'Slaughterhouse' left me feeling much like 'Bloody Harlan' did last year: dissatisfied, restless and, yes, a little disappointed. It didn't offer the closure I'd hoped for, and it introduced a couple of plot twists that were hard to believe. (Two of them, alas, involved my beloved Johnny Crowder.) But the more I think about 'Slaughterhouse', the more I appreciate that Justified just doesn't offer the sort of world in which things are resolved neatly, the bad guys are punished and the good guys come out vindicated.
After the car explosion followed by a shootout that left state trooper Tom Bergen dead, Robert Quarles is being hunted by law enforcement. When Quarles - by now wounded, experiencing oxycontin withdrawal, and fairly crazy - holds a family hostage, Raylan agrees to meet him. Quarles wants to go on, but needs to cough up half a million dollars to buy his way back into the Detroit outfit, so he decides to visit Limehouse for some 'travelling money' - Raylan and hostages in tow.
Meanwhile Boyd receives a troubling call from Shelby, the new Harlan County Sheriff: the law has been tipped off about the murder of Devil all the way back in 'The Devil You Know' and are now digging up the body. There's no time to hide evidence, so Boyd accepts his arrest while his crew try to find the person who talked. Arlo, ravaged by dementia and frequently talking to his dead wife Helen, is their prime suspect, and Ava suspects one of her prostitutes may have passed on what Arlo told her to Limehouse.
The two plots are handled quite differently. Quarles is dispatched in an outrageously cartoonish fashion - people at the office will later say that Raylan 'disarmed' him - that, although I was rather put off by it at first, seems to fit the character's aspirations to exploitation film villainy. Meanwhile, the episode's emotional resonance - read: soul-crushing sadness - comes mostly from the triangle of Boyd, Raylan and Arlo as 'Slaughterhouse' picks up Season One's focus on fathers and sons.
Truth be told, 'Slaughterhouse' has a couple of false notes: the aforesaid scene that renders Quarles armless; the out-of-the-blue revelation that Johnny has been working with Limehouse all along to remove Boyd; an apparent Raylan voiceover that we eventually realise is a conversation with Winona. But it closes off an excellent season: fraying at the edges more than the second, perhaps, but there's no sign that Justified is letting up. It's been a twisty ride, and perhaps my greatest complaint against 'Slaughterhouse' is how little it does to prune the overstuffed cast list. I'd like a Season Four that builds on the strengths of what's come before: returning, perhaps, to more one-offs, and more time allocated to Tim, Rachel and Art. I'm excited, anyway.
'Coalition' features something we haven't seen in a while: Raylan being totally awesome. In the last couple of episodes, Marshal Givens not only became a bit player, but was regularly one step behind the ever-shifting criminal goings-on. 'Coalition' gives him a chance to do what he does best, even if there's a bitter aftertaste as Raylan realises he may merely be doing Ellstin Limehouse's dirty work for him.
'Measures' ended with Boyd Crowder at last capturing Robert Quarles. In 'Coalition', the Detroit man finds himself naked and shackled - much like his victims - and guarded by some of Ava's prostitutes. Alas, Boyd's people prove no match for Quarles, who manages to flee and, now desperate and friendless, seeks asylum with Limehouse in Noble's Holler.
Limehouse - whom we now recognise as the smartest player around, and thus the most dangerous - knows exactly what to do with Quarles. You see, Dickie Bennett and Limehouse's man Errol (Demetrius Grosse) have joined with Boyd Crowder and his gang to rob the bank where they believe Limehouse keeps Mags Bennett's money. If he'll wait outside and blast away at Boyd's men, Limehouse assures Quarles, all his debts will be forgiven.
Meanwhile, the fragile alliance between Wynn Duffy and Boyd is fracturing as Duffy realises the dangers inherent in Quarles's escape. In parallel, Raylan is working with state trooper Tom Bergen (Peter Murnik) and his men to foil the robbery, untangle the mess of people trying to kill each other, and bring in Dickie Bennett by intercepting his attempt to take the money from Loretta (Kaitlyn Dever).
That 'Coalition' does not end in the bank robbery everyone is preparing for is the episode's smartest move, symptomatic of this season's twists and turns. The return of the great Loretta McCready - whose teenage exterior belies her tough nature - provides an elegant and emotionally resonant way of wrapping up the mystery of Mags's money. (And how great is it that much of this season's plotline follows directly from Season Two, Justified having dispensed with the reset button?) A season highlight, 'Coalition' sets us up for one hell of a finale.
'Guy Walks Into a Bar' saw Robert Quarles degenerate into the psychopathy always bubbling beneath the surface as his operation in Kentucky failed. 'Measures' is all about the other factions - the marshals, Detroit, and Boyd Crowder - trying to put him down for good like the mad dog he's become, and tripping over each other in the process. Meanwhile, Dickie Bennett careens back into the main plot and does his bit to escalate an already fractious situation.
