“Marshals” Season 2 Episode 4 ended on a deadly cliffhanger that left the fate of Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton and Ash Santos’ Andrea Cruz unclear. Caught in an explosion, the pair were flung through the air just before the episode cut to black. What would become of Kayce and the character with whom he’s clearly developing deep feelings? Well, nothing. The latest “Marshals” installment quickly establishes that they were both fine in what is the latest example of one of the show’s most frustrating problems.
It’s no secret that Grimes’ procedural has struggled to live up to “Yellowstone” and its fellow spin-off “Dutton Ranch.” There are many reasons why. For one, “Marshals” Season 1 had no idea what it was about, with the show jumping from premise to premise in an attempt to find its footing and ultimately never succeeding. But there are several other issues with this show, and one of them is its proclivity for building things up only to disappoint viewers in the most unnecessary ways.
Consider the Season 2 premiere. “Marshals” Season 1 ended by having Brecken Merrill’s Tate Dutton taken captive by investor turned rancher Tom Weaver (Chris Mulkey). Tate was supposedly being shuttled to Texas, where it seemed we might get the first official crossover between “Dutton Ranch” and “Marshals.” But in the Season 2 premiere we learned that Tate was having a grand old time fishing on a Wyoming ranch. By the end of the episode, Tom Weaver had been apprehended and Tate was back to barely featuring in the series. Now, we’ve had yet another cliffhanger undermined and it’s starting to get ridiculous.
Another Marshals episode, another cliffhanger cop-out
“Marshals” Season 1 seemed to introduce a love triangle between Kayce Dutton, Andrea Cruz, and Dolly Weaver (Ellyn Jameson). Now that Dolly’s out of the picture, however (she died in that disappointing “Marshals” Season 2 premiere), Andrea and Kayce are free to embrace their attraction.
Season 2, Episode 4, “Blast Radius,” saw the pair growing closer than ever. Turns out this duo have been executing warrants as an extra-curricular activity to distract them from their sleepless nights. But it’s clear there’s also a slow-burn romance developing between the two. As such, when they were seemingly blown sky high in the episode’s closing moments it looked as though the writers were about to leverage this burgeoning love affair for some dramatic tension. There was no way Kayce was going to die, but perhaps his new love interest’s life would be left hanging in the balance?
Nope, they’re both fine. Season 2, Episode 5, “Secret Weapon” opens in the immediate aftermath of Rudy Carpenter (Braxton Hale) exploding his bomb in range of Kayce and Andrea. We see the former lying unconscious on the floor, before he wakes up and crawls over to Andrea, who’s also coming to. Meanwhile, their fellow Marshals do a sweep of the barn, determine Rudy’s gone for good, and after that everything’s back to normal. It’s a frustrating opening as it calls to mind all the previous “Marshals” cliffhanger moments that have similarly come to nothing.
Marshals doesn’t have to be bad, so why is it?
“Marshals” is a CBS procedural in the vein of “SEAL Team” — the show from which its showrunner Spencer Hudnut hails. As such, we know there’s a case-of-the-week format, and we know that a network show isn’t necessarily beholden to the production values of, say, an HBO drama. But is there any rule that states the show has to be made with the dimmest possible audience members in mind?
“Marshals” keeps reiterating the plot of each episode in the simplest terms possible, with the latest example coming in “Secret Weapon.” After the team finds tire tracks near the barn where Rudy Carpenter died, it becomes clear that someone other than Carpenter is transporting missing bombs elsewhere. Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) then announces, “Someone’s driving this bomb around right now and we got no idea what the target is.” Is this like the Netflix thing where they assume people are on their phones and aren’t paying close enough attention?
These frequent consequence-free cliffhangers are another aspect of “Marshals” that gives the sense of a show doing an impression of a better show. It’s like the writers know cliffhangers can be compelling, but don’t want to cause any actual distress to an audience they evidently assume is made up of phone-addicted simpletons barely following the plot. So, we get these half-baked moments of tension, after which nothing changes. Remember when “Marshals” Season 1 introduced a powerful Dutton family rival who’d apparently been at odds with Kayce’s family for generations, only for that same rival to be arrested several episodes later, never to be heard from again? It’s the same thing. A threat arises, then it’s neutralized. I get that “Marshals” isn’t “Yellowstone.” But does that mean it has to be bad?