Blowback (Season 1, Episode 8)
Premise: A former SEAL teammate resurfaces in Kayce’s life as a false tip about a wanted bank robber leads the marshals into an ambush and Andrea is abducted.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 8
- Case
- Ambush and a kidnapped deputy
- Starring
- Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), Pete “Cal” Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green), Belle Skinner (Arielle Kebbel), Andrea Cruz (Ash Santos), Miles Kittle (Tatanka Means), Tate Dutton (Brecken Merrill), Maddie Calvin (Morgan Lindholm)
- Guest stars
- Riley Green as Garrett, Michael Cudlitz as Randall Clegg, Will Dixon as Dr. Ginsburg
- Director
- John Erick Dowdle
- Writers
- Jim Adler & Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.
Summary
The Case
“Blowback” sends the team after an anonymous tip that places Reed Pollard, a bank robber on the Marshals’ Top 15 Most Wanted list, at the deserted Ashford Rodeo Grounds. Cal takes Kayce and Andrea and leaves Belle and Miles at the office. Gunmen ambush them; three are killed, and a fourth, wounded by Kayce, escapes and is later found dead in a nearby shed. None of them is Pollard. The dead men, Jack Manning, Troy Ryan, Kenny Roman and Sam Harold, are out-of-state strangers with clean records, carrying guns and zip ties. Pollard turns out to have been sitting in a Las Cruces, New Mexico, jail under an alias for five days, so the tip was bait.
Cal, meant to deliver the recovered weapons to the lab with Andrea, sends her alone, and she never arrives. Traffic camera footage shows a truck slamming into her SUV and men carrying her, unconscious, to a van registered to Treasure State Demolition, Randall Clegg’s company. Clegg, whose son was killed and another son faces life in prison, and who lost his mine demolition contracts, holds her at his compound and tells her he means to burn the land clean. The zip ties, the team realizes, were meant for them. The rescue is left unfinished and carries into the next episode.
The Team
Garrett, known as Double G, arrives unannounced at Kayce’s ranch. A former SEAL teammate of Kayce and Cal, he now plays country music out of Nashville. Cal greets him coolly, and Garrett tells Kayce that Cal ended his SEAL career; the fourth member of their old group, Roner, died on their last mission together. Cal and Belle agree that what happened between them was a mistake and that they will keep work boundaries. At the Bullet, Cal learns that Miles is dating Maddie and leaves without much to say.
Kayce finds Garrett in the grip of a flashback, calling out for Roner, and talks him down. Garrett admits to years of jail, psychiatric wards, rehab and homelessness since leaving the Teams, and Kayce invites him to stay at the ranch. Cal, having skipped the lab run, keeps a doctor’s appointment, where he is told about specialists and support groups. Kayce confronts Cal for letting Andrea go alone, and the two agree to set their past over Roner aside to get her back.
Spoiler, the ending: With backup an hour away, the four marshals move on the compound on foot, but Clegg’s fighters are waiting in bunkers and the barn. The episode ends with the team pinned down under heavy fire and Andrea still captive.
Why it stands out
- Country singer Riley Green makes his acting debut in a recurring role as Garrett, Kayce and Cal’s former SEAL teammate.
- Michael Cudlitz returns as Randall Clegg, whose feud with the Duttons and the marshals began earlier in the season.
- The episode ends on a cliffhanger that carries directly into “In Low Places.”