'Measures' opens with Lindsey's bar receiving a visit from Sarno (Michael Ironside) and Partlow (Chris Tardio), two hitmen sent from Detroit by Theo Tonin (Adam Arkin) to take out Quarles. Raylan is able to persuade the gentlemen to leave. Soon, Art and Raylan are searching for Quarles themselves to arrest him for threatening a marshal in 'Guy Walks Into a Bar', while the man himself kills two drug dealers for money on the advice of outgoing sheriff Napier. Meanwhile Dickie Bennett, having been released from prison, attempts to enlist Tennessee marijuana kingpin 'Hot Rod' (Mickey Jones) in his attempt to relieve Ellstin Limehouse of his late mother's money.
I'm rather delighted with the episode's many throwbacks to Season Two, which on balance I still prefer to this year's offerings. It's also good to see Rachel and Tim in action attempting to foil Dickie's schemes - and Rachel at least gets to kick some serious butt in the process, which pleased this Rachel fan greatly. The new, unexpected constellations and alliances - Boyd and Wynn Duffy? Errol and Dickie? - add to the general sense of instability and pragmatism that has been this season's distinctive characteristic.
All in all, 'Measures' shows us how much Justified has changed since its first season. Season Three has not had a single case-of-the-week episode without advancing the main plot, for example; and while that adds to the sense of a single, multifaceted story, it'd be a pity had the first season lacked great one-offs like 'Riverbrook'. The most noticeable change, however, is that what was once a show about an old-school lawman and the people around him has become an ensemble show, with Raylan a prominent player, but only one among many (consider, for example, how many scenes don't feature him these days). I'll frankly admit I don't like this development: I don't think the Raylan character is played out, nor do I doubt Olyphant's power to anchor the show. But it's still a darn good series every week, and I shan't complain too much.
'Guy Walks Into a Bar' is a very good episode, and yet I didn't like it. I suppose that happens sometimes. I can't pinpoint anything particularly wrong with it, except that as a character episode it feels like stalling in the build-up to what is bound to be a very busy finale. But it's a good showcase for Robert Quarles, so I don't quite know what the hell my problem is. A weak B-plot, perhaps; but we'll get to that.
In 'Guy Walks Into a Bar', the election for Harlan County sheriff comes to a head. Napier wins by numbers, but Boyd Crowder manages to smuggle Napier's sister (Bonnie Borroughs) into a position at the county clerk's office, leading to the incumbent's disqualification thanks to nepotism laws. An angry Robert Quarles, taunted by Boyd and advised to leave Harlan by Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns), decides to confront Raylan at the bar where the marshal works as a bouncer while flirting with the owner, Lindsey Salazar (Jenn Lyon).
Meanwhile, Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies) is about to be released on early parole. Raylan attempt to keep him in jail by persuading Jed Berwind (Richard Speight Jr.) to change his testimony exonerating Dickie from Aunt Helen's murder fails, so it's back to Plan B: give a convincing personal testimony in front of Judge Reardon (Stephen Root) to convince him Dickie shouldn't be released.
That second plot strand is a bit of a drag, frankly. The Quarles storyline - in which we learn of the man's depressing life of heroin addiction, child prostitution, and parricide - is much better. The standoff between Raylan and Quarles in Lindsey's bar, featuring the by now customary shotgun-wielding woman as a third party, is as taut as anything this season; and seeing Quarles unravel mentally into a lost man with nothing but vengeance on his mind was worth it. The Detroit man's comeuppance will be satisfying, I hope.
In a sense the episode title is apt. 'Loose Ends' is about unfinished business and the attempts by Delroy (William Mapother), Sheriff Napier (David Andrews) and Ellstin Limehouse to make sure their deeds won't come back to bite them. Like 'Watching the Detectives', the episode has the characters' messes catch up with them. And like that episode, it also moves the plot forward and reveals character in a couple of absolutely outstanding setpieces.
'Loose Ends' opens with Delroy the pimp and his girls bungling a robbery that leaves Krystal (Erin Anderson) dead. Delroy attempts to kill Ellen May (Abby Miller) too, but she seeks shelter with Ava Crowder. Meanwhile, Raylan, told by Art to leave Quarles alone, attempts to track down Tanner Dodd (Brendan McCarthy), the fugitive responsible for the car bomb that put Sheriff Napier ahead in the polls. Boyd, who pointed Raylan in Tanner's direction, seeks to reinvigorate his man Shelby's (Jim Beaver) campaign for Harlan county sheriff.
It all culminates in a terrific setpiece as Boyd crashes a town hall meeting and excoriates Napier for being a 'company man', while stressing his own criminal career began with his arrest for trade union work. It's a scene reminiscent of Mags Bennett's greatest moment of glory in Season Two, and Walton Goggins does as well with it as Margo Martindale did. Portraying a character performing a character isn't easy, and Boyd's speech is obviously disingenuous - his character is not reducible to blue-collar folksiness - but it's rousing all the same, and another of the by now alarmingly regular proofs that keeping Walton Goggins on board beyond the pilot was the best decision Justified ever made.
