‘Marshals’ Episode 4 Recap – Kayce Gets A New Love Interest

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Marshals unceremoniously killed off Monica, now it’s giving Kayce Dutton a new love interest? Yikes. And a blonde, white city girl, no less? I can’t imagine die-hard Yellowstone fans are going to be thrilled with that development, but it isn’t the only one Episode 4, “The Gathering Storm”, introduces, with several of the Marshals team hinting at personal subplots that I’m sure are going to get more traction as we go.

For what it’s worth, Season 2 has already been confirmed, so it’s important to start looking at the show with a more long-term view. Personal matters are progressing slowly, with each case of the week hogging a lot of the limelight, but that’s standard for a procedural, even if Marshals isn’t a standard procedural, especially with its increasingly knotty callbacks to plot points in early seasons of Yellowstone. This is very much a spin-off for existing fans that doesn’t make much of an effort to onboard new ones, which makes the decision about Kayce’s love life even more curious.

Justified

We might as well talk about the week’s B-plot first, since I think it speaks to some of the show’s dumber aspects, particularly Harry Gifford’s insane hate-boner for Kayce specifically and the Duttons in general. He keeps trying to frame what is clearly a personal crusade as the best thing for the Marshals team, but nobody’s buying it, especially after “The Gathering Storm”.

So, in short, Randall Clegg, who last week’s episode indicated might be the season’s Big Bad, has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice implying that Kayce’s shooting of his son violated his rights. His argument is that the kid was unarmed at the time of the shooting, and since there’s no concrete evidence either way, Gifford is using it as an opportunity to throw Kayce to the wolves on the back of extremely tenuous evidence of pre-existing motive that involves cynically leveraging Monica’s connection with the Native community (at the further cost, I think deliberately, of Miles’s reputation with his neighbours.)

Gifford also puts the rest of the team to the task of tearing Kayce’s entire history apart, even going so far as to strongly imply to Andrea that some adverse findings against Kayce will grease the wheels of her desired transfer back to her old unit in D.C., which is where she’d rather be (she also went to law school, we learn, but apparently didn’t finish). Needless to say, even though Kayce isn’t above an extrajudicial killing, his shooting of the Clegg kid was totally justified, and eventually there’s video evidence to prove it, putting this plotline to bed (for now). It also, ironically, builds a bit more team togetherness, since everyone feels icky about digging into their supposed teammate like he’s a criminal.

Taylor Sheridan Loves Bears

In the A-plot of Marshals Episode 4, Kayce and Cal are sent to work a search and rescue operation in the mountains. This is, hilariously, assigned to them seconds after Gifford technically suspends Kayce, so I’m not sure how that works. Probably best not to think about it too much.

A rich landowner and his helicopter pilot have gone down in the dangerous mountains thanks to inclement weather, which is a particular sore spot for Kayce given his history with rich landowners. On their way up the mountain, Kayce and Cal are accosted by a weird loner dude who may or may not be a very dangerous serial bomber (more on this in another episode, I suspect), but after a brief confrontation they’re forced to leave him alone to focus on the matter at hand. That matter at hand involves pulling the rich dude, Tim Weaver, from the wreckage, a job complicated by the convenient arrival of Taylor Sheridan’s favourite thing – see also: Mayor of Kingstown, among Yellowstone and others – a hungry bear.

The pilot dies of her injuries, the bear is scared away, and Kayce is hilariously antagonistic to Weaver until he suddenly reminds him of his late father, and then he’s hilariously deferential to him in a flip-flopping way that even Cal notices. General silliness aside, I still liked this sequence, and the possible terrorist loner returning to open fire on them, only to be allowed to flee so they can focus on saving Weaver before the weather gets worse, opens up a storyline for a later episode.

Kayce’s New Love Interest

Weaver is extremely grateful to Kayce for saving his life. So much so, in fact, that he offers Kayce some hands to help tend East Camp – didn’t Rip send some too? Where are they? – and insists that Kayce take his conveniently beautiful daughter, Dolly, to the only bar in town to buy the rest of the Marshals a drink.

So, all it took to get Kayce to hit the bar was to accompany a very nice-looking woman! Dolly seems cool, but her obvious affection for Kayce is clear from the jump, since Andrea and Cal both comment on it. And while Kayce isn’t exactly throwing himself at her, his “maybe” when she suggests that a local man gives her a crash course in Montana is his taciturn equivalent of taking her to bed. I’d wonder how Tate would take the news, but Tate continues to be written out of the show entirely, so it’s probably best not to worry.

And Another Thing…

A couple more details from Marshals Episode 4 that didn’t fit into the recap proper:

• The bartender Cal has consistently had his eye on is actually his daughter. He took the posting to be closer to her, but she doesn’t want anything to do with him since he was absent from her life for two decades. I initially wondered if she knew about the relationship, but early on she makes a jab about how the team has always come first for Cal, so she definitely knows who he is.
• Nothing about Belle’s backstory this week.
• Miles runs into an old flame at the bar (it’s so dumb how many subplots are becoming concentrated in this place). I wouldn’t typically raise this, but she makes a few snarky remarks about him turning his back on the reservation, which seems to play into his ongoing arc. I think she may turn up again later.
• Kind of hilarious that this entire episode hinges on Kayce being investigated for an unjustified killing and there isn’t a single mention of the much more suspicious circumstances surrounding the guy he genuinely did murder in Episode 2.