East Camp is under attack.

Not only did Kayce Dutton not sell off the last chunk of his family’s nearly 150-year-old legacy to rich rancher guy Tom Weaver, but in the Episode 13 season finale of Marshals (“Wolves at the Door”), his ranch is forced to become a strongpoint when somebody does a drive-by on Thomas Rainwater. The Broken Rock chairman, Mo Brings Plenty, and Miles Kittle were on their way to the airport and a flight to senate subcommittees in Washington, DC when their SUV was shot up. No injuries, but as Mo said, “The wolves have returned.” And when Kayce brings them to the ranch for safekeeping, the Battle of East Camp begins. While his dad checks the perimeter and shoots a guy who stole his horse, Tate Dutton hands out the guns. “It’s come to this.”

Kayce only has his Winchester and sidearm while teams of shooters with assault rifles are flanking him. Who are these guys? The house is taking fire, and Mo’s gotta go hand-to-hand with an attacker in the living room. (He tucks in his braids, ready to fight.) Upstairs, Rainwater and Tate are barricaded in a bedroom, but it’s not safe there either, and Tate takes a life for the first time since Yellowstone Season 4.

We all know how Marshals can fall into kill-a-bunch-a-gun-toting-randos-per-week mode. But this is a season-best action sequence, with really effective geographic choreography. Within East Camp, we understood where everybody is approaching or firing from, making the stakes that much higher. Especially so – this firefight means live with his place, or die with its ghosts. Its soil has known so much blood. Even with bullets flying everywhere, Kayce and Rainwater wryly note the irony.

So who sent these professional, well-armed shooters? At headquarters, the marshals identify them as an international team of former special operators, led by a South African. Which would seem to rule out any of the chairman’s haters on the tribal council. LIke Nathan Irons (Gary Nohealii), his main rival. If he was involved, “he did someone else’s bidding,” and Kayce says they need to find who’s holding the leash. 

Amid this new violence, there are also existing Marshals story threads to address. Andrea Cruz really is planning to take the Marshals posting in DC. Jock Up is disappointed at losing an integral part of its tactical Swiss Army knife, but they share a professional understanding, and she shares individual farewells with each of her teammates. But the camera also lingers on Cruz as she considers an embrace shared with Cowboy. We’re not saying we were right that they share deeper feelings for one another. But we are saying that would be a cool development for Marshals Season 2. 

And as for workplace boundaries, “Utah’s got couches and bourbon – things could get messy.” But Cal is grateful when Belle goes all-in on being his cancer diagnosis swimbuddy. She will accompany him to Salt Lake City for oncology treatments; she’s even putting him on a fruits-and-veggies diet. This is after an argument with her husband over their respective “extracurricular activities,” namely his cheating and her gambling debt. Belle has re-thought her applied distance from Pete. Which we are incredibly here for, because there is real chemistry between Arielle Kebbel and Logan Marshall-Green.

But Cal and Belle are also first to learn the terrible truth of who attacked East Camp. What a cliffhanger to set up Season 2! They follow an anonymous tip to a ranch hand alleged to be involved in the battle, but it’s a trap: Tom Weaver’s ranch foreman/chief henchman delivers a “fuck you” look and drives off, revealing two gunmen, who open fire on the marshals at point-blank range. 

Wait a minute, Tom Weaver? The bougie ranching transplant saved by Kayce and Cal in that helicopter crash? The guy who tried to buy East Camp twice? The father of Dolly Weaver, whose seemingly one-sided slow-motion flirtation with Kayce Dutton continues in this very episode? Yes, that Tom Weaver. From Pete and Belle being ambushed we cut to the same henchman arriving at Weaver’s private airstrip. “It’s handled, sir,” he says, and Weaver nods grimly. This hedge funder square from back east just funded a kill squad to try and take East Camp by force and take out federal agents.

It’s a Montana-sized mountain of a twist that we admittedly did not see coming. It’s also not done twisting. After the Battle of East Camp, who showed up first to survey the busted windows and bullet-riddled kitchen cabinets but Weaver and his daughter. All smiles and friendship, gracious over Kayce turning down his buy-out, and gifting Tate a bamboo fishing rod like some kind of replacement for his grandfather Dutton, Weaver offered to take Kayce’s son bass-fishing in Texas. Which is how Tate Dutton is standing right next to Tom Weaver when his chief goon checks in, and they climb into his private plane together. Marshals Season 2 ends with both Team Jock Up and the Duttons still under attack.  

Kayce Taykes for Episode 13 of Marshals (“Wolves at the Door”):

• Miles isn’t going anywhere. He ends Marshals Season 1 back on the team, fully reinstated after the Battle of East Camp, and fully invested in his relationship with Maddie.

• Maddie herself has finally moved around her bar to sit with Pete. In this finale, she even calls him “Dad” for the first time all season. And while he stops short of revealing his Pancoast tumor diagnosis – “I don’t want to guilt her into a relationship” – we feel like Pete will have more than one swimbuddy on his Season 2 cancer journey. 

• After he didn’t sell Weaver East Camp, but before Weaver’s mercenaries attacked East Camp, Kayce told the team his plan to turn a portion of the land into an equine therapy center, to help other veterans find the same new beginning as Garrett. Kayce even plans to name the center after Double-G.

• But that’s all contingent on surviving the battle with Weaver. The final shot of Marshals Season 1 has Kayce riding horses with Dolly at East Camp. He doesn’t know her dad just kidnapped Tate. And we don’t know if she is one of the shooters, too. Wolves everywhere.

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.