On Thin Ice (Season 1, Episode 11)
Premise: Caught in a blizzard with an escaped convict who knows Dutton family secrets, Kayce and Cal confront the old combat loss that broke their SEAL team apart, while the rest of the unit hunts the convict’s armed partner.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 11
- Case
- Escaped convict in a blizzard
- Starring
- Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), Pete “Cal” Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green), Belle Skinner (Arielle Kebbel), Andrea Cruz (Ash Santos), Miles Kittle (Tatanka Means), Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), Mo (Mo Brings Plenty)
- Yellowstone ties
- Cal calls Neil Lamb a dirtbag wearing the same brand as Kayce and asks Kayce about “the train station,” Kayce needles Neil for fleeing the Yellowstone, and in a flashback Kayce tells his SEAL teammates he got his brand by losing a bet in high school.
- Guest stars
- Sterling Jones as Neil Lamb, Riley Green as Garrett, Blaire Chandler as Senator Conner, Darren Darnborough as Charlie Ripley, Michael X. Sommers as Don Benson
- Director
- John Erick Dowdle
- Writers
- Mark H. Semos & Maggie Schroeder
Summary
The Case
“On Thin Ice” strands Cal and Kayce on the Madison Range with their prisoner, Neil Lamb, as a bomb cyclone moves in. Unable to reach Kayce’s truck, they take shelter in a crumbling hunting cabin. When Cal goes out alone for firewood, he falls through ice and staggers back; Kayce strips off his wet clothes and has Neil warm him with his thermal shirt and body heat.
In town, Belle, Andrea and Miles follow calls made on the dead bus driver’s phone to Charlie Ripley, who served time with Neil in South Dakota. After his arrest, Ripley says Neil wanted clothes and a gun, and names Neil’s partner in an Ennis bank robbery that left two guards dead: Don Benson. On the mountain, Kayce and Cal split up to search the slopes. Cal catches Neil at gunpoint, but Neil escapes him. Benson then surprises both marshals, and Andrea and Belle, who have followed the Benson lead into the mountains, arrive in time to kill him. Neil remains at large.
The Team
In the cabin, Cal accuses Kayce of encouraging Garrett to play the hero, and Kayce answers that Cal still makes Garrett feel like a failure. Left alone with Cal, Neil tells him Kayce tracked him down to keep Dutton secrets buried. The two men turn on each other: Cal calls the Duttons gangsters on horseback, and Kayce brings up Cal’s secret pill use and his absence when the Cleggs seized Andrea.
Flashbacks to Afghanistan show Cal, Kayce, Garrett and their friend Roner, whom Garrett keeps calling the Four Musketeers, ambushed on a recon mission. Cal orders a retreat without Roner, and Kayce never forgives him, especially after drone video shows Roner alive after their extraction. On the mountain Cal finally explains that Garrett had told him Roner was dead, and that he kept quiet to protect Garrett. Both agree the blame belongs to the war, and Cal says the cold has wiped Neil’s story from his memory.
Rainwater, hosting Senator Conner at his casino while the storm grounds a mining executive’s jet, presents Miles to her as the marshal who ended the store standoff. She suggests the subcommittee chairman might grant a hearing on the Broken Rock mine if he meets Miles, who later asks Rainwater whether he was used as a prop.
Spoiler, the ending: Kayce returns to the hospital, where a doctor tells them Garrett died about two hours earlier after his damaged lungs strained his heart, and Kayce is handed his friend’s belongings.
Why it stands out
- This is the last of Riley Green’s episodes as Garrett, a recurring role that marked his acting debut.
- Extended flashbacks to the Navy SEAL team in Afghanistan revisit the death of Roner (Jay Reeves), the loss that had divided Kayce and Cal for years.