Image via CBS
Published Apr 12, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT
Michael John Petty is a Senior Author for Collider who spends his days writing, in fellowship with his local church, and enjoying each new day with his wife and daughters. At Collider, he writes features, reviews, recaps, and conducts interviews. In addition to writing about stories, Michael has told a few of his own. His first work of self-published fiction, The Beast of Bear-tooth Mountain, was released in 2023. His Western short story, The Devil's Left Hand, received the Spur Award for "Best Western Short Fiction" from the Western Writers of America in 2025. Michael currently resides in North Idaho with his growing family.
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As U.S. Marshal Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) continues to make waves on Marshals, the neo-Western procedural takes a sharp turn into the political realm as the team deal with an assassination attempt in "Family Business." Several plotlines converged this week as the plot itself served as a backdrop for genuine character development and an expansion of the world as it continues to ride further away from the Taylor Sheridan series that sparked it. Here's where Kayce and the team went on this week's Marshals.
"Family Business" Begins With An Offer and An Assassination Attempt
This week's Marshals opens at Yellowstone East Camp, with Kayce once again trying to tame the unruly stallion that was Monica's before her death. Just then, Dolly Weaver (Ellyn Jameson) rides up asking for a tour of Montana. As they ride across Paradise Valley, the two not-quite-yet-lovebirds speak about how Kayce grew up with "the world's greatest backyard." Afterward, Dolly and Kayce are met by her father, Tom (Chris Mulkey), who offers to make Kayce dinner. Elsewhere, Pete "Cal" Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) is dealing with neck pain from his years overseas. But upon leaving the hospital, he runs into Belle Skinner's (Arielle Kebbel) husband, Jared (Eddie Aguirre), who appears to be in the middle of an affair. Pivoting to the Bullet 'n Barrel Saloon, Belle, Cruz (Ash Santos), and Miles (Tatanka Means) enjoy a night on the town. Miles' cousin Sabrina (Chelsea Gray) shows up and spills some Broken Rock lore before scamping off with her boyfriend. This prompts Cruz and Belle to ask Miles if he's interested in anyone, but he vaguely notes that it "probably isn't meant to be." That night, the team's latest case becomes clear when Federal Judge Paula Ayers (Christine Dunford) and her nonprofit director husband, Blake (Christopher Stanley), narrowly avoid being blown up in a car explosion.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz
Which Taylor Sheridan
Show Do You Belong In?
Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn't write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
FIND YOUR WORLD →
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan's world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
ALand, legacy, and a name that's been feared and respected for generations. BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first. CReputation. I've earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it. DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan's universe is always absolute — and always costly.
AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me. BThe company — or whoever's signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract. CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don't abandon them for anything. DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I'm the only thing stopping it from blowing.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it's crossed.
AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching. BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I've moved. CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences. DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan's worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away. BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them. CA mid-size city where the rules haven't quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve. DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone's life is shaped by what's inside those walls.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
AI do what has to be done to protect what's mine. I'll answer for it eventually — but not today. BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what's at stake, and I move with it. CI have a code — it's not the law's code, but it's mine, and I don't break it. DI've made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don't have the stomach for.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they're defending.
AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase. BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal. CRelevance. I've been away, I've been written off — and I'm proving that was a mistake. DWhatever fragile order I've managed to build — because without it, everything burns.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan's world is never given — it's established, maintained, and constantly tested.
ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I'm protecting — and because they know what happens if they don't. BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don't need people to like me — I need them to need me. CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it. DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
AThey'll learn. Or they won't. Either way, the land was here before them and it'll be here after. BI figure out what they want, what they're worth, and whether they're an asset or a problem — fast. CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect. DNew players destabilise everything I've built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
AMy family's peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I've let it take too much. BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn't nailed down. CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can't get back — but I'm not done yet. DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
When it's over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan's characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it. BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table. CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms. DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.
