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‘Marshals’ Can’t Escape Its ‘Yellowstone’ Roots As It Sets Up a Colossal New Rivalry
Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Marshals Episode 4.This week, Marshals takes another leap into the greater world of Yellowstone as fallout from Kayce Dutton’s (Luke Grimes) past follows him to the present. “The Gathering Storm” has many meanings in this episode, which is chock-full of enough Yellowstone references and revelations to keep you on your toes. With more packed into this episode than the last few put together, Marshals continues to teeter the line between being a direct Yellowstone sequel and a spin-off that pushes to forge its own path and identity.
‘Marshals’ Sets the Stage for a Coming Storm Against Kayce Dutton
“The Gathering Storm” begins at Yellowstone East Camp as Kayce Dutton answers the door armed. As usual, Tate (Brecken Merrill) is at his maternal grandfather’s house, and so conveniently written out while Kayce deals with the aftermath of the bullet-on-the-doorstep threat from the end of last week’s episode. Thankfully, there’s no threat at all. It’s just Pete “Cal” Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) with some security equipment to help Kayce prepare for whatever threat is coming. While Cal thinks Randall Clegg (Michael Cudlitz) is the man behind the threat after they killed his kin in combat, Kayce knows it could be anyone who hates his family name. Nevertheless, it doesn’t take long before we learn that the former is the truth in this case.
That night at the Bullet ‘n Barrel Saloon, Marshals sets up several different plotlines that the show has no room to pay off in this episode. Andrea Cruz (Ash Santos) flirts with her new cowboy love interest Ty (Tyler Courtad), Cal seemingly pines after the local bartender Maddie (Morgan Lindholm) — before a brief sidebar with a local named Henry (Gabriel Casdorph) about the Clegg family — and Miles (Tatanka Means) runs into a family member named Sabrina (Chelsea Gray) to discuss his past at Broken Rock. But all this is preamble because the real action doesn’t start until the next day, when, at Marshals HQ, the team is met by Harry Gifford (Brett Cullen), who reveals that Randall Clegg is claiming that his son Carson’s civil rights were violated when Kayce killed him last week. With Kayce under the microscope (and benched for the time being), Cruz is left in charge of the internal investigation. So, rather than stick around and twiddle their thumbs, Kayce and Cal go off and help the Department of Forestry in the hunt for “transplant” rancher Tom Weaver (Chris Mulkey), after his daughter, Dolly (Ellyn Jameson), believes he has gone missing in the nearby Bridger Mountains.
But for those thinking that the Clegg complaint is just background this week, it becomes clear that this will be Marshals‘ main focus going forward, especially after Gifford hounds Cruz about finding the Dutton skeletons in Kayce’s closet. Even if the Clegg evidence comes up empty, he wants Cruz to fish for something that the DOJ can use against Kayce. Turns out, the lawyer who filed Clegg’s complaint, Andrew Schroeder (David Lascher), has a history of filing claims against law enforcement. However, Belle (Arielle Kebbel) knows Schroeder well, so she and Cruz go to confront the weasel. However, things don’t go as planned, as Randall Clegg shows up in the flesh to reveal that he plans to make the “Dutton finally learn that a badge isn’t a shield for their sins.” Whatever they do or don’t uncover, he plans to go public with everything.
“The Gathering Storm” Digs Up Kayce’s Past as He Battles New Threats In the Present
Back in the mountains, Kayce and Cal spot the smoke from a helicopter crash site and recognize that they’re close to Tom Weaver. The only problem is, they’re immediately held at gunpoint by an unknown man (Braxton Hale), who has been hiding out in the woods for some time. He claims that, after losing his job, house, and wife, he’s now fled to the wilderness to live off the land. After disarming him, they decide to let him go to get to Tom in time, but only under the stipulation that he goes to turn himself in. Arriving at the crash, they find Tom injured and the pilot, Helen, to be in particularly rough shape. But just as they try to stabilize her, a grizzly bear shows up and literally rocks the boat. Although Kayce manages to scare the beast off with a few shots in the air (despite the fact that that’s typically more likely to get a bear to charge at you), it’s too late for the pilot.
