The weather has turned. The bomb cyclone from last episode of Marshals has become what Kayce Dutton calls a “man-killer,” and he would know. Because here in Part Two, Kayce, Pete Calvin, and Neil Lamb, the escaped federal prisoner/former Yellowstone ranch hand, are caught all the way in it. As they trudge through snow and ice in Montana’s unforgiving Madison Range, looking for shelter, their circumstances become dire. But it is the ghosts of men killed in the past which threaten them most, and not everybody’s gonna make it out of this alive.

Afghanistan, 2015. Kayce, Double-G, Cal, and Roner (Jay Reeves), their “fourth musketeer,” are sent to a different mountainside, where their observation post is overrun by Taliban fighters. This is the expanded edition of the incident we saw in the opening moments of Marshals Episode 1, via Kayce’s nightmare, and boy is it. Under withering fire, with RPG’s falling on their position, he wants to move forward. Take the fight to the enemy. But Cal’s radio call is to fall back, and the boss appears, lugging a wounded Garrett with him. What about Roner? The SEALs gotta go get their brother. Calvin shakes his head. “Roner’s gone, man!” And the explosions continue. 

The team is also split in the present. Cruz and Belle are in the dark as they drive through the storm, unable to reach Cal or Kayce, and wondering why Cowboy would leave Garrett’s bedside. They dig into Lamb’s life and connections at headquarters, hoping to find the bus crash escapee, who is still causing trouble for their crew on the mountain. Lamb’s still looking for an angle, either a deal or escape, while Cal argues with Kayce. “We’re in this mess because of you.” 

They find a hunter’s cabin, or what’s left of it, and while it provides respite from the storm, it’s also ground zero for these guys, these former brothers-in-arms, to finally confront the raw feelings from their time at war. What did Garrett’s “Tell Cal I’m sorry” mean, back at the hospital? Pete won’t answer. He goes alone to find firewood, and promptly falls through a hidden patch of ice. 

With hypothermia setting in, Kayce demands Lamb’s thermal undershirt to warm up Cal, which reveals the con’s own hooked rocking ‘Y’ brand. And when Kayce heads out for more tinder, the real fuel for the fire occurs in the cabin, because Lamb blabs to Cal about the Train Station. His play is made. “You’re gonna have to take out your partner as well, to cover your family’s ass, Dutton.”

What follows is the best stretch of Marshals so far. Shivering and hypothermic, Cal is nevertheless angry. All that stuff Randall Clegg and marshals big boss Gifford were saying was actually true? “The Duttons are just gangsters on horseback.” But Kayce turns it back on his old friend, the guy who hides his pill habit and left their teammate to be abducted by violent white supremacists. And about his family, “at least we fight ‘til the end for each other,” unlike how Cal left Roner behind. Pete says if they make it out of the storm and off the mountain, the Train Station revelation could burn both their badges. 

There is more emotion expressed in this sequence than this entire series has yet shown. Logan Marshall-Green maintains his character’s shivering state even as he bitterly essays all these past ghosts, shared and otherwise, while Luke Grimes – in the SEAL flashbacks and in the present, as he defends the bloodiest aspects of his family legacy – reveals a wider range of feelings in Kayce than we’ve seen probably ever. It’s powerful. And to answer Kayce’s query, Cal finally comes clean. Back in Afghanistan, it was Garrett who told him their fellow musketeer was gone, hit by RPG fire, only for Bravo Team to retreat, return to base, and to discover from thermal drone footage Roner survived, if only briefly. The guilt of that destroyed Garrett’s mental health, so Cal thought it best to take on the blame as a kind of penance.

Neil Lamb didn’t make it off the mountain. Angling for escape, fleeing the separated marshals, he rushed Cal when his shaking, “colder than BUD/S” hands couldn’t hold his service weapon. Pete says the fugitive is “in the wind,” once Belle and Cruz arrive at the mountain to take their colleagues back to civilization. But we catch a shot of where they tussled, with a prisoner’s orange jumpsuit submerged in the broken ice. The Dutton family secrets will stay secret for now. A good team leader protects his people. From real threats, and from past ghosts.

And digging all this up is good for them, ultimately. The adversity of their storm-stranded situation, the hard words about the Train Station death receptacle; as the weather breaks with dawn, Cal says it’s a chance to move forward for real. “Make it so we lost a brother that day, and not the brotherhood.”       

But it won’t bring back Roner, and shockingly, not Double-G, either. When Kayce, Calvin, and Cruz hit the hospital to check on him, Garrett’s bed is empty but for personal belongings. The doctor tells them his fire-scarred throat couldn’t manage the oxygen his heart required. Their friend is gone.

Kayce Taykes for Episode 11 of Marshals (“On Thin Ice”): 

• “You need to tap out, I get it, given you just saved the life of the mother you pretend doesn’t exist.” Cruz! But Belle says staying on the job is important, as she continues to process her unexpected mother and child reunion.

• Remember the mining dispute, and the cancerous runoff that killed Monica and poisoned so many people on the Broken Rock reservation? Thomas Rainwater has a plan to use Miles and his Team Jock Up heroics as a bargaining chip, to show regulators and congressional subcommittees what fighting for a worthy cause really looks like.

• Miles also isn’t done being a hero. He draws on his past as a college football linebacker to lay out one of Neil Lamb’s old convict pals. Clothesline!

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.