REVEAL MY SHOW →
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you're complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world's indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you're willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family's weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what's yours, you don't escalate — you finish it. You're not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone's world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn't make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You're a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they'll do to get it. You're not naive enough to think this world is fair. You're smart enough to be the one deciding who it's fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you're not above reminding people that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they'd be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they're more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don't need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you're the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky's world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You've made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
Enjoying a nice elk dinner, Kayce and the Weavers discuss the world of ranching. While Kayce asserts that the "old ways are the right ways," Tom notes that the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch never quite made a profit by following those ways. "The way of life is a true reward when it comes to ranching, sir," Kayce notes. But a good evening turns sour when Tom explains his aim to secure more land and more cattle by using modern technologies and expanding his reach, which means he hopes to see East Camp fall under the Weaver umbrella, too. Unsettled, Kayce dismisses his house guests, though Dolly was clearly uncomfortable with her father's proposition in the first place. When Tom leaves, Kayce confronts her about their ploy, though she insists that she had no idea of her father's intentions. "We were having fun until he ruined it, weren't we?" Dolly asks. Though he agrees, he refuses her further romantic advances before she walks out the door.
The next day at Marshals HQ, Cal and the team find themselves with the new case involving the aforementioned judge. Cruz's first suspect is a man named Clint Gallow (Joshua Dov), who threatened revenge a decade earlier for bombing a women's health center. With the team tasked with keeping the Ayers family safe, Cruz suggests that she and Kayce go after the ex-con who may be responsible. "Last thing we need is an open season on judges," Cal remarks. It isn't long before Cal, Belle, and Miles set up shop at the Ayers home, and the judge and her husband aren't terribly thrilled to be brought into protective custody. Neither is their daughter, Fallon (Abigail Rhyne), who is clinging to the hope that she could go to an upcoming music festival. Meanwhile, Kayce and Cruz find Gallows just in time for him to make a break for it. In the pursuit, Cruz body slams the suspect while Kayce hogties him. All in a day's work.
'Marshals' Leans Into the "Family Business" Of It All As the Truth Comes Out
Image via CBSBack at the Ayers home, Paula and Belle discuss how their respective husbands give them a hard time for going after society's worst, with the latter noting that she and Jared always find common ground. The whole thing is clearly unsettling for Cal, who debates his next move. Things get even more complicated when he asserts to Belle that the best thing that they can do for the family is to tell them what they know. The problem is that Belle believes that family drama ought to remain in the family. At Marshals HQ, Gallows claims his innocence, noting that he is nowhere near the only enemy of the judge who dreamed of taking her out. But back at the Ayers' house, tensions are high as the team observes some passive-aggressive comments made between husband and wife. Belle and Cal have a quick sidebar about how putting work before family can fracture relationships, with the former brushing it off as a problem that Cal is having with Madison (Morgan Lindholm) rather than the other way around. Things get heated, however, the moment Fallon gets too close to a nearby window. As gunfire hails into the Ayers' home, the marshals spring into action and protect those in their charge.
Soon after, Belle and Miles check the perimeter but come back empty-handed. A nearby parking garage appeared to be the best vantage point, but they didn't find any bullet casings. "The only thing certain is that the assassin knows where the judge is," Cal remarks, and he's right. Gallows clearly isn't the would-be killer, and the whole thing has gone back to square one. Cal sends Blake and Fallon "off grid" with Kayce and Cruz to East Camp while he takes Paula with him to Marshals HQ. Blake is familiar with Kayce and believes that their family is in good hands. According to an FBI analysis, the type of bomb that was used in the assassination attempt is often associated with domestic terrorism, with the group concluding that the suspect must be military. Back at the Ayers home, Miles speaks with Lt. Colleen Park (Reesa Ishiyama) about the shooting and discovers that Blake had been hiding passports in the walls with an alias. At Marshals HQ, Cal and Belle investigate Blake's phony IDs. Belle believes it all has to do with him having finances that pivot from shell corporation to shell corporation across different countries, including Equatorial Guinea in South Africa, which happens to be where the FBI traced the bomb as having come from.