The other stuff is great too. Ava Crowder's rescue from the Season One scrappy heap continues to do wonders for me, as her transformation into hard-bitten crime queen runs up against her compassion for brutalised women, a product of her own history. Raylan, meanwhile, gets to share a wonderfully written, terrifically acted final scene with Limehouse, in which he proves no match for the butcher. The anger and hurt in Raylan's insistence that Limehouse telling him insulting stories about his mother 'would upset [him]' is something else. All in all, a great episode on the way to what I hope - not against hope, I think - will be a stunning finale.
The Justifiedteam know how to craft an episode. That isn't just a platitude. As episodes have become mere chunks of a larger ongoing story, their internal dramatic structure has declined. Take Game of Thrones, whose first four episodes are pretty much nothing but exposition and world-building. It pays off in the latter half of the season, but a viewer who hasn't read the books might have given up by then. Or True Blood, which seems to mostly have abandoned intra-episode dramatic arcs for, well, stuff happening for an hour bookended by cliffhangers.
Justified outdoes those shows by striking a middle ground between one-offs and a larger myth arc: episodes develop one theme, story or character while simultaneously moving the main plot forward. (There were pure monster-of-the-week episodes in the first season, but no more.) 'Watching the Detectives' is a fine example: a breather episode in which we get to spend time with some neglected characters, it also moves the main plot forward by getting Boyd in trouble, showing us another side of Ellstin Limehouse, and murdering the hypotenuse.
Ah, yes: poor Gary. I liked him back when he was the sensible, grounded anti-Raylan: before, that is, he lost all his money and was chased by some very scary people, and before he fell in with Wynn Duffy and sent killers after his rival in love. The pathetic man holding poorly attended motivational seminars that we see at the end of 'The Man Behind the Curtain' hardly seems like the same person, but then Gary was always about appearances. It seems oddly appropriate that he would end up on the front lawn of the house he shared with Winona, shot through the heart by Quarles as a 'message' to Raylan.
In 'Watching the Detectives' Raylan has to deal with not one but two internal investigations. The local police department suspects him of killing Gary, and Quarles's men try to frame him for that crime by leaving murder weapons around Winona's place and using a bullet that bears his fingerprints. Meanwhile an FBI agent (Stephen Tobolowsky) believes Raylan is a dirty marshal in Boyd Crowder's pocket, and enlists our first-season friend David Vasquez (Rick Gomez) in his investigation. Other plot developments include a conspiracy to frame Boyd for an attempt on the life of Sheriff Napier (David Andrews) and Quarles's possibly final break with his Detroit superiors.
Letting us see Raylan's frequently extra-legal approach to law enforcement catch up with him is a blast, frankly, and it gives us more time with his colleagues: Art, bristling at Agent Barkley's suggestion that he's running a less than tight ship; Tim, giving Raylan a hard time while still letting him escape to cover up evidence and blatantly not caring about the FBI's opinion. The collision between Raylan's ways and proper procedure is a welcome reminder that far from being some sort of superhero he still is a 'lousy marshal but a good lawman'. And he's damn cool all the same.
Justified's third season is different. Having far more players has led to some characters dropping under the radar. Winona's token appearances have culminated in her first non-show, while Rachel and Tim seem to take turns assisting/annoying Raylan in alternate episodes. Where Season Two always returned to Mags Bennett and her convenience store as a locale, Season Three is more dynamic, with constantly shifting alliances, characters, and places.
Place is what 'The Man Behind the Curtain' is all about. As the episode opens we meet Raylan, now living above a bar instead of his old motel room and mightily ticked off at the noise. (As the show has moved into its third season with Raylan still not having an actual stable place to live, the juxtaposition between his reluctant rootedness in Harlan and his peripatetic existence - between cases, thugs and women - has shown us his conflict between growing up and perpetual adolescence: the former symbolised by Winona and the baby, the latter by his job.) Then there's Quarles, kicked out of his base of operations by Raylan's meddling, and Boyd, who complains he doesn't want to keep coming down to Noble's Holler and whose bar is shut down by the bent local sheriff.
The episode throws even more veteran character actors into the mix. This time round we get Stephen Tobolowsky as an FBI man trying to stop Raylan from messing with addition #2: Sammy Tonin (Max Perlich), the feeble son of Quarles's boss and adoptive father, has come down to Harlan to check on the Detroit man's enterprise, which is proving less profitable than expected. In truth, Quarles has proved far less clever than he thought: having alienated not a few people in Harlan and raising Raylan's ire by trying to bribe him, he's still got the upper hand but is beset in a way he wouldn't have thought possible.
