Summary
Marshals kick-starts what seems like a two-part case in “Lost Girls”, sowing some seeds of discord among the team as the search for some missing girls gets personal.
If last week’s episode of Marshals was a bit of a team-building exercise, then Episode 5 is very much designed to put those strengthened bonds to the test with a case that has a deeply personal contour. I’ll grant you that the idea of Kayce going “rogue” isn’t all that compelling in a show in which he has already killed several people, including one whose body he hid in the family dumping ground, but whatever. “Lost Girls” is less about Kayce specifically and more about the Marshals generally, especially in the context of how the agency interacts with the Broken Rock reservation, which is once again in the middle of a major crisis that the rest of the state seems determined to ignore.
In a nice touch, even though “Lost Girls” at least feints in the direction of having the classic procedural A and B cases, everyone eventually gets on the same page so that we can direct full focus to the epidemic of trafficked young girls going missing from Broken Rock. But that doesn’t mean that everyone – least of all Miles – is necessarily thrilled about the way in which the matter is handled.
Off the Books
Initially, the case isn’t the Marshals’ business. Kayce stumbles into it while attempting to sell the troublesome mustang that has been acting out since Monica’s death. You can definitely see where Marshals is going with this, since Tate doesn’t want to sell the last remaining connection he has to his late mother, and cautions Kayce against erasing every memory of her. Typically, the nag bites its would-be buyer, so the sale falls through. You can guarantee this horse will be kicking down East Camp fences for the remainder of the season.
Anyway, while trying to sell the horse, Tate – who is in the episode without warning, I think entirely to bring this storyline about – recognises a former classmate from the reservation school who is acting out of character. He draws Kayce’s attention to it, and when he asks around, it turns out she was reported missing weeks ago and may have been trafficked. Cal won’t devote any official resources to it since the team has been retained to protect a witness in a federal fraud case, but he does turn a blind eye when Kayce and Miles offer to go to Broken Rock unofficially and start knocking on some doors.
Hope Isn’t Always A Good Thing
Kayce and Miles start with the mother of the missing girl, Hailey, and learn that her disappearance is merely the latest in a spate of similar events blighting the reservation. However, since they’re not there with the official backing of the Marshals, Rainwater is hesitant to have Kayce and Miles around, since he believes they’re giving the people of Broken Rock false hope when the powers that be will never actually commit to investigating the case.
This isn’t the first time that Rainwater has had to give Kayce a stern talking to about how his position as a Marshal interacts with his family connections to the reservation. It’s a similar thing for Miles, who was formerly a reservation cop and has deeply personal links to the missing girls, but is perceived as being a traitor for wearing the uniform.
Hope is a powerful thing, in other words, and while it can keep people going in the darkest times, it can also make a situation worse. Rainwater is cautious that Kayce might be doing the latter.
Witness Protection
As I mentioned at the top, Marshals Episode 5 pretends to have a B-plot which finds Cal, Andrea, and Belle looking after a deeply obnoxious bro-dude named Lachance, who’s living the high life on the state’s dime after turning whistleblower in a federal case. This is all entirely unimportant except for the fact that Andrea and Belle keep working the reservation case behind Cal’s back – he later finds out and isn’t even mad about it – and are sending Kayce and Miles new leads.
The charitable read on this is Marshals knowing what it’s doing and playing with the usual procedural format to build more importance and jeopardy around the main case. It could also be that it’s just including a poorly-written and less-interesting subplot, but I’m feeling generous.
The Marshals are less so, since they make sure that Lachance doesn’t end up in the tropical destination he was gunning for.
Hook, Line, and Sinker
With help from home base, which officially gets involved after Rainwater petitions Cal personally, Kayce and Miles find the catfisher who is luring the Broken Rock girls to their doom and torture him with a fish hook before handing him over to Mo Brings Plenty for what I’m assuming will be an equally unpleasant bit of local justice. They also turn up the name of the real Big Bad, which is Bledsoe.
Kayce attempts to track this guy, which leads him back to the gas station where he encountered Hailey the first time, and lo and behold, she’s there again. She won’t go with Kayce, though, since there are nine other girls in captivity, and if she flees, their lives will be at risk. Bledsoe apparently isn’t shy about offing the girls to teach the others a lesson, a fate that befell another one named Ava, whose disappearance Miles was investigating when he was still in the Tribal Police.
This is why Miles takes it incredibly personally when Kayce agrees to let Hailey go. It’s all well and good, Cal telling him not to do that, but I can’t see how he’s going to be able to just turn his brain and feelings off. Miles also ruins what is supposed to be a subtle tailing of a camper van supposedly containing the girls, resulting in a chase and a shootout, but it turns out they’re not in there, leaving “Lost Girls” on a big fat cliffhanger.
