7 min readThe following story contains spoilers for Marshals season 1, episode 4, “The Gathering Storm.”
THINGS ARE STILL tense in the Kayce Dutton household, and no doubt always will be. After the previous episode of Marshalsended with Kayce (Luke Grimes) discovering a rifle bullet outside his ranch house, the latest episode, “The Gathering Storm,” starts with a shot of a pistol on his kitchen counter. His own.
There’s a loud bang on his front door. But it’s just good old Navy SEALs-turned-Marshals pal Pete “Cal” Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green), who has come to shoot the shit—and offer some gifts. “Did you take them from the fugitives again?” Kayce asks. Cal doesn’t say no.
Suddenly we’re back at the local bar, where Andrea Cruz (Ash Santos) is playing Buck Hunter. Not the video game—the Marshal from the Bronx is actually roping a fake bull as she flirts with a guy who tells her he’s a bulldogger. As in, a rodeo contestant who doesn’t simply rope a steer, but on horseback chases, jumps on, and then wrestles down said steer. Andrea strings up the fake bull in one go. The bulldogger looks skeptically.
“Beginner’s luck, huh?” She throws the loop on the bull again, perfectly, and tightens. She has nothing to prove, even in the sticks of Montana.
The Mark on Kayce’s Back
It’s all honky-tonk charm on the surface, but there’s still a mark on Kayce’s back. And it’s seemingly coming from everyone, everywhere, even within his own ranks.
We’re back at the team center/frat house, where Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Harry Gifford (Brett Cullen) comes to deliver unwelcome news. The Department of Justice has alerted the team of a civil rights complaint, arguing that Kayce violated Carson Clegg’s rights when he shot the man (what a thought!) to his death off a cliff in the previous episode’s standoff. The argument is that Carson was unarmed when Kayce shot him.
But based on what? Basically, “The Gathering Storm” is an excuse to dig into this nothing burger—and the baggage that Kayce and his infamous last name will always bring to the Marshals.
Gifford, who never really loved the idea of Kayce joining the team in the first place because, well, politics, has made Andrea the head of an internal investigation into Kayce Dutton and his possible violation. She openly wonders if the boss wants her to “manufacture evidence” against her partner.
As far as Gifford is concerned, he just wants her to find Kayce’s skeletons before the DOJ inevitably does.
As far as Kayce is concerned, the dead Clegg brother was armed when he shot. His evidence? “My word.”
Bonding and Fighting a Bear in the Mountains
Then, Cal and Kayce are off on a bonding trip. Okay, it’s a search-and-rescue mission up in the mountains, where we meet the Department of Forestry (finally, a fellow government agency trying to collaborate!). The ranger tells Cal and Kayce their “standard issue” guns won’t do, and gives them a heavy shotgun meant for the beasts up in the peaks.
The former SEAL bros make their way up on horseback to find a rich rancher, Tom Weaver (Chris Mulkey), whose daughter Dolly (Ellyn Jameson) is terrified about his possible fate. Weaver’s helicopter apparently crashed.
They then defrost some of the ice around Kayce’s recent appointment to the U.S. Marshals and why he’s seemingly much more interested in horses than his coworkers.
“It’s hard for your teammates to get close to you when you always keep them at arm’s length,” Cal nudges.
“Just because I don’t go to the bar with them,” the (sober) Kayce notes, “doesn’t mean I wouldn’t jump into the fire for them.” Fair enough.
Retrieving a Rancher from a Crashed Helicopter
On their way to the crash site, Cal and Kayce are surprised by an extremely Ted Kaczynski-coded man with an untamed beard and a gun, who tries to shake them down for supplies. But the two overpower the hermit, and direct him to turn himself in down at the ranger’s office. (I can’t help wondering what that would look like: Hey, good to meet you, I’m the guy who aimed a firearm at two U.S. Marshals, reporting for jailtime.)
In any event, Cal and Kayce don’t seem concerned about whether the hermit actually turns himself in. They detect the smoke up in the mountains. When they get there, they find the crashed helicopter with Weaver and his pilot, a woman whose guts are impaled with a giant piece of wood. There’s no saving her. Even getting Weaver out of this jam means having to break his leg.
