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Kayce Dutton should’ve been the soul of Yellowstone. Instead, he got lost somewhere between Monica’s drama and the show’s constant need to glorify the old guard. Taylor Sheridan teased us with a complex, layered character (part cowboy, part warrior, part bridge between worlds), but then just… let him fade.
I always felt Kayce was supposed to evolve into the new face of the Dutton legacy. In the beginning, it showed. Married to Monica, a Native woman, raising a half-Native son on a reservation, Kayce had all the ingredients for a story that could challenge the family’s toxic traditions. But instead of building on that, the show chained him to Monica’s rollercoaster of bad choices and the occasional spiritual wolf walk.
How Yellowstone Failed Kayce Dutton: Wasted Potential, Forgotten Bridges & Lost Legacy
Back in Season 1, Kayce had fire. A haunted war vet, estranged from his father, standing between two worlds – the broken Dutton empire and the Native community that distrusted it. That alone could’ve carried a series. But Yellowstone chose to sideline him. By Season 2, he was mostly reacting to Monica’s every crisis rather than growing as a character. And by Season 5, he felt like a guest in his own storyline.
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The biggest miss: He could have been the anti-Rip. While Rip doubled down on the old Dutton way (loyalty through violence), Kayce could’ve redefined the Yellowstone with compassion and reason. He once promised Walker the ranch would be different, that he’d change things. But that idea died quietly when the writers shoved him back into the Dutton mold. He even started treating Walker the same way Rip would. That was the moment I realized they’d abandoned Kayce’s arc.
And Monica didn’t help. From erratic decisions like speeding in labor (while Kayce literally had helicopter access!) to repeatedly leaving him, her storylines dragged Kayce down. Avery, the relay racer who had real chemistry with Kayce, could’ve added depth and brought out a different side of him. But she was used as bait for Monica’s insecurities and vanished again—a missed opportunity if I ever saw one.
Will The Yellowstone Spin-Off Center On Kayce Dutton?
In a twist of irony, the Yellowstone spinoff now plans to center on Kayce and Tate. But even in that, it’s Tate’s future that carries weight. “Tate takes after his father,” a ScreenRant report noted, “making him the first male in the Dutton line to be raised away from the cycle that brought many of his ancestors to untimely deaths.” That right there was supposed to be Kayce’s legacy, breaking the cycle, not repeating it.
Taylor Sheridan clearly liked Luke Grimes enough to keep him around. But what we ended up with wasn’t a protagonist. It was a placeholder. Kayce Dutton could have been the future of Yellowstone. Instead, the show clung so hard to the past, it forgot to build one.
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