The ‘Marshals’ Season 1 Finale Leaves Us With an Ominous Cliffhanger

The action-filled first season of Marshals has finally come to a close, and all we can say is it’s a good thing the show has already been picked up for season two! On a series that’s made a name for itself with flying bullets and, of course, plenty of Dutton drama, it’s perhaps no surprise that the inaugural season finale had plenty of both. What’s sure to have fans on the edge of their seats until the series makes its return, though, is the nail-biting cliffhanger that leaves the fates of more than one of our favorite characters in the balance.

How will it all play out? We’ll have to wait for the fall to find out!

Here’s everything you might have missed in the Marshals season 1 finale.

Expand or die

When last we left Kayce, it looked like the last Dutton son might be on the verge of selling off East Camp, his home and the final remaining section of the original Yellowstone Dutton ranch. The status quo shift seemed almost unfathomable considering the many season of Yellowstone that the Duttons spent trying to hold on to their land, and while Kayce has admitted that he needs to move forward and not get stuck in the same patterns as his father, John, it looks like he’s not quite ready to bid farewell to ranching just yet.

As Kayce and Tate work to clean up the burned down barn which just a few weeks back claimed the life of Kayce’s former SEAL teammate Garrett, Mr. Weaver and his daughter Dolly, the ranchers who have been trying to convince Kayce to sell, arrive with an “extremely generous” official offer and an introduction to their ranch foreman, Jeb. It’s all for naught, though, as Kayce tells them that he’s decided against selling after all (he later tells the Marshals team he wants to start an equine therapy center in Garrett’s honor.) Weaver is obviously disappointed but says he understands. Dolly continues to make it clear that all she’s looking for is a big ol’ slice of Kayce.

In another show that might wrap up the ranch plotline for this episode, but this is a Yellowstone spinoff, so it’s always going to be about the land in the end. But we’ll circle back to that later.

At the Marshals HQ, Cal has information on a sighting of Rudy Carpetner, the notorious criminal who robbed him and Kayce when they were trying to rescue Mr. Weaver back toward the beginning of the season. Cal’s gung-ho to go after him immediately, but Gifford derails the team with the announcement that Andrea has decided to take the job back on her old team in Washington DC. And she’s leaving tomorrow! Andrea says she wasn’t sure how to tell them, but it seems like almost anything would have been better than this.

Nonetheless, the team puts on a brave face and tries to be supportive, even though with Miles still suspended, that will leave them two men down going forward.

The wolves have returned

Speaking of Miles, since he was forced to turn in his gun and badge last week, he’s also lost his status as Chairman Rainwater’s star speaker for the upcoming senate committee hearing on the location of the mine set to pollute Broken Rock reservation. While a heroic US Marshal would have helped their cause, a suspended hot heat only makes the reservation look bad, so Rainwater will be speaking in Miles’s stead. Still, Rainwater’s right hand man Mo asks Miles to ride with them to the airport, just in case Rainwater changes his mind.

It’s a good thing, too, because on the way to the airport, an SUV shoots up Rainwater’s vehicle in an apparent assassination attempt. They head to East Camp (Why? Plot reasons.) to hide out, calling in Kayce who’s non-plussed to discover that Tate, the teenager who literally lives with him, is also there. With a trusted guard on the gate, the quartet debates who could have tried to set Rainwater up, to no avail.

While Kayce is busy dealing with all of that (does he take personal time for these things or is he just free to do whatever he feels like during work hours?) Cal, Belle, and Andrea are staking out the motel where Carpenter is hiding. Even though they paid lip service to respecting her decision earlier, Cal and Belle waste not time in trying to convince Andrea not to leave the team. Whether or not they could persuade her will have to remain a mystery, though, because they get a call from Kayce asking for backup after finding Rainwater’s guard on East Camp’s gate murdered. Though it means once again letting Carpenter slip through their fingers, they tear off to rescue their friend.

Back at East Camp, assailants are headed toward the house as Kayce races back on horseback from the main gate. He fires off a flare as a warning to Rainwater, Mo, and Tate, who arms them all with Kayce’s guns just in time for a bunch of hostiles to start shooting up the house. Rainwater and Tate escape to the upper floor while Mo holds down the fort, taking out one of the assailants who busts in the front door.