All that analysis, I suppose, is partly to distract from the fact that I didn't like 'The Man Behind the Curtain' very much. The A-plot - Raylan's attempt to get to Tonin - is flimsy and leaves something of a hole at the centre of the episode. Boyd's struggle with Tillman Napier (David Andrews), the Harlan sheriff who's in Quarles's pocket, props the episode up; but were it not for the fact that the previews made next week's offering look like a ball, I'd be a mite disappointed.
'When the Guns Come Out' is a breather episode dealing with the aftermath of the fairly momentous happenings of 'The Devil You Know' and 'Thick as Mud'. But it's far from filler: the episode allows us to get to know our hero better, brings back some of the Justified's trademark humour, and pushes the plot forward in ways that will surely pay off down the line. It isn't particularly suspenseful, but I can deal with that.
But before we get to all that: Tim is back! I've complained repeatedly about Jacob Pitts being absent from Justified for much of this season, seeing it as a general problem the show has with ignoring some of its recurring characters to focus on colourful one-offs. And while Tim Gutterson is a one-scene wonder here, he popped in just to remind me why I kind of love his character: he's wry, pragmatic and not in awe of Raylan, to whom he may well feel superior. (And as a marshal, he probably is.)
In 'When the Guns Come Out', one of Boyd's travelling oxycontin clinics is hit by gunmen who kill two men and a working girl, but her colleague manages to survive unnoticed by the murderers. Boyd and Ava, realising that Quarles, the obvious suspect, is too smart to make such a move, suspect Ellstin Limehouse. Meanwhile, Raylan has to cope with Winona's departure at the end of 'Thick as Mud', and we see an angry, hurt man whose request for some time off is not initially granted by Art, who wants him to sort out the oxy situation in Harlan.
The oxy plot never gets too tense: there's no real sense of danger as Raylan faces down the gunmen, although the episode also features one of Justified's best action sequences, in which Raylan and a criminal wrestle in a moving trailer. Instead, the episode reveals character: Raylan, who channels his heartbreak into suspecting Winona of theft; Winona herself, who has accepted she cannot raise her child around Raylan's job; Boyd and Ava, calculating but perhaps overmatched; and Limehouse, who sees his caution - always being in the know, not openly waging war lest white people threaten his holler - threatened by a hotheaded subordinate. And then there's the hilarious final twist, one of the most fun moments on this show in quite some time. No complaints from me, no sir.
This week Justified gave us the long-awaited first confrontation between Robert Quarles and Boyd Crowder, and it was awesome. That alone would have made 'Thick as Mud' a good episode, but the A-plot - which focused on Dewey Crowe (the always-welcome Damon Herriman) being preyed on by ruthless organ harvesters - was pretty excellent too.
After the criminals who broke Dickie and Dewey out of prison in 'The Devil You Know' saw their plans fall apart, they decide to make some cash by organ-harvesting. Dewey wakes up with surgical scars on his abdomen and is told by Lance (Clayne Crawford) that his kidneys have been removed, but he can buy them back if he comes up with $20,000 in the next couple of hours. This leads to Dewey frantically robbing electrical retailers, convenience shops, and strip clubs until Raylan catches up with him.
Who couldn't adore Dewey Crowe? As Raylan says in 'The Devil You Know', Dewey 'wants you to know he's bad, but doesn't have it down yet'. His bumbling incompetence - getting old after three seasons, let's face it - is given a twist in 'Thick as Mud' as he's made genuinely violent and dangerous by his conviction that time is running out. Even so, his insistence that he's 'a desperate man' smacks of play-acting on a certain level, and the plotline's benign resolution (turns out Dewey still has his kidneys after all) takes us away from the potentially dark ending.
Meanwhile, Boyd traces Devil's betrayal back to Quarles and decides to send a message by brutalising the latter's henchman and taking a slice of his oxycontin business. His interest stirred, Quarles drops by Johnny's bar and makes Boyd a business offer, but is rebuffed when Boyd, initially courteous, calls him a 'carpetbagger'. It's a tense, funny and scary scene in which both actors are at their best. Neal McDonough in particular does some terrific work as he conveys Quarles's menace and outward courtesy when Boyd's insult sinks in.
Gio from Miami may not be the last outsider to find that he's underestimated Harlan. As Boyd tells Quarles, 'carpetbaggers in three-piece suits have been coming to Harlan for a long time. They have a habit of dying off like deer flies at the end of summer.' I don't know who will keep the upper hand in the confrontation between Detroit and Harlan, and for the first time, I think Quarles doesn't know either.
Last week I demanded the death of a character. Well, turns out the writers and I thought alike, and the result is a fast-paced episode that sees the main players - who've so far only sized each other up - collide for the first time.
In 'The Devil You Know', a prison guard (Todd Stashwick) and medic (Clayne Crawford) arrange for the escape of Dickie Bennett and, coincidentally, everyone's favourite moronic petty criminal, Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman), to get their hands on the Bennett family fortune. Their plan begins to unravel, however, when Ellstin Limehouse - who keeps Mags's money - proves to be less than forthcoming and Raylan Givens starts snooping around.
