Previously on Justified: Art was shot, Dewey claimed to kill Wade Messer, Rachel and Vasquez decided to go after Boyd with Raylan’s help, Boyd met Mary Steenburgen, Ava was flipped as a CI for the marshals against Boyd, Raylan planned on moving down to Florida in a few weeks.
Okay guys, this is it. The final season of Justified. Everyone ready?
Tonight’s episode of Justified starts with Winona (Natalie Zea) talking to her and Raylan’s daughter Willow about her daddy being tough, but “no match for the graveyard shift.”
“I told you I’d keep in touch.”
Raylan (Timothy Olyphant), meanwhile, is working across the border in Mexico trying to find witnesses to the murder of Johnny et all last season. The Federales do not appreciate his efforts, telling him his badge don’t mean shit. Raylan does the calm thing and goes to the guy asking for—-who am I kidding, he rams his car into the Federale’s, ties him up, puts him in his trunk, and drives him to the United States where Raylan’s marshals’ star “means something.”
Boyd (Walton Goggins) wakes up early having slept in his office and there is a FINE sequence of him getting dressed in the morning serving purely as fan service. (FX is very good at fan service.) After this display, Boyd and one of his newer henchmen sit in his truck outside of a bank. Boyd’s stance on smoking seems to have changed since using a cigarette pack as a hiding spot for Emulex last season. Well, you know that shit’ll kill you.
Inside First River Bank, Boyd goes to open a safety deposit box. After quoting a less than favorable Thomas Jefferson quip about banking institutions, Boyd is shown to his new box. Whilst Boyd gets the lay of the inside of their vault, his henchman causes just enough of a commotion for Boyd to be left alone after declining the offer of a private room. Now, I don’t know how they do it down in Kentucky, but here in Kansas, a customer is left alone with their safety deposit box as a matter of course, private room or no. Maybe it’s the string of bank robberies in Boyd’s past that makes them leery of leaving him alone near the valuables. But then again, Boyd spends a goodly portion of his time spraying a substance on the outside of some of the boxes. Naturally, Deputy Tim Gutterson’s (Jacob Pitts) on the case photographing Boyd’s comings and goings from the bank.
Cue the theme song.
Back at Ava’s house, Boyd attempts to mend fences by mending her front door. FX’s fan service department must be working overtime this episode. Ava (Joelle Carter) notes that she had someone else in charge of fixing up her house. She then changes the subject, asking if he wants to have something to drink. He asks her to join him in having a beer, but she declines. He offers her the chance to talk about what’s happened to her or even anything at all. But the real question here is who opts for drinking vodka alone in their kitchen when there’s CI work to be done (and oogling, but multitasking is supposed to be something women are good at.)
Rachel (Erica Tazel) has taken to being in charge of the marshals quite well. She, Vasquez, and Raylan are discussing the case surrounding Boyd, specifically the Federale. Raylan’s been given a witness to what happened in Mexico last season in Dewey Crowe, in exchange, the Federale has been set up in an American prison so that he doesn’t disappear before he can give testimony. Vasquez (Rick Gomez) tells Raylan Dewey’s being released. Raylan offers to be there when he gets out. Vasquez points out that after the case Dewey won against the marshals service last year, Raylan in particular, his boss has requested that Raylan keep a distance of a thousand feet in regards to Dewey. Raylan asks how he’s supposed to do his job with those type of requirements and Vasquez tells him he had to tell him not to do it. “So what are you going to do?”
“¿Dónde esta, Dewey?”
Everyone’s favorite dumbass hillbilly is back. Raylan tells Dewey (Damon Herriman) that the Mexican government wants to extradite him for the murder of Jonny Crowder among others. Dewey, of course, claims he’s never been to Mexico and maintains he did not kill Jonny. Despite being told by Raylan that he’s “a card in fate’s right hand,” (nice title drop) Dewey refuses to finger Boyd in this matter and runs off to catch the bus.
Dewey is unhappy to learn that his bar has been seized by the government. Naturally, he then goes down to a local diner and finds one of his former “bar girls” and thinks seeing finding his turtledog and then her must be a sign from God.
“If we stay in this ghost town … how long you think it’s gonna be before we turn into ghosts ourselves?”
