Marshals · Season 2 · Episode 4

Blast Radius (Season 2, Episode 4)

Premise: A plea-deal tip sends the marshals after Rudy Carpenter, the serial bomber Cal once let go, who has stolen enough explosives to level a city block, while Gifford talks about replacing Cal and Belle’s casino debt comes due.

Air date: October 25, 2026 (CBS)
Season/Episode: Season 2, Episode 4
Case: Serial bomber with stolen explosives
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), Harry Gifford (Brett Cullen), Maddie Calvin (Morgan Lindholm)
Yellowstone ties: Kayce recalls that he and Monica, his late wife from Yellowstone, did not tell Tate right away when she was diagnosed, and Gifford reminds Cal that he once put the Dutton ranch ahead of chasing Carpenter.
Music: “Shoulda Woulda Coulda” by Struggling Jennings plays over Kayce and Andrea’s night arrests, and “Roughnecks, Rednecks & Roustabouts” by Luke Deuce plays at the bar.
Guest stars: Braxton Hale as Rudy Carpenter, Keenan Henson as Paul Soler, Zach Livingston as Nick Soler, Walker Hare as Casino Suit, Koah Williams as Braxton
Director: Guy Ferland
Writers: Jim Adler & Maggie Schroeder

Summary

The Case

“Blast Radius” opens with Tate alone at night, dabbing burn cream on a raw, Y-shaped brand on his chest, while Kayce dozes among college brochures and Andrea sits up with the file on her father’s murder. Kayce and Andrea, serving warrants nightly, arrest a man who offers a trade for a plea deal: Rudy Carpenter, the serial bomber who slipped away from Cal last season and is wanted for a deadly Savannah concert bombing.

Kayce and Belle ride onto a golf course to question Carpenter’s ex-wife, Audrey, who says he will never go back to prison and always has an escape plan. Cal, working gas station footage with Miles, climbs into a dumpster and finds the shotgun Carpenter stole from a ranger and a handwritten dark web address.

The address leads to the Disciples, a gang run by Paul and Nick Soler. A raid on their chop shop ends in gunfire; the brothers are taken, Nick wounded, but Carpenter is gone. Paul wants a lawyer, so Kayce and Andrea lower a car on a lift toward Nick until he admits the gang gave Carpenter blasting caps and a hideout in return for pipe bombs. Cal, wanting the case by the book, objects. The burner phone texting Nick points to an industrial district, where a construction supplier has lost eight barrels of ANFO, enough to level a city block.

A traffic camera catches Carpenter’s white van near Cedar Creek, and Cal spots a blast crater in aerial images of an old farm northwest of Bozeman, where Carpenter has tested the explosives. The marshals move in, and Carpenter runs from his van into the barn. Cal orders a perimeter, warning that the ANFO could vaporize them all.

The Team

Gifford comes to discuss who will lead the unit during Cal’s leave, favoring Phil Berenger of Tulsa over Cal’s pick, Andrea, whom he offers to coach on the politics of the job. Cal tells Kayce that Gifford treats him like a charity case, and Belle warns that chemo can cloud his judgment.

Maddie tells Miles that her evening out with Cal was awkward, and Miles hates keeping the diagnosis from her. Kayce admits that he and Monica delayed telling Tate of her diagnosis, and that he hides the job’s dangers from his son. Belle, out with her son, finds her car window smashed, and a man from the casino gives her 48 hours to pay in full plus interest.

The ending

Spoiler: Kayce and Andrea find Carpenter lying in the barn’s hay. Kayce orders him to drop his weapon and show his hands, and the episode ends on a “To be continued” card: Carpenter is not in custody, the ANFO is unaccounted for, and the hunt carries over.

Fugitives’ fates: Rudy Carpenter, other or unclear; Paul Soler, arrested; Nick Soler, arrested.

Why it stands out

Rudy Carpenter first appeared in the first season’s “The Gathering Storm” as the armed hermit Cal and Kayce met on the Bridger Range while going after Tom Weaver’s downed helicopter; the team only guessed afterward that he was the wanted bomber, and Gifford now recalls that he left with a ranger’s shotgun Cal had left unguarded.
Gifford’s reminder that Cal put the Dutton ranch ahead of Carpenter refers to the first-season finale, “Wolves at the Door,” in which Cal abandoned a motel stakeout for Carpenter to help defend East Camp.
This is the first Season 2 episode to end on a “To be continued” card rather than a resolved case.