In the B-plot, Devil (Kevin Rankin), displeased with the slim takings from Boyd Crowder's fledgling criminal outfit, decides to betray his leader to Robert Quarles, the man from Detroit. His attempt to get Johnny Crowder (That Guy David Meunier) on his side and ambush Boyd, however, goes exactly as well as you might expect.
Let's give it up for some of the supporting characters on this show. Dewey and Devil, both alumni of Boyd's neo-Nazi commando days (and with the rune tattoos to prove it), didn't seem like they'd return after the pilot, but both have played recurring roles - Dewey as a bumbling would-be gangster, Devil as an initially fanatically loyal, then increasingly disgruntled henchman to Boyd. They've helped sell the notion that gun thugs may be second-tier players, but they're far from faceless goons, even though things don't always go their way (has any plan by Dewey Crowe ever worked out?). It's sad that Rankin's character doesn't make it out of 'The Devil You Know', but his final scene with Boyd is compelling through both actors' sympathetic but - in Walton Goggins's case - quite merciless performance.
In 'The Devil You Know', Dickie finds out that Limehouse is a less altruistic friend of the family than he expected: taking advantage of Dickie's straits as a fugitive, Limehouse gives him only a small share of Mags's money and keeps the rest for himself. The conflict between the powerful Limehouse and friendless, penniless Dickie, now back in jail, is surely one to watch out for. Meanwhile, the opening exchange by proxy between Quarles and Boyd reveals both men's cunning: Quarles's, in poking the hornets' nest at little risk to himself, and Boyd's, in showing Devil's total inability to pull the wool over his eyes.
If there's a drawback to the episode, it's that Raylan is increasingly becoming a spectator in his own show: he's tracking down Dickie, but arrives only after the action, and does not impact the Devil-Boyd saga. Other characters, too, are taking a prolonged back seat. Winona and Art are taking the episode off, as is the now almost totally absent Tim (Jacob Pitts still gets opening credits billing, though). Rachel, at least, goes out on a fact-finding mission to Limehouse with Raylan, even if she only gets the token black person role.
In any case, 'The Devil You Know' has sketched out what will surely be the season's main conflict: Quarles versus Boyd versus Raylan. It'll be interesting, even if the focus of the show seems to have shifted to the criminals for now.
Three weeks in may be too early to judge Justified's third season, but I think we can already say the show feels vastly different than it did last year. In Season Two, everything came back to the Bennetts: Mags had a finger in every pie, and none of the central conflicts could be solved without unravelling her empire. By contrast, the new season lacks that central antagonist so far. It's multipolar and complex, and therein lie both its strengths and weaknesses.
'Harlan Roulette' sees Raylan attempt to catch fugitive Wade Messer (James LeGros), but in the process he comes upon Messer's employer, pawnshop owner Glen Fogle (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who pays addicts in oxycontin. Fogle murders J.T. (Mike Foy) in a tense and harrowing scene, inducing the man to play 'Harlan Roulette' in return for a bottle of pills. Fogle is eventually told to kill Raylan Givens by kingpin Quarles (Neal McDonough), leading to one of the Mexican stand-offs Justified continues to do well.
In the B-plot, Boyd Crowder's attempt to split Mags Bennett's money with Ellstin Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson) is frustrated by Limehouse's intransigence. To combat grumblings among his men, who haven't been paid, Boyd decides to take back a bar lost by his cousin Johnny (David Meunier).
So we've got four principal actors - Boyd, Limehouse, Quarles, Raylan - trying to control Harlan, each with their respective associates; and there's still Dickie Bennett, who may yet be able to reclaim a part of Mags's empire. 'Harlan Roulette' is another episode in a war of position, as Limehouse rebuffs Boyd's advances, the latter gains an asset, and Quarles and Raylan meet for the first time. Justified is still re-arranging the pieces, and it isn't boring by any means
But I think the stakes need to be raised. Let's be frank: the show should kill off a character. Right now the obvious candidate is Dickie: although Jeremy Davies's performance is terrific, the character's arc seems complete (unlike the still enigmatic Limehouse and Quarles). Moreover, his death would put Limehouse and Boyd at each other's throats, leaving Raylan to deal with an escalating struggle over territory and assets. I'm willing to see what the writers have in store for us, though.
If the current complexity of the show is a problem, that's in no small part because so many characters now share screentime. Winona makes a token appearance in this episode; Rachel, Tim and Art are entirely absent after being relatively prominent the previous week. Instead of fixing flaws like ill-defined supporting characters, the writers seem instead to have chosen to forget about them. I hope that'll be reversed.
