highlights another aspect of "Yellowstone" that made it such a hit: realism. So many of the relationships and interactions felt strikingly real in what was otherwise a neo-Western melodrama. This incongruous mix was the special sauce that propelled Taylor Sheridan's show to massive success, but it seems Grimes was much more fond of the realism than the soapiness.

His character was rewarded for that — at least for a while. Kayce and his family were given one of the best endings for any characters on "Yellowstone" when they not only survived but also sold the Yellowstone Dutton ranch and retired to a peaceful patch of nearby land known as East Camp. Of course, their quietude didn't last long, with "Marshals" plunging Kayce right back into the fray. But like the Dutton scion himself, it seems Grimes just yearns for the quiet moments.