Boyd’s painting Ava’s porch. Ava’s back at the beauty salon. She “needed a reason to get dressed before four in the afternoon.” Ava tries to leave to go to her job, rather than engage in a five minute conversation with Boyd. Boyd says “Harlan’s dying...if there’s a chance for us, it’s not here.” He offers her the chance to go somewhere away with him if he comes into some money. She asks where they could possibly go and his offers someplace with “white sand and blue water” and promises her that there’s not gonna be trouble. “You sayin’ that like we ain’t dead already?”
“Boyd would not be caught dead near a hair salon.”
Ava sets a woman’s hair at the salon, and then goes out the back to have a smoke. Raylan comes around to talk to her. She’s not happy to see him, then again, she ain’t been happy to see him since what, end of season one? Raylan has come because Ava has not been answering his texts (he’s been posing as her cellular service) and he wants to update her and vice versa so that there’s no surprises. Ava tells him that she’s afraid of saying the wrong thing and Boyd shooting her. Raylan doesn’t think that’s likely, not that he seems too concerned should it come to pass, and asks over any new changes in Boyd’s life. Ava mentions a new truck, but that’s all she has. Raylan asks her to keep an eye on the Dewey/Boyd sitch and informs her he’s setting up an outpost at Arlo’s. Also tells her to be cool.
“Robbin’ me at gun point was not on good terms.”
Boyd walks into his bar terribly unhappy that part of his crew’s gone missing during the work shift as he’s so hungry he “could eat the ass outta a low flyin’ duck.” Upon seeing him, Boyd throws Dewey against the wall and has Carl frisk him. Dewey thought they left on good terms. Learning that Boyd thought different, Dewey shows his turtledog to Boyd and tells him that it’s a powerful sign. Boyd asks why Dewey is not sitting in a prison cell after confessing to killing Wade Messer. Dewey tells him that the marshals can’t do anything as part of his settlement and that all he wants is back in Boyd’s operation. Boyd has Carl show Dewey the door.
A potential buyer from Maryland (Garret Dillahunt) comes by looking to buy Arlo’s house at just the wrong time. Raylan accuses the buyer of having stolen money. Raylan refuses to sell the man the house after telling him the story as to how his family came to own and keep the land it’s built on. Smart money’s on this not being the last time we see the buyer from Maryland.
Tim goes to arrest Cyrus and the man makes a run for it out the back. Raylan puts a stop to that with a shovel. "Halt, US Marshals.”
Carl is not happy with Boyd’s new plan. Especially now Cyrus the drug dealer has gone missing. Dewey’s playing pool in the other room. “You want back in, I got a job that needs doin’.”
“Good things happen to those who wait for stupid.”
Raylan and Tim see Boyd and Dewey leaving. They choose to go after Dewey. Dewey’s driving is hilariously. Raylan tells Tim, Dewey used to work at Disneyland as Goofy in a water show. Tim remarks that he must have peaked early. Dewey is pulled over by KSP and acts like an ass when officer asks for his license because he thinks his agreement with the marshals applies to other law enforcement agencies. In return, Dewey’s car gets its tires shot out. The Marshals speed by KSP to catch Dewey and Dewey drives off the side of the road.
Tim reminds Raylan of his tether, Raylan says he thought it was a figure of speech. Raylan hits Dewey’s face against the steering wheel, in an effort to help him out of the car. What a nice return to the first season! Tim throws a bag at Dewey and asks him what’s in it. KSP catches up to them. Raylan tries to level with Dewey saying that Boyd doesn’t give a shit about him. “Boyd gives a big shit about me.” Raylan orders Dewey to open the bag. Dewey does to find the bag full of clothes.
Across town at First River Bank, Boyd puts his ski mask on and he and two henchmen go into the bank. One guy brings the hook from the truck into the vault. The spray Boyd used earlier is revealed as a UV spray, revealing the fingerprints on the wall. They pull the outer protection from the wall of the bank and take exactly four security boxes. Tim and Raylan arrive long after the job is done. “Good call, Gutterson.”
“If you didn’t know about it, you’re of no use to us and you’re going back to prison.”
Ava arrives on the bridge after dark to meet with Raylan. Raylan asks her why just the boxes. Ava has no clue what he’s talking about. Ava asks how she should go about getting information from Boyd without being suspicious. She makes a sarcastic remark as to her acting abilities Raylan tells her she’s the same person as when he came back to Kentucky having just shot Bowman. “I knew I would shoot him, I’d had enough.” Raylan tells Ava to pull the same sort of deception on Boyd as she pulled on Bowman.
