Marshals Season 1 Finale Gives This Yellowstone Alum A Storyline (But It's Too Late)

Spoilers ahead for the "Marshals" Season 1 finale.

"Marshals" has waited an entire season to give Brecken Merrill's Tate Dutton something to do. But despite the fact he gets to be a hero of sorts in the Season 1 finale, it all feels like too little, too late.

Backing up a bit: Luke Grimes' Kayce Dutton was given one of the happier endings of any main character on "Yellowstone." Retiring to an area of his late father's land known as East Camp, Kayce settled with his wife, Monica Long Dutton (Kelsey Asbille), and son, Tate, to live a life of peace while tending to his ranch. "Marshals" shattered that peace, however, when it killed off Monica Dutton in the worst way possible, revealing that she had died in the period between the end of "Yellowstone" and the start of the new spin-off.

That just left Kayce and Tate to fend for themselves. While you'd think that this situation would provide more than enough material for a season of TV, "Marshals" is, at the end of the day, a crime procedural. Which is to say that Kayce and Tate's relationship hasn't really been the focus of the CBS series thus far. In fact, Tate hasn't really figured into the show at all. After Episode 1 saw him protest a nearby mine and guilt trip his dad for not being more involved, it looked as though this fraught father-son relationship might provide some classic "Yellowstone" melodrama. But as the episodes went on, Tate just sort of faded into the background. Now, the series has finally given him something to do — which would be fine except Season 1 is all over now.

At the beginning of "Marshals," it looked as though the show was setting up a storyline in which Tate would continue to grapple with the death of his mother and his father's new life in Law Enforcement. What we actually got was a series that focused on everything but this seemingly crucial aspect of the story. Basically, "Marshals" Season 1 has no idea what it's about, darting between storylines and tones like a wild bronco that even Kayce Dutton can't tame. Unfortunately, Tate became collateral damage.

Though Brecken Merrill's character appears in 10 of the season's 13 episodes, he doesn't get much to do. "Marshals" Episode 13, however, tries to bring Tate back into the fold. After gunmen attempt to assassinate Gil Birmingham's Chief Thomas Rainwater, the Broken Rock chairman and Mo (Mo Brings Plenty) take shelter in Kayce's cabin. Kayce then inexplicably leaves his guests at the cabin with Tate to check on a Broken Rock police officer, before a would-be hitman enters the home and tries to take out Rainwater. Eventually, Tate puts him down with a well-timed headshot.

Here we have the beginnings of an actual storyline, in which Kayce once again brings violence to the threshold of his family's home and Tate is forced to deal with the consequences. Mo even delivers a line about how "our most innocent become collateral damage in our battles." How has this affected Tate? Could this result in even more of a rift forming between him and his father? It might make for some interesting tension if the show's writers had given themselves any time to explore it in Season 1. As it stands, it all feels like it happens far too late.

The fact is "Marshals" simply couldn't give Tate Dutton more to do. The "Yellowstone" spin-off" has been too busy packing its episodes with so many storylines that it struggled to feel like a cohesive show from week to week. Of course, all of this might be explained by a report that claimed Monica was killed off after "Yellowstone" to differentiate "Marshals" from the mothership series and avoid a lawsuit with NBC over streaming rights. Perhaps its writers couldn't use Tate too much unless they wanted to risk legal action?

Either way, it's a shame, as Tate is one of only a handful of "Yellowstone" mainstays to make it to this series. Indeed, one of fans' biggest complaints about "Marshals" is that it doesn't feel like Taylor Sheridan's original neo-Western, a complaint that "Dutton Ranch" has managed to successfully address. But despite its procedural format, "Marshals" didn't need to feel so far removed from "Yellowstone," and Tate would've been a way to bridge that gap — to say nothing of his potential as a source for real drama and emotional weight. For most of "Marshals" season 1, though, he's either relegated to brief scenes or missing altogether from significant moments set at Kayce's cabin. At times, it's been downright weird to see Kayce at home with Tate nowhere in sight.

Now, the Season 1 finale has ended on a cliffhanger, with Chris Mulkey's Tom Weaver essentially kidnapping Tate and taking him to Texas. Perhaps that means Kayce's son will have more to do in Season 2. But it also feels as though the show's writers turned their attention to Tate here just because they needed to remind us he existed before he was kidnapped.

"Marshals" is streaming on Paramount+.