Kayce is trying to subdue the half dozen or more attackers from the outside, but is pinned down until the cavalry arrives in the form of the team (including the still-suspended Miles) who make quick work of the gunmen. All but one, that is, who manages to make it into the house and upstairs, where Rainwater fire on him, but the would-be killer is ultimately shot by Tate (he is a Dutton, after all) who was hiding in the closet with a shotgun.

Cycle of violence

With everyone safely relocated back to Marshals HQ (why didn’t they go there in the first place? Plot reasons.) they discuss possible motives, as they now know that the men who attacked them were all international mercenaries. Phone records from the gate guard show that he called Broken Rock council member Irons, who has been in favor of the mines and opposed to Rainwater’s attempt to relocate them, after he got to East Camp.

Andrea, Belle, and Cal go to investigate while Miles and Kayce stay behind to play some foosball with Tate (yes, really) and locate Irons’s phone in a middle-of-nowhere location. They also find Irons, who appears to have died by suicide, which should, in theory, be the end of the trouble, but Mo and Rainwater insist that if Irons was involved, he wasn’t the ringleader. Still, with no other leads to follow it seems to be case closed.

Seems to be…

The team gathers for a few beers at their HQ rec room. After a cool, what? Three days of suspension? Cal gives Miles props for all he did on this case and reinstates him, albeit to desk duty. Gifford tells them all they did Montana proud and wishes Andrea well in her new job.

Cal asks Tate who he’s doing, after, you know, having his home shot up by mercenaries and then killing a man, to which the teen glibly replies it was “an easy day.” Cal and Kayce share a look, possibly pondering how many therapy sessions per week they should be signing this kid up for.

Shortly thereafter, Kayce takes Tate home, giving Andrea a final farewell and a hug. She looks after him longingly, once again giving me mixed signals in their little will-they-won’t-they situation.

What follows is a montage of what would seem to be plotline wrapups: Belle revealing to her husband that her “extracurriculars” have racked up $20,000 in gambling debt, him saying he’s not sure he wants to help her pay it off; Andrea finding Garrett’s hat as she clears out her locker, Rainwater deciding to bring Miles to speak before the Senate afterall, Maddie finally joining Cal at the bar for a chat and calling him dad.

It would all be a very nice end to the season, but we’ve still got a chunk of episode to go!

Devil in disguise

The following morning Kayce and Tate have a father son moment over breakfast as Tate tells him that becoming a Marshal brought life back to East Camp. (That’s not what he said last week, but whatever.) Kayce gets a text that the Senate hearing went well and the mine development has been suspended for 60 days as they look at alternate locations.

Just then, Weaver and Dolly show up to offer a little support, and a treat—Weaver invites Tate to go bass fishing in Texas. Immediately. Dolly says her heart is in Montana, while staring dreamily at Kayce.

Elsewhere, Andrea’s still at HQ, upset to discover that the coroner says Irons’s death wasn’t a suicide after all. In fact, Irons wasn’t even in the office when the gate guard called. However CCTV does that one of the ranch hands lent to Kayce by Weaver (a group who we’ve never seen a single time on screen) also made a call after being sent home just before the attack. Andrea doesn’t want to leave without finishing the case, but Cal and Belle assure her that they’ll handle it.

They track down the ranch hand’s home and then take a moment before kicking in his door for Belle to say she’ll join Cal in Salt Lake City for his cancer treatment and they maybe almost kiss again? It really doesn’t seem like the time, but you take your moments where you can get them, I guess. Especially when they see through the window that the ranch hand is dead.

As they move to kick in the door, they see a pickup truck pull up beside the building with none other than Weaver’s ranch foreman Jeb in the driver’s seat. He winks and pulls away, revealing two armed men ready to fire directly at Cal and Belle!

What’s going to happen? We’ll have to wait until season two to find out, as the last bit of the episode features Tate and Weaver getting into his private plane as Jeb informs his boss that “it’s handled.” All the while, Kayce and Dolly are out for a picturesque horse ride, none the wiser that his son and his teammates may all be in grave danger.

Odds & Ends

I’ve resisted commenting so far this season, but I jut can’t hold out any longer. What the heck is going on with Tate’s hair?!