Marshals · Season 2 · Episode 2

End of Watch (Season 2, Episode 2)

Premise: The marshals hunt a fired Gallatin County deputy who is killing the lawmen he blames for ending his career, while Cal tells the team about his cancer and Kayce worries about Tate.

Air date: October 11, 2026 (CBS)
Season/Episode: Season 2, Episode 2
Case: Fired deputy’s revenge on lawmen
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), Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), Mo (Mo Brings Plenty), Harry Gifford (Brett Cullen), Maddie Calvin (Morgan Lindholm)
Yellowstone ties: Rainwater, who knew John Dutton, tells Kayce he is not his father and says Tate has been taken from Kayce again, and Kayce recalls Monica helping a younger Tate through a similar ordeal.
Music: Blues Saraceno’s “Outlaw Justice” plays at the bar.
Guest stars: Rob Mars as Wayne Plummer, Ryan Paynter as Boone Plummer, Celeste Thorson as Corrine Irons, Will Strongheart as Troy, Eddie Aguirre as Jared
Director: Ruben Garcia
Writers: Dana Greenblatt & Bryan Gracia

Summary

The Case

“End of Watch” opens with a gunman at Butte Reservoir aiming a silenced rifle at a couple out walking. Cal’s team serves a warrant on Wayne Plummer, a fired Gallatin County deputy and former SWAT officer wanted for selling homemade suppressors. In his empty house Belle steps on a pressure-plate bomb, which Kayce disarms, and the team finds a manifesto vowing payback against the lawmen Plummer blames for his firings.

Deputy Kyle Husted, whose complaint got Plummer fired, is killed in his patrol car and his partner, Cheryl Lundrigen, is badly wounded before Kayce and Andrea arrive. Plummer’s son, Boone, recently rejected by the training academy, tells Cal and Kayce his father has cut him off. Then retired Butte captain Frank Winslow, who fired Plummer in 2011, is reported shot dead on a walk with his wife.

When Gifford meets Cal and Kayce, Plummer fires on them and escapes. Miles finds Gifford’s signature, from his days as Flathead sheriff, on the order that set off Plummer’s first firing 18 years earlier. Cal sends Kayce and Andrea to Husted’s dignified transfer, where Plummer opens fire, Andrea gets Gifford to cover, and Boone, a second gunman, pins down Cal and Belle. Cal and Belle blast into Plummer’s room, and he is shot dead. Told his father is dead and urged by Kayce not to follow him, Boone surrenders. Gifford later admits he also marked down Boone’s academy application.

The Team

Kayce is fortifying East Camp, and Rainwater and his nephew, Troy, help repair the house. Tate, found at his grandfather’s grave, calls Weaver evil and says he no longer needs rescuing; Kayce tells Andrea that Monica got Tate through an earlier ordeal. Corrine Irons, Nathan Irons’s widow, leads a sit-in at Rainwater’s office, blaming his fight against the mine for her husband’s death.

Belle, who promised her son, Braxton, she would not get hurt again, missed Cal’s Salt Lake City appointment; Cal tells her he faces chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. After the case he tells the team he has a Pancoast tumor, a rare lung cancer, and asks for no special treatment. Jared brings Braxton, frightened by news of a cop killer, to collect Belle. At the bar, Cal asks Miles, who is dating Maddie, not to tell her yet, and Miles uses the secret to get off desk duty.

The ending

Spoiler: Back at East Camp, Mo smudges the repaired house and Tate with sage, and Rainwater says Tate is always welcome at Broken Rock. When Kayce says no Dutton son should turn into his father, Rainwater, who knew John Dutton, says Kayce is not him; no one can promise Tate will escape unscathed, and Kayce can only guide him.

Fugitives’ fates: Wayne Plummer, killed by law enforcement; Boone Plummer, arrested.

Why it stands out

Cal tells the rest of the team about his Pancoast tumor, the diagnosis he first confided to Belle in the first season’s “The Devil at Home.”
Corrine Irons is introduced as the widow of Council Member Nathan Irons, Rainwater’s pro-mine rival, who was found dead in his car in the first-season finale.