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Cal believes that Blake would rather collect on a life insurance policy than face a judge in divorce court. Things at East Camp, Cruz fails to cheer up Fallon by explaining that both her and Kayce's fathers were killed as a result of their jobs. But when Fallon reveals that she wants something terrible to happen to whoever is behind the attack on her mother, Kayce notes that there's "a big difference between craving vengeance and getting it." Upon receiving a call from Cal, Kayce goes outside to find Blake, only to discover that he is nowhere to be found. Of course, this enrages the judge, who blames the marshals, but when they reveal her husband's alias, "Joseph Peddit," Paula starts to wonder what's going on. To make things worse, the team has security footage from a nearby ranch of Blake being abducted, which means that he was the target all along. According to his hard drive, he had been aiding a resistance group in Equatorial Guinea by using his nonprofit to smuggle weapons — weapons that the oppressive government regime now wants to find, using Blake to track down the recipients.
This Week's 'Marshals' Ends With a Kiss and Hope for Kayce's Future
Image via CBSOn the way to bring Fallon to her mother, Cruz and Kayce get a call about the men who abducted Blake: Ryland Hightower and Nate Porter (Gabe Rios). These men are private contractors who have been hired by the forces coming after Blake. When Kayce asks if these men came from a group out of Texas, Cruz wasn't sure, but those of us who remember those last few episodes of Yellowstone certainly know what he's thinking. The property is only a few miles from their location, and knowing that Blake doesn't have much time, they decide to take the risk with Fallon in the truck. Leaving Cruz with the girl, Kayce jumps into the line of fire and finds the contractors torturing Blake for information. A firefight breaks out, unsurprisingly, and Kayce takes out one of the guys. The other gets the upper hand on Kayce, nearly choking him out before he wrestles back control and kills the man responsible. Blake is soon returned to his family, with Paula welcoming him back despite all the lies. "Is my dad a monster?" Fallon asks the marshals, looking on at her father. Kayce tells her that, in his own messed-up way, he was just trying to protect her.
Later, Belle invites Cal to the Bullet for a drink, but he decides to pass. Needing a buffer between work and her home life, Belle pours them some drinks, and they enjoy them from the comfort of the break room at HQ. After a few drinks, Cal finally asks if her marriage would last if, like Blake and Paula, she discovered that Jared had a secret life. But Belle pushes back, believing that she knows everything about her husband — at least until he tells her that he caught Jared with another woman. "He's supposed to be discreet," she says. It turns out, Belle and Jared have gone their separate ways romantically, but have kept up appearances for the sake of their son, Braxton (Koah Williams). Then, after they'd been dancing around it for some time, Cal and Belle kiss. However, after some quick steam, she pulls away, and they call it a night.
Meanwhile, at the saloon, Kayce, Miles, and Cruz enjoy a night on the town. Cruz tries to encourage Miles to ask out the girl he's interested in. When he takes a drink of liquid courage and stands up, they're shocked to learn that the girl in question is actually Madison, who he doesn't know is Cal's daughter until she reveals as such. Kayce and Cruz hang back while Miles and Madison hit it off, with the latter wondering about Kayce's love life post-Monica. According to our favorite Dutton cowboy, being with Dolly felt like cheating on Monica, despite her death. But when Cruz challenges our hero on whether Monica would want that for him, he wonders if maybe he ought to give her another chance. The next day, Dolly returns to East Camp and asks for another Montana tour, to which Kayce obliges.
Marshals airs Sundays on CBS and is available for streaming the next day on Paramount+.
Release Date 2026 - 2026
Showrunner Spencer Hudnut
Writers Spencer Hudnut, Tom Mularz, Dana Greenblatt
Pros & Cons
- The twist that Blake was running arms was much better than him being the mastermind behind the assassination attempts. Glad it went in that direction.
- The parallels between Kayce and Cruz offer a really interesting perspective on John Dutton and the results of mismanaged family legacies.
- I disliked Dolly a lot less after her father's presumption, so that's a score in her book.
- We're diving into this Cal/Belle romance plot real quickly. If Marshals wants this to happen, the show needs to take its time.
- We're not at all concerned about Tate's middle-of-the-night whereabouts?
English (US) ·