Taylor Sheridan's Marshals Leaves Lioness in the Dust

Alright, let’s cut to it: if you’re a Taylor Sheridan fan, you probably know him for those brooding, modern westerns packed with family drama and big hats. But if we’re talking about sheer, relentless action, his two heaviest hitters right now are Lioness: Special Ops and the newer spin-off, Marshals—and believe it or not, the latter might be his wildest ride yet.

‘Marshals’: Less Ranching, More Firefights

So, CBS picked up Yellowstone: Marshals (yeah, not Paramount+), and that set off a lot of alarms for Sheridan’s diehards. Was this going to be another soapy western, or just a standard-issue network procedural with a cowboy hat?

Well, when Marshals dropped in March 2026, the answer was brutally clear: we’re in NCIS: Montana territory here—at least, that's how a lot of fans see it. The show sidelines the family melodrama for a new angle: Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) joins up as a U.S. Marshal in Montana, wrangling assorted baddies and raising plenty of hell along the way.

Viewers expecting Dutton family feuds and long, moody horse rides got something else entirely, and the reaction was...mixed. With a 6.0 IMDb score (the lowest for any Sheridan show), it’s not exactly setting the fanbase on fire. A lot of people feel like the hook—an actual Yellowstone continuation—just isn’t there.

But here's where I’ll give Marshals its due: it might be basic, but it's explosively basic. Gunfights, chase scenes, rough-and-tumble brawling—Sheridan’s cooking up pure adrenaline on this one, with Kayce charging into the fray like an old-school action hero. It’s all surface, but the surface is fire.

Why It’s Sheridan’s Real Action Powerhouse (Sorry, ‘Lioness’)

Now, let's talk Lioness: Special Ops. Sheridan whipped this one up as a military thriller with a pretty cool premise: Zoe Saldaña plays Joe McNamara, a hard-edged CIA handler leading an undercover squad of women into terrorist groups in Iraq. If you want high stakes and a lot of military hardware, it's there in spades.

The thing is, Lioness took a full season to get its footing. Critics mostly shrugged off Season 1 (a middling 56% on Rotten Tomatoes), but Season 2 shot up to a more respectable 90%. Still, much as I appreciate the switch-up, the plotting can be a headache—sprawling missions, webs of double agents, too many cooks in the espionage kitchen. It’s the kind of show where you blink and suddenly have to Google who’s betraying who.

Marshals isn’t winning any points for originality—frankly, it’s as straightforward as television gets. Kayce gets a bad guy to hunt, cue montage of high-octane action, roll credits. But honestly? That’s the point. The clarity makes it fun. You don’t have to keep a corkboard of blurry photos and conspiracy strings to follow along; you just watch Kayce do his thing (usually with bullets flying and stuff exploding in the background).

So What Actually Happens?

• Kayce Dutton tracks a nameless fugitive loose in the Montana wilderness (and yes, he’s on horseback, because this is still a Sheridan show).
• He gets tangled up in all kinds of chaos: a domestic terror attack on the Broken Rock Reservation, motorcycle chases, shootouts all over the place, even a face-off with a grizzly in the backcountry.
• There’s less time for brooding existential soliloquies, and a lot more immediate 'how is he surviving this?' action.
• Kayce stays the classic straight-arrow, more John Wayne than antihero, going full tilt into heroics without a lot of moral handwringing.

If you miss the messy Dutton family drama, Marshals will probably let you down. But if you’re after pure, unfiltered action TV that doesn’t require a spreadsheet to follow, this is Sheridan at his gleeful, gun-toting best. And honestly? That’s something Sheridan’s been teasing for a while, but never really let rip until now.

With vast improvements between Season 1 (56% Rotten Tomatoes) and Season 2 (90% RT), hope springs eternal that a similar upgrade will apply to Sheridan's latest, even more action-packed thriller series.

Lioness isn’t going anywhere, by the way—Season 3 is coming in October 2026—but when it comes to pure, exhilarating spectacle, Marshals is now the one to watch. Forget the family tree; just strap in for the ride.