Will hay bales really stop a hail of bullets? They do in Marshals, where Team Jock Up is under fire and trying to extricate themselves from the trap they just walked into. Episode 9 (“In Low Places”) is the back half of the show’s second two-parter of its debut season, and while we understand the zeal to recover one of their own – Andrea Cruz is still locked up in Randall Clegg’s torture basement – this ep is the latest, biggest example of this show arranging itself so its US Marshals principles don’t have to share the spotlight with other agencies. When the team retreats to an old barn stronghold near the Clegg compound, Miles says “We need an army of our own.” Yeah, no shit. 

Big Boss Gifford has arrived at the barn, complete with a supervisory special agent from the FBI, and since Clegg’s inside, livestream-pontificating about tyrannical federal government overreach, they’re accusing Pete Calvin of agitating another Ruby Ridge or Waco. We hear a lot of hemming and hawing about hostage rescue teams being “an hour out,” and for as much as Cal wants to rush in there guns blazing, he acknowledges the concerns of his team. They can’t wait an hour for the backup. (We know they were never going to.) But Kayce at least has a novel solution to their lack of firepower. Their washed SEAL guy, Garrett. In the Teams, he was always great at asymmetrical solutions to sticky problems, which this very much is. Their old buddy would give them trained eyes and an extra gun. It might also heal some wounds. “Give him back some of the purpose he lost,” Kayce tells Cal, “when you took his Trident.”  

Inside her torture basement, Cruz has no help, but she is not helpless. It’s definitely a horror show in there, with Clegg revealing the pregnant young women in shift dresses he is willing to use as human shields, and the maniac’s spun-up mercenary platoon walking around heavily armed. But she calls on the spirit of her late policeman father for guidance, frees herself from the zip ties, and overpowers a guard, whose phone she uses to open a channel to 911. Even when Cruz is recaptured by Clegg’s goons, tied back up, and hung on a taxidermy truss, she’ll never stop fighting back. Just ask this loser.. 

We had a sense Garrett would eventually find his way onto some kind of marshals duty, and he’s right in sync with Kayce as they recon the compound’s porous backside. Clegg’s dreams of a supremacist Christian fiefdom a la The Order will have to wait, because everybody’s moving in, and Belle, Miles, and Cal are stacked up and ready to enter the main house. But Belle notices when Cal sharply pulls back from their breach. Despite the benzos he’s been popping, his neck issue is now sending searing pain shooting down his arms. He hangs back and lets his teammates lead, and after clearing out a few shooters, they find Clegg himself with a revolver to his head, ready to livestream his martyrdom by government guns. Too easy, dude. Cal wings him so they can take him into custody. He’ll have to nurse his grudge against the Duttons, his grudge against the guv, and his grudge against the entire world from a holding cell somewhere. 

The whole team wanted Cruz back. But for Kayce, there was something more in this rescue op. “The Dutton Curse,” he told Cal. “Clegg’s had it out for my family for years. I put one of his sons down hard. So whatever happens to Andrea, it’s on me.” And despite the hovering of Dolly Weaver, who we haven’t heard from since Episode 7, we think Kayce’s personal connection with Andrea has also quietly grown. It could even be why he only kinda tolerated Dolly’s flirting. Because when Kayce invites the Jock Up crew back to East Camp for a little party – “That’s the special occasion jerky” – he and Cruz have a moment of ease with one another away from the group. 

At the fire ring, Garrett, aka country singer Riley Green, is playing his new single “My Way” for Belle, Cal, and Miles. “If I had my way,” he sings under the stars” I’d just lean in and kiss your lips right now.” And on the rise nearby, Kayce tells Cruz he had a feeling about her position inside the compound. (Cruz: “Damn, Cowboy getting all cosmic on me.”) When he asks about the breadth of Montana’s field of stars in comparison to the city skies of her East Coast roots, Cruz has an easy smile. And maybe with something more than team chemistry with this Cowboy? “Jury’s still out on this place. But as long as I’m here, I’m glad it’s on a team with you.” 

Kayce Tayes for Episode 9 of Marshals (“In Low Places”): 

• “Get so far away that none of it, the name, the things they’ve done, can find you.” Here, Belle was talking with Randall Clegg’s estranged daughter. But she was very clearly talking about herself and what she did. Belle, aka “Isabel Turek.”

• We still don’t have a full diagnosis on Cal’s neck, and he’s not sharing, but we know it’s getting worse. Belle takes the high road again with her concern for Pete. “Forget about work boundaries. What is going on?”

• It’s a big thing for Kayce to invite Team Jock Up into his East Camp home. While it’s hilarious that Marshals just again removes Tate Dutton from the equation, even though he lives there, we liked seeing the team hang in their casual togs, and hearing Riley Green play some jams. Kayce Dutton jerky recipe when? 

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.