Marshals Star Logan Marshall-Green on the High Stakes for Cal After Season 1 Finale

Weaver was disappointed but understanding, and he, his foreman, and his pretty blonde daughter Dolly (Ellyn Jameson) left without much complaint. We’ve always been a little suspicious of this nice old man who just wants to buy some land and take Tate fishing in Texas, and it turns out we were right to be.

The team went to work trying to figure out who shot up Kayce’s house, eventually uncovering footage of one of Kayce’s ranch hands making a suspicious call. Cal and Belle went to the ranch hand’s house and saw him dead on the floor. Just then, they noticed the car in the driveway, driven by none other than Weaver’s ranch foreman. As he pulled out of the driveway, he revealed two gunmen waiting to take on the marshals. The episode ended with Kayce riding into the sunset with the now very suspicious Dolly while the foreman met Weaver and Tate just before they got on a private plane to Texas.

“It’s handled, sir,” said Jeb to Weaver, and Weaver nodded, and we can kind of guess what he “handled.”

Not only did the episode end with Cal and Belle facing down the barrel of a couple of guns, but Cal is also facing a long journey of cancer treatment. He has yet to tell the rest of the team about his diagnosis, but Green tells TV Guide that assuming they survive their latest shootout, Belle won’t let Cal wallow alone.

“I don’t know how much she would allow him to continue to suck on his own pride,” he says. “He’s gonna have to be vulnerable.”

Vulnerability is not one of Cal’s favorite words, so it’s not going to be easy. Here’s what Marshall-Green had to say about what’s to come when Marshals returns for Season 2.

How much do you know about what happens next? 
Logan Marshall-Green: Well, I know that I’m gonna have to come back for at least one episode. They gotta at least show a dead body, but it could be a closed casket. I don’t know, but from what I’ve read — and we’re about to shoot the first episode — I will be at least in the first episode. There will be some people who aren’t, and who won’t move past the first episode, and there’s a lot of consequences that are coming to a head, and not just with Cal.

How would you say Cal is doing at this point with all of the stuff he’s been dealing with personally while also leading this team? 
Marshall-Green: I mean, he’s carried a lot. He’s carried it for Kayce, for his estranged daughter, for Double G, and for himself, just knowing he has this rare and dangerous form of cancer. He’s a leader. He’s flawed. A lot of leaders are flawed, but he’s a good man and has a moral compass that points north. I think as long as that compass is working, he will orientate himself to it. I think that’s how I tried to approach the character, and Spencer [Hudnut] and the writers did a great job of giving me a lot of dimensions to work with, and a lot of stakes to work with. That’s one thing I’ve made clear: I want stakes.

It doesn’t feel like he’s had a ton of time to process everything that’s happened. He nearly froze to death, Double G died, Cruz was kidnapped. Do you fear he’s in for a mental breakdown? 
Marshall-Green: I think he’s gonna have a breakdown for more than [that]. If I had my druthers and we’re gonna toss cancer into the ring, I expect stakes and I expect vulnerability and I expect to tell the ugly side of this damn thing. Just like you saw the day he finds out he had cancer, when he finds out that in going to find out he had cancer he’s left a teammate alone who’s now been kidnapped… I will always remember the marshal consultant Lenny, who’s lovely and who has been a marshal and is the real deal, he came into my office and he’s like, “You know, I’ve never yelled like that.” I laughed, and he walked out, and I was like, ‘Well, you’ve also never had cancer.” But hopefully you’re going to see less yelling and more vulnerability. I don’t know how that manifests — a breakdown, access to a certain side of him that we don’t see, but certainly a vulnerability.

Cancer treatment is really hard on a person. Do you think he’ll be able to commit to that? 
Marshall-Green: I don’t know. That’s an ongoing dialogue with the writers and how they want to portray him and portray his journey with cancer. Everybody has a different journey. I’ve been very unfortunately privy to a lot of cancer journeys in my family, and there are incredible advancements [in treatment], but it doesn’t take the bite, the teeth out of cancer at all. I think it opens up a lot of storytelling there. Hopefully it’s all earned.

It seemed like he had a death wish with all of his talk about running out of time. Do you worry that he’s already given up? Would he fight without Belle forcing him? 
Marshall-Green: I think Belle is going to be the angel on his shoulder. Just in her ability to get him to open up about it is telling of their relationship, but I think it’s also going to test the relationship.

How much have you looked into the symptoms and effects of the cancer Cal has? 
Marshall-Green: I was told early on. The character doesn’t know exactly what he’s dealing with, but I did want to understand what a Pancoast tumor is. A lot of it comes from burn pits, so a lot of soldiers have dealt with it. I also needed to understand it physically. I had Spencer tell me what it was and where it is so I could research. This particular cancer is in the upper left lung, and it isn’t respiratory. It’s really muscular, and it runs up the neck. You’ll see a hand up there [on his neck] throughout the season, before he even knew what it was, just thinking his neck was tight. I wanted to make sure we were folding that into the character, whether people knew about it or I just knew about it.

I know you had both SEAL and U.S. Marshal consultants on set, and Spencer said you often had to make marshal stories more exciting than they would be in real life. Did you learn anything else from them that was particularly impactful to you? 
Marshall-Green: There is a mundane nature to being a marshal, and to being a cop or any law enforcement, and even a soldier. Ninety-nine percent of cops never fire their weapon, and as far as marshals go, most of that is prison transfers or protecting a witness. It’s a lot of sitting around, and the bureaucratic part of it, the administrative part, I tried to tell through holding a phone the entire time. If you’ll notice, his phone is a full extension of Cal. He’s constantly writing emails, or waiting for his daughter to text him. There is that kind of mundane symbolism in the phone. I never wanted him to be far from the office, so you will always see it. If it’s not in my hand, it’s on my person, and it’s probably coming out in the middle of the scene. It just has to be done, because that’s what these men and women do as marshals: a lot of paperwork.

So much of this show is about the dynamics of a tight-knit team. Kayce felt betrayed by his team as a SEAL, and now we have Cruz going to DC, Belle lying about her gambling addiction, Kayce’s land fight, Cal’s cancer… how much do you think this dynamic will be shaken in Season 2? 
Marshall-Green: There’s one thing I’ve learned when it comes to buds and being a SEAL: Those teams are made up of team leaders. Of course, if something goes wrong, it’s on the team leader, but as far as SEAL teams go, those are all leaders. I think that goes the same for this show. Every one of those characters can all step up and lead at any point.

Do you think Cal’s going to need those people to step up next season? 
Marshall-Green: Well, if we take cancer seriously. If you’re going to approach cancer, it should be hard. I think he has to step away, to be completely honest. I haven’t said that out loud until right now, but I don’t know how he could lead that team and also fight his own battle with cancer. But you know, I’m not the writer.

Marshals will return for Season 2 this fall on CBS.