Even though 'Harlan Roulette' leaves me a little uncertain, the episode has its share of terrific lines (Limehouse: 'You see, Wynn, that's why it's called organised crime!'). Although Raylan has been a little prickly of late, 'Harlan Roulette' is another great episode for an increasingly ruthless Boyd. The enigma of the character (white supremacist, born-again Christian, traitor against his father...) is brought out in a late scene when Devil (Kevin Rankin) wonders 'which Boyd Crowder I'm being asked to follow'. I'm not sure of the answer, but Walton Goggins's performance keeps me fascinated by the character.
From the beginning, Justified has struggled somewhat with integrating supporting players. I don't mean guest stars - virtually without exception, they've been exceedingly well-cast and thoroughly written. It's part of the regular cast that's been let down so far. The writers have gradually amended that - witness Ava's reincarnation as a badass crimelady - but there are still some weak spots: Winona first and foremost, but Raylan's colleagues are not far behind. By and large, they don't do much and we don't know much about them.
Well, 'Cut Ties' finally puts some meat on them bones. In the A-plot, Rachel and Art are both given a chance to shine after Bill Nichols (Michael Harding), a Marshal in charge of the Witness Protection programme in eastern Kentucky, is found murdered and Raylan's colleagues have to secure Nichols's charges. (Tim is for some reason not in the episode.) Raylan, meanwhile, teams up with his ex-girlfriend Karen Goodall (Carla Gugino), now a Deputy Director, to question a mob boss who may be involved in the murder. In the B-plot Boyd, still in prison, tries to get to Dickie Bennett to force the whereabouts of Mags's money out of him.
Art - a reliable presence on the show, but not seen in the field much so far - gets seriously dark this episode. After realising that the 'witness' he's supposed to protect murdered Nichols, Art goes medieval on his ass, beating information out of the suspect in a way that I found quite cringeworthy. I expect this sort of thing from Raylan - who is, after all, 'a lousy marshal but a good lawman' - but seeing the usually by-the-book Art cross the line in this way was shocking. Effective, but shocking. It helps that the perp is so unlikeable, but I like pretending that at least in TV-land, the authorities are there to help and protect us. Rachel, too, is improved as a character just by acting capably and professionally.
The addition of Gugino to the episode is a little strange: she's decidedly underused, which is a shame considering Carla Gugino is super-awesome. I don't just mean that I've seen Sin City, take from that what you will, but that Gugino is always a charismatic presence. It'd be a shame if Karen Goodall didn't return - her arc in this episode alone feels weirdly incomplete. As for Raylan, I really like his rekindled relationship with Winona. Not just because unlike a lot of people I don't feel Winona held on to the Idiot Ball throughout Season Two, but because it allows Raylan to develop as a character, as he has to think about becoming a father and steady partner. So I haven't at all got tired of the 'maybe we should find a new place' subplot yet.
Then there's Boyd, who provokes some African-American inmates in an amusing scene just to be put into solitary confinement, where he can get to Dickie. Boyd's menacing of Dickie - and his encounter with the newly-awesome Ava upon being released - clue us in that we're dealing with a more ruthless, less affable Boyd Crowder this season. But the revelation that Mags's money is held by Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson), a criminal who's revealed to be quite vicious in the episode's final scene, means they're facing quite a challenge.
All in all, I like how the pieces are falling into place. Season Three is more multipolar than Season Two - which rightly focused on the mesmerising Margo Martindale as Mags Bennett - but the larger number of players is shaping up to be a good thing. Bring on Episode 3.
(Contains spoilers.) It may have become obvious here and there that this blog is a massive fan of FX's Justified. The Season Two finale, 'Bloody Harlan', was not the best episode of a generally terrific season, but it was still an action-packed hour of television that boldly killed off several characters and removed others from the action for the foreseeable future by non-lethal means. As such, the first challenge Season Three set itself was to get the show's dynamic back together.
It's no surprise, then, that Tuesday's season premiere, 'The Gunfighter', mostly rearranged the pieces. The show, as you may know, is about old-school US Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), who is forced to return to his native south-eastern Kentucky after publicly shooting a Miami gun thug in dubious circumstances. There, he must deal with crime both organised and disorganised and the family feuds he can't escape.
With the Bennetts taken out, Boyd Crowder's (Walton Goggins) reassembled Crowder clan has seized Mags's marijuana. After Boyd is arrested for attacking Raylan, his incompetent accomplices Devil (Kevin Rankin) and Raylan's father Arlo (Raymond J. Barry) try to sell the weed to a Tennessee dealer, but find that since they've failed to dry it it's now thoroughly mildew- and mould-infested and hence worthless. It seems that in the medium term, Boyd will definitely need to find some smarter underlings.
Meanwhile, Frankfort mobster Emmitt Arnett (Steven Flynn) finds himself beset by Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough), a man sent by certain people in Detroit who lent Arnett a lot of money. Turns out Arnett is behind on repaying a loan, and he sends Fletcher Nix (Desmond Harrington) to come up with the money by robbery and murder. Soon, Fletcher crosses paths with Raylan, who's still recovering from the gunshot wound he sustained in 'Bloody Harlan', and grumpy because he's been relegated to desk duty.
