NEW YORK, Oct. 4 (UPI) — Ash Santos’ character Andrea Cruz spends most of Season 1 of the Yellowstone spin-off, Marshals, trying to get transferred back to the East Coast after a brief banishment to the wilds of Montana.
But when she finally gets the chance to go home, she finds it’s not that easy to leave.
“D.C., to Andrea, was like all of her ambitions finally coming to the surface. Growing up in New York and in the Bronx, she didn’t come from much and, so, when she got placed in the unit in D.C., it felt like a really big accomplishment for her,” Santos, 33, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“Obviously, things go awry and she kind of gets punished and sent to Montana to join this unit,” she added. “She’s very much a fish out of water and it kind of embodies everything that she hates. But, then, as the season goes on, she really finds herself falling in love with it more than she thought she would and it really comes down to the team.”
Santos said Andrea’s Marshals unit back in D.C. wasn’t close the way her colleagues in Montana are.
“The way that the four of them really rally for her and fight for her and she feels so supported and cared for. I think that’s irreplaceable and that’s really difficult to just walk away from,” she added.
Season 2 premieres Sunday on CBS and Paramount+
The show sees Luke Grimes reprise his Yellowstone character of Kayce Dutton, a ranch owner and one of Andrea’s fellow Marshals.
The team also includes Belle (Arielle Kebbell), Cal (Logan Marshall-Green) and Miles (Tatanka Means).
At the end of Season 1, Belle and Cal try to convince Andrea to stay with them, insisting she will have more freedom and responsibility in the mountains of Montana than she would in a city.
“[Cal] very much felt just like her boss and then felt kind of almost antagonistic at first because they are so different,” Santos said.
“They didn’t really understand each other and, so, the natural way to deal with that is just with strife, right? But then they very quickly found that, ‘No, I have your back and I’ll fight to the death to protect you.’ And when you have a bond like that, it makes friendship come a lot easier,” the actress added.
“She feels Cal and Belle kind of feel like older siblings where she feels that they care for her and that they have a few more years in this business than she does and, so, there is some wisdom there that she can take from them. So, she does look up to them in that way.”
Also keeping Andrea from leaving town is her desire to help the recently widowed Kayce and his teen son Tate (Brecken Merrill), whose ranch and family legacy have been under attack.
“She really cares for Kayce and really cares for Tate and, so, at the end of Season 1, you really find her not fully catching on to what’s going on, but starting to put the pieces together,” Santos said.
“We’ll kind of see her and the team really start to unravel what’s happening,” she added. “But that’s the thing about Andrea and this world. Kayce’s used to this world because he grew up in it and, so, he’s used to the way that people can back-stab each other and the ways that they do it,” she added.
“Andrea isn’t used to that and, so, for her, she takes everyone kind of at what they say until they prove otherwise.”
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