Justified: "The Moonshine War"

Once I figure out if shooting a gun while drenched in gasoline would set my body afire, I will be able to offer up a review of the second season premiere, after the jump...

Some television seasons end with lots of threads hanging, many storylines that must be addressed in the following season's opening episode. Justified's first season was not one of those seasons. Sure, the season ended with Boyd Crowder running out of Raylan's custody, but it wasn't meant to serve as a cliffhanger so much as a statement: a Marshal's work is never done.

Yet the first ten minutes, give or take, of tonight's premiere, were devoted to resolving the meth labs arc from last season, with Raylan tracking down Boyd and the remaining Meth Trade Players. Now, this ultimately involves Raylan returning Miami, and discussion of whether he would resume his old post. I suppose that this could be meant to serve as some sort of commentary on how far Raylan has come, or how comfortable he feels in Kentucky (or any number of variations on this theme), yet I didn't really feel this was adequately expressed, nor did it really seem to have much effect on the rest of the episode. In fact, I would have preferred if the show had summed all of this up with just that shot of Raylan in his hotel room, body outlines still on the floor, at that was the only really affecting scene in the entire cold open.

Speaking of the of the rest of the episode, how did it hold up? I think it worked better as a season premiere than it did as a standalone hour, and I don't just mean this in the stories it had to tell, but the way in which it told them. Last season, Justified frustrated many of it fans by offering an awesome pilot, which introduced many serialized elements, and then spent the next five or six episode telling less engaging stories before getting back into more heavily serialized storytelling. Yet one of these standalone episodes, “Blowback” (which was actually the 8th episode), deftly blended the serialized and the standalone, and it was one the best episodes of the season.

“The Moonshine War” is obviously indebted to this episode, as the standalone case serves as a way to introduce the Bennet clan, the big bad of this season. The standalone case here, concerning a sex offender, was creepy enough to be somewhat engaging, though there wasn't enough screen time devoted to it in order for it to make much of an impact. Instead, the focus was placed in large part of the Benett clan, who at this point are a bit too generic, and whose backwoods nature borders on caricature. Yet it was in their last scene in which the Benetts (or at least Mag and Dickie) became far more engaging. Having the bad guys watch calmly while their victim dies is a trope at this point, but their was something about how it was presented here – both the words and the tone of Mag as she kept talking, and the fact that Dickie was there as well, making the killing a family affair – that was simultaneously creepy and riveting.

But that's the way it goes with setup episodes such as these. They are a necessary evil in the television medium, individual hours that don't make much of an impact in and of themselves, yet are essential for the story to be told.

Yet there also existed problems even with storylines that have already been established. While I am sure that there is something in the works for Boyd Crowder (how can their not be? He was originally supposed to die in the pilot, but Walton Goggins was so engaging the Graham Yoast brought him back), yet here he was limited to the unnecessary prologue and the closing scene in which we see him as mine worker. Yawn. Similarly, while last season dealt in part with Raylan Givens' attempts to control his anger, I didn't feel it bubbling under the surface tonight as it usually does, with the exception of the scene between him, Coover, and Dickie. And what about his quick-draw nature? I know he moved slightly past this during last season, but he seemed to return to his trigger happy self in the closing episodes, and I would think that he would still be on that path. And yet he didn't pull his gun once. Interesting...

What did everybody else think?


Additional Thoughts:

“All right, I tried to be reasonable. Give me your word in ten seconds, or I'll shoot you in the head.”

“You should think about an Uzi”

“Maybe get it from hideous to just plain awful.”

So why doesn't Rachel drink? I'm not sure if we've learned that before or not.

“Must have been official. You weren't smiling.”

“You and your hat.” Take that, Elmore Leonard!

“Yeah. Shit. You caught me. I'm stealing gas. I don't know why I do it. It's not like I can't afford it.”

I would like to try some of Mag's “apple pie.”

I can sympathize with Raylan having to hear all those semi horns from his place; I live near 3 train tracks.