Mo Brings Plenty‘s arc from Yellowstone to Marshals has been impressive. What started as a role with barely any lines in the original Taylor Sheridan series has evolved into a character and actor who brings wisdom and culture to the show, both on-screen and off.
After a traditional smudging scene was depicted in Marshals Season 2 Episode 2, Luke Grimes tells TV Insider what Brings Plenty’s presence has meant to him and the Yellowstone TV universe, revealing what other Indigenous traditions seen in Yellowstone are coming back in upcoming episodes.
Brings Plenty has played Mo, Thomas Rainwater’s (Gil Birmingham) driver, in Yellowstone and Marshals. Behind the scenes, the Lakota actor serves as a cultural consultant on all of the indigenous storylines on Yellowstone shows, including Marshals, 1883, and 1923 (he also played Minco Dodge in Sheridan’s Lawmen: Bass Reeves and was a cultural consultant).
Mo performed a smudging in Kayce (Grimes) and Tate Dutton’s (Brecken Merrill) home at the end of Marshals Season 2 Episode 2 on Sunday, October 11, to purify the space after the deadly fighting that occurred inside of it in the Season 1 finale and Season 2 premiere. The intention was to help Kayce and Tate start fresh after the violence.
Tate’s late mother, Monica (Kelsey Asbille from Yellowstone), was Lakota and a member of the Broken Rock tribe led by Chairman Rainwater. Tate’s great-grandfather, Felix Long (Rudy Ramos), still lives on the Broken Rock Reservation and appeared at a ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of Monica’s death in Marshals Season 1. The on-screen ceremony also doubled as a memorial for Brings Plenty’s late nephew, 1923 actor Cole Brings Plenty, who died in April 2024.
“Anytime there’s a scene like that, he’s completely in charge of how that goes,” Grimes tells TV Insider. “The writer, as he’s beginning to write a scene like that, will call Mo and ask him exactly what should be said, and what should be done, and the right way to do it.”
The plight of the Broken Rock people will be the main storyline in Season 2 Episode 3, airing this Sunday, October 18, on CBS. Grimes says that the sweat lodge tradition seen in Yellowstone will also be part of Marshals Season 2 later on.
“What’s great about Mo is he’s always open for any questions that we have,” Grimes shares. “There’s some more sweat lodge stuff this year, and I know a lot of the newer cast members who hadn’t been done that before, it’s just cool to watch them ask him questions and have him explain what it all means to his culture.”
“He’s just a wealth of information about the ways of Native people, and I can’t imagine doing this show without him, honestly,” the actor continues. “He’s just been such a great resource for us to make sure that we get that stuff right.”
Christopher Saunders/CBS
There are meaningful layers to Brings Plenty’s cultural consultations. Through his work, he’s able to educate both the cast and crew of Marshals and its millions of viewers on Native American traditions and culture.
“I think that’s his goal, deep down. I think that’s why he likes doing this, is just bringing that sort of forgotten culture back to the forefront,” Grimes explains. “And also, he’s become such a great character in the show beyond being the consultant. People really love that character. I do, too. You know, originally, he was just meant to be Rainwater’s driver [in Yellowstone], who didn’t have any lines, basically. He just was his heavy that would just stand there, and over time, he just becomes a really, really great, really rich character.”
Marshals, Sunday, 8:30/7:30c, CBS