It’s no secret that one of the most purposeless characters on Yellowstone was Monica Dutton. Sorry, that was harsh, but it’s (sadly) true. Monica had very little to do on Yellowstone other than complain about the rest of the Dutton family, teetering between reprimanding Kayce for working with them and encouraging him to. As with Kayce himself, Taylor Sheridan never had a clear direction for his character, other than a few controversial moments that we still talk about today. After the drama of Season 1, where Monica wrestled with the fact that her husband had killed her brother (who had previously killed her brother-in-law), she flipped from being a temporary university teacher to becoming bait for a Rez rapist. In both cases, those storylines were dropped pretty quickly with little real resulting development. No character in the entire Yellowstone universe has been so poorly mishandled as Monica, and it’s not even close.

Right Now, It’s Unclear If Monica Will Even Be in ‘Y: Marshals’

Considering that the same showrunner who tackled SEAL Team — a series unafraid to dive deep into the tension between duty to one’s country and one’s family — is helming Y: Marshals, it stands to reason that Monica (and Tate, by extension) should be a major part of the spin-off. The only problem is, unlike what we know about Luke Grimes’ commitment to returning as Kayce Dutton, we haven’t gotten any such confirmation that Kelsey Asbille will be returning as Monica. Given where the Yellowstone finale, “Life Is a Promise,” leaves these characters, it would be incredibly strange if Monica weren’t a part of the show. More than that, it would then fail to live up to the promise that Yellowstone left us with — and the tagline for what Y: Marshals supposedly intends to be.