CBS has set Marshals to return for Season 2 on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 8:30 PM ET, giving the Yellowstone offshoot a fresh launch point before it settles into its 8 PM ET slot on Sunday, Oct. 11. Luke Grimes is back as U.S. Navy SEAL Kayce Dutton, the character who now works with a specialized group of U.S. Marshals in Montana.
The timing matters because Marshals arrives with proof that viewers are already watching in unusual numbers. Season 1 premiered in March 2026 and finished with 25.24 million views, enough to put the series in second place on the Nielsen Company’s all-time 2026 viewership list when that mark was posted in May. For CBS, that kind of audience is hard to ignore, even if the show’s critical reception has not matched the size of its crowd.
That split helps explain why the series is back so quickly. Marshals is the fourth series in the Yellowstone franchise and a sequel that picks up after Yellowstone, with Grimes joined in Season 2 by Logan Marshal-Green, Arielle Kebbel, Ash Santos and Tatanka Means. The show’s first run ended on a cliffhanger, and the fall schedule confirms CBS is not waiting long to resume the story.
The quick turnaround also shows how CBS is using the calendar to build the audience before the show moves into a more familiar time slot. An 8:30 PM ET premiere gives the network room to stage the return, then the 8 PM ET slot the next week places the series where broadcast viewers are most likely to find it. That matters for a franchise that has already shown it can draw big numbers while still leaving questions about how much critical goodwill it can win over the long run.
For Grimes, the return means stepping back into one of TV’s most visible roles with the same character at the center of the action and the same unfinished story carrying over into the new season. The answer to the bigger question is already set on the schedule: Marshals is back on Oct. 4, and CBS is betting the audience that showed up in Season 1 will show up again.
