Justified: "The I Of The Storm"

Once I fight the urge to judge this episode through the lens of its final scene, I'll be able to offer up a more objective review, after the jump....

After two weeks complaining that Justified has yet to find a proper mix of the standalone and the serialized, and this has led to a problem in building up momentum for this season's big arc, it seems like Justified has finally found a format that works, but in a kind of episode that the show can't afford to do week in and week out.

Let me explain, starting with the standalone case. Though the build up was bit slow, once Dewey Crowe donned a cowboy hat – and Raylan's identity – things really started to get interesting. More than that, things started to get funny. Justified has been funny in the past, but never as consistently funny as it was tonight (and that includes the episode where Tony Hale guest-starred). Not only did the humor help to enliven a case that might have fallen flat without it, but it also shows that Justified in trying to expand its wings, to try and tell a variety of stories. Based on the promotions that FX has been running there is one (some?) critics that have compared Justified to the “great ones” – The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, and The Shield. While I don't particularly agree with this – Justified still has to undergo significant growth in my book – but I do recall The Sopranos delving into comedy every once in a while, so I couldn't help but think that this was a solid step for the show towards 'great' status.

The other thing that this episode did that few in the past have was that it took the time to expand the community of Harlan County. Now we have obviously spent some time with the various residents of the county, but these have mostly been the criminals, those that Raylan has has to interact with and/or take down as part of being a deputy. But tonight we not only got introduced to Audrey's, the local whorehouse, but we also got references to the Dixie Mafia (want to bet they'll show up before the season ends?) and we got to see more of Boyd's place of employment, the mine.

Speaking of Boyd....

At the heart of this case was an issue of identity, albeit a superficial one, yet the show used this theme to reflect on Boyd, in what was the season's first real look at how the character has changed. In fact, in many ways this was Boyd's episode. While Dewey was a bad guy pretending to be a good guy for personal gain, many people are assuming the same is true for Boyd. To the show's credit, they don't make it readily clear whether Boyd really has reformed, and it adds a lot of mystery and momentum not only to the episode, but to the seasons as well.

Now, by the end of the episode it is clear Boyd is trying to be good. He is living with Eva in a financially, mutually beneficial arrangement, and he is living by her hard and fast rules. (How long do you think before Raylan relapses and sleeps with Eva again? This arrangement obviously bothers him, but he really is trying to stay true to Winona. This should interesting.) And he is trying to keep to himself at the mind, to just focus on his work and earn as honest buck. But then along comes Kyle (played by Scrubs season nine addition Michael Mosley), and in a bit of fanboy wonderment waxes on about Boyd's crime days. This causes Boyd to snap, dragging Kyle along through the window of his moving truck. Not only does this show the difficult time Boyd is having, and how, much like Raylan he has yet to let go of his anger, but given the kind of low key nature of the rest of the episode, this scene popped far more than it would have in a normally more tense episode.

At the end of the episode, we also saw how this case related to the ongoing narrative, as is turns out that it wasn't Boyd that tipped off the hijackers to the drug-smuggling bus, but rather two members of the Bennett clan, in a misguided attempt to make some easy money. This gives us a new angle to the Bennett clan: Mag might be a criminal mastermind, but the rest of the kin certainly aren't. This is yet another element that the show has laid down in order that it may blow up later down the line. The tension is mounting...

What did everybody else think?


Additional Thoughts:

From what I can tell, there are several Dave Allen's, but none of them are the one that we saw in tonight's cold open. Yet David Allen was credited as “himself” in the closing credits, so does anybody know who he is?

“Unless of course you roofied me. Did you roofie me Raylan?”

“What are you, the Ski Mask Police?”

“Back at Audrey's. I feel like I'm 13 again.” “Late bloomer, huh?”

“Well, the good news is that you seem to be in the right place....”

“Where the hell is you?” is the backwoods version of “Where you at?”

Boyd has never met a Jew in his life. That's backwood demography for you, folks.