Somehow, Weaver suspects Kayce will enjoy the leg breaking, even if it saves him in the process. Then he finds out he’s dealing not just with a Marshal and a cowboy, but a member of a Montana ranching dynasty.
“Wait, you’re a Dutton?” Weaver says. Kayce’s response: “Bite down on this,” handing over a leather strap. Then the Marshal does his duty and fractures the man’s bone.
Around this time, a giant bear emerges looking very cranky around the crashed helicopter. Cal notes that a pistol will “only piss him off.” (Why did they leave that shotgun on the horses, again?) But Kayce does that thing you’re always told to do around bears: become somehow bigger, throwing up his arms and shooting his gun in the air. The bear gets spooked and backs off.
Unsurprisingly, on the rescue mission back down the mountain, the now-trio is shot at by the Kaczynski-coded hermit (with their own stolen Forestry shotgun). The hermit then runs off, again.
The Internal Investigation Continues, Then Sputters
The investigation is still underway. Andrea does as much digging as she can do. Kayce is squeaky clean, other than the fact that he served as a SEAL, making it easier to frame him as a “rogue warrior.” (Whatever happened to respecting veterans?) Oh, and the ongoing feud between the Cleggs and the Duttons doesn’t exactly make Kayce look innocent. But no one has proof on either side. So what exactly are we doing here?
For one, going to a haberdashery shop in the main town of Big Sky, Montana. Andrea and fellow female Marshal Belle Skinner (Arielle Kebbel) are looking for any information that might exonerate Kayce. They attempt to shake down the lawyer in the complaint, who it becomes very clear is representing Clegg patriarch Randall Clegg (Michael Cudlitz), emerging from the shadows (on this show, the whiter and longer the beard, the scarier).
Skinner notes that Randall’s gambit is based on nothing. He can’t prove Carson Clegg was unarmed when he died.
“Can you prove he wasn’t?” Randall says. Which sounds menacing until you realize this whole legal rigamarole is built on the false whispers of Montana outlaws.
Ah, and then the proof comes: Andrea and her team discover video cam evidence from a local scavenger, whose cameras were being tracked by the Cleggs. There is shot-by-shot footage of Kayce shooting Carson, who then falls to his death, gun in hand.
Gifford takes a heel turn and pretends like this is all good news. He exits, but not before Andrea from the Bronx demands he never put her in the position of betraying her teammates again.
Kayce is absent, again, but with good reason: He shows up to the hospital to show his respects to Weaver and the rancher’s daughter Dolly, who just so happens to be gorgeous. (Ellyn Jameson is officially listed as a recurring cast member, so don’t think we’ve seen the last of her.) Weaver offers extra hands for Kayce’s ranch; Dolly seems to be eyeing the Dutton boy for other reasons.
So she comes back with him to the bar, and buys a drink for the whole group (that’s ice water for our boy Kayce; he has enough troubles without the alcohol).
Surprises keep coming. Cal tells the team he’s clocked the hermit; they let go of one of America’s most wanted, a “serial bomber” named Rudy Carpenter. (Those Kaczynski vibes were anything but accidental.)
Oh, and Cal reveals the female bartender who’s been brusque with him this whole show? Yeah, that’s his daughter, who he kept out of his life for 20 years. Now she’s anything but happy to have him back in her life. (Skinner: “Cal, give it time.” I want to know more about her wounds of time.)
At least Kayce is vindicated as the proper trooper we want him to be. He knows better, though, when the other Marshals say Gifford is officially off his back.
“I doubt that’s the last time I’ll deal with him,” Kayce says. “Or the Cleggs.”
Notes from Montana
- Tune of the Week: “Gettin’ Outta My Mind” by Channing Wilson, seen performing his song at the local Montana bar within the show. The chorus words could be good advice for anyone on this show.
- How weird is it that the central character, Kayce, hasn’t seen his son for two episodes in a row now? That kid must love spending time with Grandpa.
- It’s hard not to giggle at all the random shots of Marshals exercising in their office as forced background activity. Marshals have to be buff, sure, but why is Cal spotting a guy pressing what look like 20-pound dumbbells?
Paul Schrodt is a freelance writer and editor covering pop culture and the entertainment industry. He has contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Men's Health, The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles magazine, and others.