It's a somewhat ragged episode, but it sets up the season effectively and entertainingly. It's a shame that Harrington's mesmerising psycho doesn't make it out alive, but otherwise we know who our players will be. There's Raylan, who's thinking about getting a new place with his pregnant ex-wife/current girlfriend Winona (Natalie Zea); Boyd, now in prison; the new player from Chicago, who demonstrates his total ruthlessness at the end of the episode; and there's Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns), an ever-delightful minor player in previous seasons who looks to be moving to the centre.
And then, last but oh so definitely not least, there's Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter). Previously a weak character - primarily a damsel in distress in Season One, largely inactive in Season Two - Ava was previously not helped by Carter's uncertain, stereotypical performance. But it looks like with Boyd in prison, Ava will take over the business; she establishes her authority over Devil, who's unwilling to follow Boyd's orders in his absence, in a brutal and direct way that seems a statement of intent on the writers' part as much as anything else. And it's awesome. I'm already a fan of new Ava. It seems that the writers have decided to tackle the show's most persistent problem, its weak female characters, both by upgrading existing ones and by the addition of the legendary Carla Gugino in future episodes. It'll be excellent.
In a key scene of the second season of FX's Justified, a representative for a coal company faces a meeting with the people of Harlan County. She argues that the corporation will bring jobs to Harlan, 'make it fertile in infertile times', but people are not convinced. In an extraordinary performance, Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale) argues that blowing off mountaintops will bring 'the spoil', chemical devastation of local water and flora, and threaten the region's unique and isolated culture.
It's this compelling evocation of a place that,as I've said before, quickly turned FX's Justified into one of my favourite TV series. The latter half of the first season was excellent, using the serial format to build towards a bloody climax and a perfect closing scene. After cleaning up the fallout from the Season One finale, the Season Two opener, 'The Moonshine War', introduces us to the Bennett clan. Mags and her sons Dickie (Jeremy Davies), Doyle (Joseph Lyle Taylor) and Coover (Brad William Henke) grow and sell marijuana in Harlan County, and seek to expand their operations after the demise of the Crowder clan.
Let's give it up for Margo Martindale: in Mags, she has created a mesmerising villain. Behind a motherly, folksy exterior (at one point, she invites all of Harlan to a 'big 'ole whoop-tee-doo'), Mags is ruthless, enforcing the family's rule position and internal discipline without mercy. She wreaks terrible vengeance on one of her sons in retaliation for a foolish venture; later, she asks a hostile local, 'Wherever your boys grow up, do you think they’d be better off doing it with or without their daddy?'.
At the same time, Mags is capable of great love: she raises fourteen-year-old Loretta McCready (Kaitlyn Dever, in a promising performance) after murdering her father, and is looking to create a better future for her grandchildren's generation. She feels guilty for raising three miscreants: Doyle, a bent policeman, is the nearest thing to a good son, but Dickie is overambitious, vindictive and reckless (he is even treated to a variation on The Godfather's 'Never let anyone outside the family know what you're thinking' speech), while Coover, though a savant when it comes to marijuana, is by Mags's own admission a 'nitwit'. (In one of the season's funniest scenes, he throws a dead rat at Raylan's car to express contempt.)
None of this raving is to disparage last season's villains. M.C. Gainey as Bo Crowder was a brilliant, quietly menacing presence, but unlike the Bennetts, he was given less time to make his mark. Mags Bennett and her kin are present throughout the second season, ready to respond to every action by Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant). And of course there's another sometimes-villain, sometimes-hero: Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), finally promoted to regular cast, moves in with Ava (Joelle Carter) and struggles with the lure of his old outlaw ways.
It's the delicacy of the state of affairs that gives Justified its particular tension. In the insular world of Harlan, every action has consequences. The attempt by coal representative Carol Johnson (played with aplomb by the absurdly sexy Rebecca Creskoff) to buy properties held by Mags and Raylan's father Arlo (Raymond J. Barry, still brilliant and now with more to do) increases tension between the parties and threatens to rekindle the feud between the Bennett and Givens clans. Raylan's promise of help to Loretta, whose storyline is reminiscent of last year's indie hit Winter's Bone, draws him into the machinations of the Bennetts, leading to violence.
Season Two deepens the world of Harlan County, bringing it to life more and fleshing out characters and tensions, and it is in this sense absolutely better than Season One. Granted, like the first season, it has a couple of stand-alone episodes that drag down the overall experience: 'The Life Inside', the best of these, deals with a pregnant convict who escapes to give birth in freedom; the worst, 'For Blood or Money', tries and fails to give Raylan's colleague Rachel Brooks (Erica Tazel) more definition.
