Falling Sky (Season 2, Episode 3)
Premise: The marshals are ordered to arrest three Broken Rock activists blamed for a drone crash that killed a man on the reservation, while Cal starts chemotherapy and Kayce worries about Tate.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 3
- Case
- Fatal drone crash on Broken Rock
- 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)
- Yellowstone ties
- Kayce recalls sitting through treatment with Monica, his late wife from Yellowstone, notes that her cousins lived in the Lowlands, and tells Tate she wanted him to go to college.
- Guest stars
- Duke Davis Roberts as Shane Whitebear, Frankie Loyal as Lawrence Green, Cha-tah Ellem as Koda Nash, Callan McAuliffe as Gavin Escher, Chris Gann as Colonel Brooks
- Director
- Gonzalo Amat
- Writers
- Tom Mularz & Kseniya Melnik
Summary
The Case
“Falling Sky” opens with a drone tracking running horses and three men in the woods, one raising a rifle toward it. Later a military drone crashes into a propane tank on Broken Rock, killing a man known as Uncle Charlie. Colonel Brooks and Gavin Escher, CEO of the drone maker Horus Avionics, tell Cal and Kayce that three tribe members shot it down; warrants are out for the Nash brothers, Matthew and Koda, and Jacob Green, who lives with them.
Miles, reluctant to arrest activists from his own community, comes around after Andrea tells him how her father once calmed a standoff with police. Jacob’s father, Lawrence, plays the marshals a voicemail in which Jacob begs for help while other men shout at him. Andrea traces the call to a house on the reservation, where Kayce and Miles find Jacob dead, and the Nashes become murder suspects.
A tip sends the team to an old community center, where gunmen in tactical gear ambush them. Andrea stays with Matthew, shot in the shoulder, who says the drone was armed and the crash is being covered up. Kayce and Miles track Koda to a deadfall shelter; his crash-site video is still on his phone. Miles puts on Koda’s jacket and hat to draw the shooters off, Cal and Belle bring down the drone’s operator, both shooters fall, and the team identifies one of the fallen men as Escher’s body man. Koda sends his video to Air Force OSI, Escher is arrested, and testing near Broken Rock is halted.
The Team
Cal, starting chemotherapy, turns down company from Kayce and then Belle, and tells Kayce his doctor blames burn pits from Afghanistan. Kayce keeps seeing a lone buffalo, which Mo suggests may be pushing him to face his shame. At dinner Kayce raises college; Tate asks whether Monica would want him hunting people from her tribe and refuses a fishing trip, wanting nowhere near a river. Belle warns Andrea that using marshals’ systems to look into her father’s murder could get her in trouble.
At a council meeting, Shane Whitebear blames Rainwater for the reservation’s poverty and pitches a cannabis co-op. After Jacob’s death, Lawrence storms into Rainwater’s office and calls him and Kayce liars.
The ending
Spoiler: Lawrence thanks Rainwater, who says the Nash family still blames him and that he has blessed a cannabis co-op as he looks for new paths. Andrea wakes from a nightmare and opens a police file on her father’s murder. Belle joins Cal at chemotherapy, telling him he will not face it alone. At East Camp, Kayce tells Tate he is taking him to a therapist in the morning, and when Tate refuses, orders him to bed.
Fugitives’ fates: Matthew Nash, other or unclear; Koda Nash, other or unclear; Gavin Escher, arrested.
Why it stands out
- Cal’s first chemotherapy session follows his Pancoast tumor diagnosis, which he shared with the whole team in the previous episode, “End of Watch.”
- Tate’s refusal to go near a river comes after the season premiere, “All Hat No Cattle,” in which Kayce reached him at a river while rescuing him from Tom Weaver’s men.