Meanwhile, back at HQ, Cruz, Belle, and Miles discuss Kayce and his history. Having realized that the best thing they can do to help his case is dig into his past, they discover that he has an exemplary service record in the Navy. Looking beyond his time in the Armed Forces, Miles notes that the folks on Broken Rock once whispered about Kayce’s assault on the local Montana-based militia that took Tate, which, for the uninitiated, occurred at the tail end of Yellowstone Season 2. Although Kayce’s father, John Dutton (Kevin Costner), was the Livestock Commissioner at the time (and retired only weeks later), it was a sketchy enough situation that it could be labeled “frontier justice.” At the very least, it will give Randall Clegg the ammo he needs. When they explain this to Gifford, he wants to use it as leverage against Kayce to get him fired, but pivots to claiming that Kayce killed Carson Clegg in revenge for shooting a man on the Rez who knew his dead wife.
‘Marshals’ Review: A Bold New Dutton Spin-Off Officially Rewrites Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Yellowstone’
Luke Grimes leads the charge in this Dutton-verse sequel that is full of network potential.
Back in the mountains, Kayce criticizes Tom for valuing his ranch more than the life of his pilot. Although there were no adverse weather conditions reported before they took off, the pilot recognized the turning winds and staggered their seating to distribute their weight properly. In the end, this ended up saving Tom’s life, and Kayce notes that he should be grateful. But while they are at odds at first, they bond over the fact that neither one of them was able to pick their fathers. Like Kayce, Tom felt trapped in his Wall Street father’s shadow, and moving from New York to Montana to start a ranch was the best way to make a name for himself and start something new. Kayce certainly understands. But this is when things get a bit tricky. As Cal helps Kayce and Tom rappel down the mountain, they’re shot at by the man they’d previously let go before Cal can return fire. The former SEAL leader wants to jump back into the fray and hunt the man down, but Kayce convinces him to stick with the mission and get Tom back to his family.
‘Marshals’ Latest Episode Ends With Major Revelations and Romantic Teases
Meanwhile, when Gifford and Miles return to HQ, they reveal that Kayce’s late wife, Monica (Kelsey Asbille), was beloved by the man whom the Cleggs’ shot on the Rez last week. Because Gifford’s the absolute worst, he believes this is enough of a smoking gun to hang Kayce and ostracize him from the Marshals, hoping to railroad him with the weight of the DOJ behind him. As Miles puts it to the rest of the group, “Government’s the windshield, the rest of us are bugs.” But when Miles recalls the events of the Clegg shooting once more to Belle and Cruz, the trio realize that the Clegg brothers didn’t have eyes on Kayce or Miles yet when the IED went off. As it turns out, the Clegg family had been piggybacking on local wildlife cameras in the area for years, and that footage ultimately proved Kayce’s innocence. Upon clearing her teammate, Cruz confronts Gifford about trying to play her against her team, and it’s clear she won’t get to ever again.
With his name cleared and his job secure, Kayce goes to the hospital to meet with a recovering Tom Weaver. Surrounded by family, namely his doting daughter Dolly, Tom rewards Kayce for saving his life by lending him some ranch hands to help with East Camp. To Tom, the Dutton heir is the type of lawman whose career he wants to ensure continues. And with that, Marshals solves the mystery of how Kayce can be a lawman and a cowboy at the same time. Oh, and if you’ve been wondering about some other Marshals mysteries over the first few episodes, the final few minutes of “The Gathering Storm” peppers in a few more revelations…
Will Kayce ever bond with his team? It turns out, Kayce surprises them by showing up at the saloon to enjoy a celebratory drink. Who was that strange man in the mountains? Cal reveals that the guy who shot at them was a serial bomber named Rudy Carpenter, who will definitely be coming back for seconds at some point in the future. Will Kayce ever get a new love interest? That’s answered the moment Kayce introduces Dolly Weaver, who hopes that he’ll give her a crash course in all things Big Sky. And what’s the story between Cal and this bartender that seems to hate his guts? As he reveals to Belle, Maddie is his estranged daughter whom he moved to the area to be closer to. With all of this in mind, Marshals has a lot of material to work with as Kayce seeks to atone for his family’s sins.
Marshals airs Sundays on CBS and is available for streaming the next day on Paramount+.
- Release Date
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2026 – 2026
- Showrunner
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Spencer Hudnut
- Writers
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Spencer Hudnut, Tom Mularz, Dana Greenblatt
- The rivalry between Kayce Dutton and Randall Clegg is promising
- The father conversations between Kayce and Tom was a necessary coda to the former’s time on Yellowstone
- Clearing Kayce’s name will hopefully mean we can move past all the “let’s talk about Kayce’s past” scenes between the Marshals
- That is not how you should deal with a grizzly bear…
- Kayce and Cal leaving their weapons behind feels like a massive oversight.
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