‘Marshals’ Episode 4 Recap: Mountain Dutton Trouble

We gotta start with Foghorn Leghorn over here. Chief Deputy US Marshal Harry Gifford’s Stetson seems like it grows a size every time he shows up at team headquarters, but in Episode 4 of Marshals (“The Gathering Storm”), it’s no closer to containing his bullshit. Gifford has seized on a complaint against Kayce Dutton by Randall Clegg as a way to prosecute Kayce’s entire family. Clegg, whose own fam just hurt innocent people at a peaceful protest. Clegg, whose sons fired on federal agents and tried to blow them up with IEDs. The only thing more laughable than Gifford’s boner to bust Kayce over some Kirkland-brand grudge against his late father is how badly Marhals wants to rent pieces of used drama from Yellowstone’s past.

Just like last week, this episode of Marshals goes on a wayward tangent into ancient Sheridan-O-Verse history, bringing up Season 2 of Yellowstone, and John and Kayce Dutton’s battle with a developer who hired a backwoods militia to kidnap Tate Dutton. This is in relation to the investigation Gifford has suddenly forced Cruz, Belle and Miles to run against Kayce, as if the long ago incident is precedent for his practice of “frontier justice” with the marshals. And it’s alongside what Tate Dutton is doing in the Marshals present, which is a whole lot of not much. Off-camera, the series has stashed the kid at his grandpa’s on the Broken Rock reservation, apparently from worry over who put a shell casing on Kayce’s East Camp porch. But it also feels like Marshals doesn’t know what to do with either Tate or Kayce’s little slice of Yellowstone land.

And even though Gifford has frozen out Kayce, he still accompanies Pete Calvin on a search and rescue mission into Montana’s harsh Bridger Range. Tom Weaver (Chris Mulkey), a wealthy area rancher, has crashed his helicopter, and of course the only people who can find him are Kayce and Cal. They head up the mountain on horseback, quickly find the wreck, and are preparing to extract an injured Weaver when a grizzly bear shows up. But hey, if you’re Kayce Dutton, this is all in a day’s work. A few warning shots from his pistol and the grizz is forgotten.

Which brings us back to Weaver, the rancher, and how Kayce – and Marhals – can’t escape Dutton lore, even at an elevation of 8,500 feet. Weaver knew John Dutton by reputation, and while Kayce splints his broken leg, they talk about the hard life and decisions of ranching. Kayce was prepared to hate this guy, because as he told Cal on the way up the mountain, rich rancher transplants from the coasts are the first guys to demand to fly, even in bad weather. But they come to an understanding as Kayce and Cal prepare the horse-assisted tandem belay that will extricate Weaver. 

“Are you telling me to manufacture evidence to support Clegg’s claim?” Cruz doesn’t like being tapped by Gifford to snoop. But she likes it even less when he insinuates that he’ll hurt her career if she doesn’t. So Cruz and Belle head into town, where they question a lawyer who is friendly to Clegg’s cause. And while the investigation is worthless, we do very much enjoy Michael Cudlitz as Randall Clegg. In a confrontation with Cruz and Belle, he’s so severe as Clegg, it’s like he’s preaching vengeance from a pulpit. “When a Dutton finally learns a badge isn’t a shield” he intones – Cudlitz’s turn as Clegg is a fun performance as a villain, so despite the stops and starts of his appearances in Marshals, we hope his grudge sticks around.

And are you ready for this? Marshals name-checked a random chunk of Yellowstone stuff and then…did absolutely nothing with it. Gifford’s latest gambit to catch the Duttons in his big net fizzles when previously unavailable trail camera footage from the forest firefight in Episode 3 proves Clegg’s complaint false. His sons were always gunning for Kayce and the marshals, not the other way around. And while Cruz angrily tells Gifford that she doesn’t like being used as a pawn in his power games, the big boss otherwise just walks out. He’ll go off and plan his next trap for Kayce, after pushing for starting a federal case based on less than a theory. Isn’t that the real frontier justice? Where’s the accountability?

The other thing about having part of the team investigate their own? It kills chemistry. With all its superficial Yellowstone integration, Marshals is nowhere closer to building its core group into a cohesive team. Kayce’s still an outlier, Cruz keeps making noise about going “back to civilization,” and Belle’s personal connections to the area are still on a back burner. We wonder when this series will trust itself enough to fully integrate Kayce Dutton into the new situation it has built around him.   

Kayce Taykes for Marshals Episode 4 (“The Gathering Storm”): 

• We’re back at the Bar & Barrel, where it is revealed that the bartender, Maddie (Morgan Lindholm), is Pete Calvin’s estranged daughter. Cal tells Belle he took the marshals posting in Montana to be closer to her. But Maddie doesn’t seem to want him in her life, “or her bar.”

• Is Channing Wilson the house entertainment? He’s back at the Bar this episode, performing “Gettin’ Outta My MInd.” 

• Rich guy rancher Tom Weaver also has a daughter, Dolly Weaver (Elly Jameson), who seems to have taken a liking to Kayce. It’s hard to tell how reciprocal this is – Luke Grimes plays Kayce with a practiced bent toward unreadability – but Dolly is definitely laying it on thick. She wants a “guide” to the local “hot spots.” Whaddya say, cowboy? 

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.