‘Marshals’ Episode 10 Recap – How’s Kayce Going to Explain This?

Following the apprehension of Randall Clegg, Marshals is down a Big Bad, which means it has to fill its time with something else. This is probably why Episode 10, “Playing with Fire”, gets so personal. It capably splits the cast into multiple little subplots, gives everyone’s personal arcs plenty of time to evolve, and leaves things on a genuinely uncertain note that should be fun to pick up on next time out. You can’t really ask much more of a procedural.

Sure, forcing another Yellowstone connection is a bit much, and I’d argue it isn’t entirely needed, but I imagine it’s more of an excuse to force conflict between Kayce and Cal. We’ll have to see how that goes, since it’s where the cliffhanger leaves things, but it’s arguably the least interesting part of an episode that delivers solid character work elsewhere, especially for Belle (and it’s about time!).

New Beginnings

It has been a couple of weeks since the raid on the Clegg compound, and things have changed in the interim. Andrea has been taking a leave of absence from the Marshals for psychological evaluation following her ordeal, and in that time, she has begun a relationship with Garrett, kind of ruining my theory that there was a romantic spark between her and Kayce in the previous episode (can’t have just been me, can it?).

Garrett, then, is doing quite well. Not only is he going to bed with Andrea every night – given that Kayce isn’t surprised to see her brewing coffee in his kitchen first thing in the morning, she seems to have been spending a lot of time at East Camp – but he has also settled into the ranching life, particularly bonding with Monica’s unruly stallion. Kayce has given him a new beginning, and he seems pretty grateful for it.

This gratitude is perhaps why Garrett decides to run into the barn to save the horses when a space heater short-out causes a fire. This is right on the eve of Double-G’s birthday, which we know because Dolly had just arrived to help Kayce secretly prepare him a birthday dinner. Instead, he ends up in a Bozeman trauma centre having major surgery to address serious burns and smoke-ravaged lungs. His future remains uncertain.

There’s Still More to Unpack Between Cal and Garrett

Garrett’s predicament compels Cal to mend some bridges with him. However testy things have been between the two of them, the thought of losing another brother is unconscionable to Cal, especially given the problems he’s having with his own health (which still haven’t been properly addressed).

For now, all we know is that Cal was responsible for Garrett being bounced from their SEAL team after a mission went wrong, resulting in the death of a former compatriot named Roner. This has caused no small amount of trauma for Cal, Kayce, and Garrett, but there seems to be more to the story than we know. When Garrett briefly regains consciousness in a drug-induced haze following surgery, he mentions something to Kayce about telling Cal that he’s sorry. But for what? Kayce doesn’t know, and Garrett falls back asleep before he can answer.

Montana Is a Small Place

Marshals Episode 10 finally reveals some much-sought-after Belle backstory, albeit in faintly contrived circumstances. She and Andrea are assigned to a federal prisoner transfer, partly to ease Andrea back into work after her time off, but the job ends up going pretty pear-shaped when a rockslide upends the vehicle, allows three prisoners to escape, and leaves two behind, one of them critically injured.

Crucially, the injured prisoner just so happens to be Belle’s mother, Samantha, a white-collar criminal who was once the COO of Turek Metals, the family business that was being criminally mismanaged. This led not only to a fair amount of familial disgrace but also to the suicide of Belle’s father, for which she has never quite forgiven her mother. All of this comes out in the wash when Belle and Andrea, with the help of the other prisoner, who happens to be a doctor, fight to keep Samantha alive for long enough to try and reconcile with Belle.

This doesn’t exactly go “well”, but some progress is made, and at least now we have a better idea about why people recognise her everywhere she goes.

Advice for Dating Cal’s Daughter

Since Miles and Cal end up searching for the bus crash escapees, it’s impossible not to think about Miles’s relationship with Maddie. Again, some progress is made here, too. Cal still doesn’t love the idea, but his problem has never been the idea of her being with Miles specifically, but her being with a member of his team after so determinedly rejecting any relationship with him. It feels deliberate.

Cal and Miles end up involved in a general store holdup, which is resolved through a bold decision by Miles and some quick shooting by Cal. You can tell by the end of it all that Cal is a bit more inclined to give the relationship his blessing, even if he isn’t totally explicit about it.

The Dutton Family History

While Kayce spends most of “Playing with Fire” by Garrett’s bedside, he does shoot off in a state of alarm when he spots the mugshots of the transfer escapees doing the rounds on the news. He clearly recognises one of them, who turns out to be Neil Lamb. Instead of calling it in, though, Kayce heads out alone.

Kayce manages to catch up to Neil without any help at all, thanks to a hand-wavey explanation that he figured he’d revisit the old hunting paths that Lloyd used to take the Yellowstone ranchers on. Yes, Neil was a former rancher – he even wears the brand. He was there before Kayce left on his first deployment, which means he predates the Yellowstone show, but the brand means that he was privy to the inner workings of the Dutton family business, including, presumably, the “Train Station” and other such unsavoury matters.

Since the prisoners will be inclined to trade whatever they know to make a deal with the authorities, and Neil knows plenty about the Duttons, whatever he might offer to trade threatens the life Kayce has built with Tate. He proposes that, if Kayce helps him cross the border into Canada, he’ll keep his mouth shut forever. But that’s no guarantee, and you can tell that Kayce is considering killing him when Cal catches up with both of them and demands to know what’s going on.

I’m interested to see how Kayce is going to try to explain this one.