While the fourth episode of Marshals didn’t reveal who had left the shell casing on Kayce’s porch, it did suggest that Randall Clegg did it to warn Kayce about what was coming for him. In the previous episode, Kayce had shot Randall’s son, Carson Clegg, to save his teammate, Miles Kittle’s life. Carson had Miles in his sights, and if Kayce hadn’t shit Randall, he would have definitely killed Miles. However, Randall claimed that Carson had dropped the weapon before Kayce fired, thereby violating his son’s civil rights. He roped in an infamous lawyer, Andrew Schroeder, and filed an official complaint against Kayce Dutton with the DOJ. The whole affair gave Kayce’s senior, Harry Gifford, an excuse to open an internal investigation against Kayce so he could kick him out of his unit, something he had been trying to do from the moment Pete Calvin made his friend a part of the Marshals. And while Andrea Cruz and Belle Skinner were busy looking into Kayce’s past so they could prove their teammate’s innocence, Kayce and Calvin went into the mountains on a search and rescue mission. So let’s take a look at what eventually happens in both these scenarios.
Andrea Proves Kayce’s Innocence
In the past few episodes, Kayce might have killed a lot of people intentionally (mostly because they deserved to die), but in the case of Carson Clegg, he really was trying to protect Miles. But Gifford didn’t believe him. From day one, he had believed that Kayce joined the unit in pursuit of his own personal agenda, which is either to find his father’s killer or find his missing brother. As viewers, we know that’s not the case, because Kayce already knew who hired a contract killer to make his father’s death look like a suicide and who killed Jamie Dutton. However, the real reason Gifford wanted to kick Kayce out of his unit was because of Gifford’s past dispute with Kayce’s father, the great John Dutton. Although we still don’t know why Gifford hates the Duttons so much, the upcoming episodes will likely trickle more details our way. Nevertheless, Gifford ordered Andrea to lead the investigation against Kayce because he knew she could be easily swayed. Andrea eagerly wanted to get reassigned to D.C., which depended on the overall performance of the team. Gifford argued that Kayce’s controversial past could drag the whole team down, so he wanted Andrea to manufacture evidence against him if she couldn’t find any, because sooner or later, someone would catch Kayce red-handed, making it impossible to clean up the mess.
I believe if Gifford hadn’t asked Andrea to get her hands dirty, she might have actually found something against Kayce, but the way Gifford tried to threaten her ticked her off. She knew that if Gifford could try to misuse his power against one team member, then he would do it again to throw out someone he didn’t like. In short, Andrea knew that Gifford needed to be taught a lesson, which was why she and Belle looked into Kayce’s files from his SEAL days, but as it turned out, Kayce’s past was as messed up as his present. He had PTSD issues after leaving the marines, and then after coming back to Montana, he took out an entire militia to save his son. In short, the only way to save Kayce was either to find Carson’s missing gun, or any other evidence that could establish that Kayce didn’t shoot an unarmed man. So Andrea asked Miles to walk them through the incident in the woods again, which was when Andrea noticed that Kayce stepped on an I.E.D. A decorated war hero like him shouldn’t have missed a tripwire, which made them theorize that the bomb was triggered remotely. The thing is, they were right. There were trail camps in the woods the Clegg brothers had been using to keep an eye on Calvin and his team. And as it turned out, one of these node cameras had captured Carson pointing his gun at Miles, making it abundantly clear that Kayce didn’t fire at an unarmed man. The look on Gifford’s face when this new evidence showed up was a memorable one. Well, sadly, he can’t do anything about it, especially when the whole team’s supporting Kayce. So in the end, Gifford decided to submit the cam footage, and Kayce was cleared by the DOJ.
Kayce and Cal Save Tom Weaver
In another sublot of the episode, Kayce and Cal went up to Bridger Range to search for rancher Tom Weaver’s helicopter, which crashed somewhere in the mountains due to bad weather. However, when the duo reached the crash site, they found out that Tom Weaver’s pilot had already passed away, and Tom’s foot was badly injured, which meant he couldn’t walk. Cal wanted to call in a CASEVAC to airlift Tom, but unfortunately, because of the worsening weather conditions, they wouldn’t have been able to make it, so Cal and Kayce had only one option left, which was to carry Tom and bring him down the mountain. The rescue mission was going smoothly until Rudy Carpenter, one of America’s most wanted, fired at them. The duo had encountered Rudy earlier as well, but they thought of him as some regular vagabond trying to rob them, and after hearing his sob story about losing his job and wife, Cal let him go. The truth was, Rudy was a serial bomber, missing for 3 years, so it’s plausible that he was hiding out at Bridger Range to avoid arrest. This also explains why Rudy fired at Cal and Kayce the second time. He didn’t want them to leave the mountains alive, as he feared they might inform the local authorities about him, and they would come looking for him. So when Rudy tried to kill them, Cal decided to go after him before Kayce stopped him, convincing him that saving Tom’s life was their priority.
In the end, they finally brought Tom to safety, where his daughter, Dolly, had been waiting to take him to the hospital as quickly as possible. As you might have noticed, Kayce was quite skeptical of Tom before he met him. He believed him to be another ignorant rancher like his father and Randall Clegg, but once he got to know him, Kayce’s opinion changed. Tom really cared about his dead pilot, and wanted to help her family find closure, which brought a change in Kayce’s heart. After Tom was taken to the hospital, Kayce found his cowboy hat and decided to bring it back to him, as a rancher should never go without his hat.
Kayce’s New Love Interest
When Kayce visited Tom in the hospital, Tom told him that he was in his debt, and wanted to pay him back by any means possible. During their time in the mountains, Kayce had told Tom that it’d been difficult for him to manage the cattle while busting doors as a marshal. So Tom offered to lend him some men who would look after his ranch while Kayce was busy protecting the locals. But that’s not the only thing that Kayce bagged that day. Tom’s daughter, Dolly, wanted to thank Kayce and his teammates for saving her dad’s life, and insisted that she buy drinks for them. Kayce, who didn’t like drinking beer with his mates after work, couldn’t turn down Dolly’s request, and drove her to the bar, making everyone wonder what’s really happening between them. Well, Kayce didn’t notice, but Andrea pointed out that Dolly had been eyeing him, making Kayce blush. Dolly later told him she was looking for a local who could show him around and who could be a better tour guide than Kayce, who had spent his whole life there. Well, we know where this is going, but the question is: is Kayce ready to move on from Monica? I don’t think so, which makes me believe that Kayce will likely tell Dolly in the next episode that they can be good friends, but nothing more.
Cal’s Daughter Is In Montana
Over the course of four episodes, the show mentioned multiple times that Cal’s wife left him and took his daughter away because of his PTSD and his struggles with addiction. However, in episode 4, Cal eventually revealed to Belle that the bartender he had been trying to strike up a conversation with every night was her daughter, Maddie. This explained why Cal took this job, to show his daughter that he was trying to turn his life around. He had recovered from his addiction (not completely) and was doing his best to become the father she deserved. It’s likely Maddie knows that Cal’s her dad, which was why she made that SEAL reference in one of the previous episodes. Although it remains to be seen how Cal will redeem his relationship with his daughter and get her back in his life.