Boyd’s crew open the boxes to find a bunch of paperwork, notebook, ledgers…. Carl laments that they got the wrong box asking after the money.
Raylan goes to visit Art (Nick Searcy), and offers him a drink. Since Art’s on the mend, he has to decline. Raylan’s daughter Willow and has been baptized as Catholic.
Raylan doubts that they’ll get Boyd by the book. Art tells him that he would not have greenlit Raylan being Ava’s handler or Ava being a CI and admits that he may never come back to being chief. He tells Raylan that if he goes after Boyd he’ll only ever see his daughter from the wrong side of some prison glass or, the bullet will find Raylan instead. He also tells Raylan that when you do the job for as long as he has, things are bound to stop going your way.
“I told you that the JOB was important.”
Dewey makes a big stink to go yell at Boyd. Raylan’s broken Dewey’s jaw again. Dewey doesn’t know why, but he’s tired of it. Dewey asks if Boyd’s his friend. Boyd tells him he is. Dewey says he wants to go back to Crowder’s Commandos. Boyd tells him whatever they were hoping for, those days have passed.
“I never thought that it would be this hard. It seems like maybe those good days are gone forever.”
Boyd tells Dewey to look at the picture of the miners from the beginning of the episode and explains that his grandfather is in that photo. Has him look into their eyes. When Dewey replies that “you can’t even see their eyes,” Boyd kills him with a bullet to the back of the head. Carl comes in at the gunshot and asks what happened.
“I think I couldn’t trust him anymore.”
Boyd is certain that the marshals will follow him so he has Carl “wait until twenty minutes after I leave and then you roll him up in a carpet and make him disappear.” Of course where he leaves to is to stare at Ava while she sleeps.
Music:
Over the sequence with Raylan taking the Federale across the border and Boyd getting dressed through his arrival at the bank is ‘Protection’ by Lucinda Williams.
My thoughts:
That was SUCH a good episode! It was a funny, smart, a little melancholy both in knowing that the show will soon come to an end and in how the characters have resigned themselves to their fates.
Walton Goggins, my goodness he was gorgeous this episode! And so many scenes allowing the audience a look at his well defined body. Is it just me, or does his hair look closer to the way it did in some seasons of The Shield now that he has a shorter cut?
I love that they’re tying it all back to the first season with Dewey’s nose/jaw getting broken, Boyd robbing banks, Ava working at the hair salon, while at the same time changing it to show how the roles have changed since the start of the show for some of the characters, while remaining stationary for others.
I did not see Dewey’s death coming. Well, I should say it would not have surprised me if he was going to be killed before the end of the season, but I was a little surprised they chose to kill him first episode back. I don’t think there’s any way that Boyd can get away with this crime unless he takes extra care that hasn’t been seen for a couple of seasons at the very least, to cover his and Dewey’s tracks. The marshals will certainly notice now if Dewey goes missing after all this effort and planning they have riding on him.
Of all the characters that I predict will make it to the end of the series without any more physical damage, I think Ava will be the one left standing in Harlan (of the characters we know/love.) Rachel will be made the permanent chief marshal because of, or in spite of, the way the Crowder case finally works out. Art will likely either settle into an uneasy retirement (possibly with consulting or PI work to keep him occupied) or go down in a blaze of glory attempting to apprehend Boyd before the final final showdown. (Because the final final was always going to be between Boyd and Raylan.) Something will come up to prevent Raylan from being with his daughter be it more work, showing he hasn’t changed all that much in the twenty-plus years Winona has known him, or be it the consequences of his feud with Boyd. (Sorry BoydxRaylan shippers, happy endings both sexual and non-sexual in nature will sadly, remain unfulfilled.) And as much as I would like to see Boyd survive the series, it would be the perfect bookend to both the show and the short story it’s based off of (“Fire in the Hole”) to have Boyd be shot in the heart by Raylan, possibly in Ava’s kitchen and possibly over some of her fine fried chicken.
Body Count: 1 - Dewey
In the coming weeks: Ava’s got one week to deliver or she’s going back to prison. Boyd offers her “it all.” Boyd pisses off the “Big Bad Wolf.” Dickie’s back. Ava and Boyd get back to making out.
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