How Marshals Continues An Important 8-Year Taylor Sheridan Tradition That Began With Yellowstone

Yellowstone has become a multi-billion-dollar franchise with multiple spinoffs, including two prequels and two series set after the final season of the main show. Marshals follows Kayce Dutton (played by Luke Grimes) after the events of Yellowstone as he sets his own path following the death of his father and the mysterious death of his wife, Monica Dutton. He must handle being a single father and protecting people and their ranches in Montana.

In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns, returning franchise star Mo Brings Plenty reveals exactly how Marshals keeps upholding an important eight-year tradition that began with Yellowstone. Native American land preservation and sovereignty are key themes throughout the franchise, and in the main series, it was explored through Broken Rock Preservation and its leader, Thomas Rainwater. The fight for land ownership, with tribes fighting to reclaim what was stolen, has become an important topic of conversation.

Mo Brings Plenty worked alongside franchise creator Taylor Sheridan throughout Yellowstone and its prequels as the American Indian Affairs Coordinator to ensure that the series was bringing a unique, authentic, and very much real perspective of the culture then and now. The actor was asked how this would continue and if it even would in the spinoff Marshals when working alongside creator and showrunner Spencer Hudnut.

ScreenRant: I know that you worked with Taylor more directly on Yellowstone and the prequels as the American Indian Affairs Coordinator. Did that continue with Marshals, as well, working with Spencer and the writing team to really keep that going?

Mo Brings Plenty: Absolutely. David Glasser and I had a good conversation from 101 Studios, and Spencer and I connected, and we started that conversation, and we hit it right off. We connected immediately. Spencer’s such a great, amazing individual, as well. So, to have that relationship, he allows me to be vulnerable in sharing, but we also know where that fine line is.

I know how far we can push the envelope, so we don’t cross the line and become very disrespectful to all those individuals who made great sacrifices for our traditions to remain. Because you have to think that our ceremonies were outlawed until 1976, when President Jimmy Carter signed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. I was born, and I had witnessed those moments before 1976. And even some years after, the fear that I experienced in going to a ceremony, even leaving the ceremony [persisted], but in the moment of the ceremony, I was fearless. I felt safe. I felt protected. So, we know that, and we pay a great deal of respect to that. We never went across that line, and that’s solely on me. When people aren’t happy with it, of course I’m always going to step on and say, “I know, because I know who my family is, and I know where I come from.”

So, to participate and be a part of that has been a great deal for me, and also for Indian country, because a lot of our people had been relocated back starting in the ’50s. A lot of people didn’t grow up with that privilege, with the same opportunities that I had as a kid growing up. So, to inspire them when they see the show, it’s going to bring back a memory within them in their adult parents, and maybe make the young kids want to go back home and experience those beautiful ceremonies. We accomplished that in Yellowstone with the vision quest. Young kids are going home now, so it’s been an accomplishment. It’s been wonderful, it’s been a great deal.

Yellowstone has been praised for sharing an insight often overlooked or sometimes even silenced by outsiders who may not even understand the rich and deep history associated with the land they’re living on. As the actor stated, until President Jimmy Carter signed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1976, traditional ceremonies were outlawed. Sheridan’s universe gave Mo Brings Plenty the platform to advocate for authentic Native representation, which hasn’t been seen enough in modern-day media.

Yellowstone and its prequels highlight the struggles of Indigenous people in Montana, and in the prequel 1883, a Native American elder spoke of a prophecy that after seven generations, his people would take the land back. Well, it turns out Kayce and Monica Dutton’s son, Tate, will be the seventh generation, and due to his Native American heritage on his mother’s side, it could signal how the tide will go as the potential future owner and healer of the generational divide.

Marshals is available to stream on Paramount+.