Justified: "Cottonmouth"

Once I accustom myself to referring to weed as “herbal relief,” I'll offer up a review of tonight's episode, after the jump....

For those of you who have been watching Lights Out, you've probably noticed that the show has managed to chop up its story into more or less 13 equal pieces. Every hour is able to both accomplish something and push the story forward. (And for those of you who aren't watching Lights Out, why the hell not?) Justified took a similar approach tonight, and it makes me wish that this would be their standard M.O. from now on.

The show smartly eschewed any sort of standalone plot this week (the inclusion of which has made the past few episodes overly busy), and focused just on Raylan and Boyd, separate in their own stories. It is Raylan's story that takes the Lights Out-esque, segmented story approach. By having the “mystery” of sorts be Raylan's tracking of the check-cashing scheme, the show gave us a solidified story that served as the base for the furthering of dramatic and emotional tension in the Raylan-Bennett dynamic.

The result of this was a story that was equal parts funny and exciting, even if those two modes weren't intermixed. As easy as it is to respect the episode for telling its story in the way that it did, it must be said that this half of the story was a bit tepid at the onset. But once it got going, man was it intense. I'm sure I'll be unwillingly replaying in my mind for days that scene where Mags breaks Coover's fingers with a hammer. Even better, the show set up a great next step for the ongoing narrative: Raylan has now somewhat enlisted the aid of Loretta in his war against the Bennetts (or at least taken the preliminary steps in doing so). And when a drama such as this, which can go to some pretty dark places, gets children involved, well you just know we're going to experience something beautifully horrific before the season is out.

The other half of tonight's episode, which focused on Boyd, admittedly also followed the segmented story pattern – Boyd's crime caper is over, but his descent into crime is just beginning – but that's not what made it notable. Tonight, for perhaps the first time in the series run, Boyd became his own character. Now, I don't mean to imply that Boyd was static or one-sided prior to this – indeed, his moral battles with his father last season showed him to be a well-rounded character – but it is important to note that for the first time, he is existing in his own storyline. Last season, even if the show gave him his own internal struggles with the crime family, he was still presented as the antagonist to Raylan's hero. And even in the beginnings of this season, when Boyd was still by himself – and it felt like the show was struggling to figure what to do with now that the first season arc was over – we were still mostly interested in him as the criminal that Raylan had a hand in reforming. If he relapsed, we knew that Raylan would have to face off with him once again.

This is of course still a viable option – odds are good both that he and Raylan will become true enemies once again, and that he will somehow get involved with the Benentts before the season is over – but there is a notable difference here. Now the show is interested in Boyd's arc from nobody's angle but his own. Tonight Boyd had to accept the fact that despite all of his attempts to reform, he is, at his very core, a criminal, and nothing is going to change that. Yet he is not pure criminal – it seems that the only reason he stole the money was to help Ava keep her house. Boyd is an engaging, walking, talking moral ambiguous enigma, and as as long as the show keeps sight of that, its episodes will always remain entertaining. The only question now – and this arc's next little step – is whether or not he's going to bring Ava down with him.

But aside from all of this emotional drama, Boyd's plot tonight was also a masterstroke of storytelling, quickly creating a tense and exciting crime caper that only took up about 20-30 minutes of screen time. It of course helped that we cared about what this robbery attempt meant for Boyd's moral compass, as well as our concern over whether he lived or died, but it was also well-put together, both when it was letting us see what Boyd was up to (the various cell phone tricks) and when it didn't (notice the surprise the show generated by not letting us see Boyd mix up the contents of the bags of money and explosives).

All in all, this was the best episode of the season, and one of the best of the series. Though the first few episodes had me doubting this season's quality, it appears the show has returned to top form, and just at the right time.

What did everybody else think?


Additional Thoughts:

Another Lights Out/Justified comparison: When LO goes to commercial, the FX logo fades out, then the picture cuts to black. On Justified, the order is reversed. Weird, right?

“I thought it was some kind of monkey virus, like in that movie”

“Did you get confused?” “Do you understand mortgages and shit? 'Cause I don't.”

“You're like Hillbilly Whisperer. They should put you on Oprah.”

“You tased me, you son of a bitch.” “Well, I tried to shoot you first.”

Dogs, or as their known in Kentucky, hillbilly doorbells

I know this is too much to ask, but how cool would it have been for there to have been a scene between Jim Beavers and Timothy Olyphant? Knock on wood, there could still be one. (For those of you who are confused by this statement, click here.)