There's Justified's biggest problem: it has a couple of characters whom the writers cannot or will not develop. Rachel and Tim Gutterson (Jacob Pitts), both billed as main stars, are well portrayed by their respective actors, and one would very much like to know more about them: but the writers do not integrate them properly. Since they are of equal rank with Raylan, it's somewhat irritating to see them play second fiddle to the lead. (An exception, late in the season, is Tim's 'nanny duty' to stop Raylan from going after a group of criminals, which reveals that Raylan is quite possibly the least mature and responsible person at the Marshals office.) Raylan's ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) also continues to be a weak character despite the actress's capable performance.
It was a foregone conclusion that Justified would eventually touch on Harlan County's history of coal mining and trade union struggles, well known from the Oscar-winning 1976 documentary Harlan County, USA. We knew that Raylan and Boyd 'dug coal together' when they were nineteen, and Season Two sees Boyd returning to deep mining, with the possibility of death or injury, as well as the temptation to lay hands on the company's wealth, ever present. The locals plainly do not believe the philanthropy the mining company feigns to gain access to their coal, and the anger over their poverty and impotence provides a crucial backdrop to crime in the region.
The season ending is, perhaps, a little too neat, providing far more closure than the finale of the first season. But with the deep wounds many characters have sustained this time around, a breather, a new beginning, is not the worst of things. When Justified returns in 2012, I'll be watching.
I'm a country bumpkin. I grew up in a village of 250 people which was nevertheless something of a metropolis in the area, boasting a church, a pub, a shop, a fire station and a bank (except for the church and the fire station, these have all closed). When I was eleven years old, we went to Paris on student exchange. Before we left, my mother asked one of my friends to look after me on the trip. It was my first time in a big city, you see.
Maybe that's why I like all things hillbilly. I certainly fell in love with Justified, set in rural eastern Kentucky, rather quickly. Ultimately, I think that's down to a sense of place the show absolutely nails: its fictionalised Harlan County feels like an actual community, with all the rifts and tensions that implies. Everybody knows everybody, and loyalties and grudges go back a long way, just like where I'm from. Although we don't shoot each other as much.
In the pilot, based on an Elmore Leonard short story, Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) shoots a gun thug in Miami after giving him twenty-four hours to leave town, and for his sins is transferred to his home state of Kentucky. In Harlan, white supremacists led by Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) bomb a church. Raylan is assigned the case because Boyd and he 'dug coal together when we were nineteen'. Now Raylan must bring down Boyd and protect Ava (Joelle Carter), who has just shot her husband, Boyd's brother Bowman, to death at the dinner table.
Raylan is rooted in eastern Kentucky, much though he would prefer he wasn't. His ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) lives there, as does his estranged father Arlo (Raymond J. Barry). On Justified, actions cause ripples throughout family, work and criminal networks, often coming back to haunt the characters. When Boyd tells Ryan that 'you get out of Harlan County by tomorrow noon, or I'll come looking for you', he confirms the claims, rooted in history, kinship and violence, that the parties have on Harlan.
The characters' feuds are often rooted in hopelessness and economic deprivation. As Ava says of her late husband's violence towards her, 'that all started as soon as he realised he was never getting out of Harlan'. Boyd's explanation for his racism, too, appeals to loss and defeat:
It's all changed. Mining's changed. No more following a seam underground - it's cheaper to take the tops off mountains and let the slag run down and ruin the creeks. You remember the picket lines, don't you? The courts backing the company scabs and gun thugs... Whose side do you think the government's always been on, Raylan, us or the people with money? And who do you think controls that money? Who do you think wants to mongrelise the world? The Jews.
That's not to suggest Justified is an austere social drama. In painting Harlan as a feuding society, the show creates something remarkably akin to the world of the Icelandic sagas: hard men and women competing with each other for power, money and influence by appealing to kinship, friendship, history and plain fear. And chase scenes, standoffs and shootouts as well as verbal duels that can be as dangerous as those involving guns make for thrilling television.
It's fortunate that the series ultimately prefers wry humour to grimness. When the characters come under sniper fire on the Mexican border in 'Long in the Tooth', one comments that 'Well, that's not going to help tourism!'. Another scene, in which Raylan tells a chap wearing his hat that 'Mister, that's a ten-gallon hat on a twenty-gallon head', also springs to mind.
Timothy Olyphant gives a compelling performance as Raylan Givens. He has cowboy swagger enough and to spare, but that's not all he brings to the table. As Winona puts it, 'You do a good job of hiding it, and I suppose most folks don't see it, but honestly, you're the angriest man I have ever known'. Olyphant portrays Raylan as a man whose cool exterior masks the frustrations that he takes out on criminals. That sort of character could easily tip into outright villainy, but the actor and the writers have not dropped the ball yet.
It's not all sunshine and roses: as of Season One Winona is a seriously underwritten character, and Raylan's colleagues Rachel (Erica Tazel) and Tim (Jacob Pitts) mostly remain ciphers. But after the excellent series finale, I'm looking forward to catching up with the second season.
