Once I make my own educated guess as to what Mag’s secret plan is, I’ll offer up a review of tonight’s episode, after the jump….
The centerpiece of tonight’s episode – both in the literal and figurative sense – was the town meeting at the church, where we saw Mags Bennet and Carol Johnson stare each other down while they attempted to persuade the residents of Harlan country to join their side in this coal war, while the other principle players – Raylan, Boyd, Eva, the rest of Bennet clan – look one, some supporting a particular side, others just trying to stay out of the way. This scene was the episode in micro-scale, as all of the action tonight either dealt with or spun off of the main narrative, which now seems focused in coal, not drugs like most would have predicted.
We have officially entered the heavily sterilized portion of the Justified season, and given that there are only five episodes left in the season, odds are we won’t see another mostly standalone episode this year. Yet what is interesting about this season – and what I think made this one significantly improved over the first – is the way that the story has been built up over the past few weeks, as the show has slowly introduced plot points that seem insignificant to the overall narrative at the time – Carol Johnson, Winona’s theft of the money – but have proven their importance over time. The coal angel has replaced the obvious and trite drug angle, and Winona’s money’s troubles have made Raylan irritable, causing him to lose his sense of professionalism.
But back to that scene, and the change in the overall narrative that it represents. “The Spoils” serves in part as a table-setting episode, in that it seems to be introducing all of these antagonism that will play out over the next few weeks, leaving certain dangling threads like the battle over the coal-land, and the stunned looks on Loretta’s face as she see Raylan, he potential hero, partake in acts of brutal violence. But it’s also an episode in its own right, as the introduction of Carol Johnson into Harlan County, while not over, has completed a first step. It was a fantastic hour, and it seems to hit that sweet spot between segmented storytelling and the ongoing narrative that the show. If the show can continue to produce hours like these for the rest of the season, it’ll be a lock for my Top Ten list of 2011.
“Far as I'm concerned, y'all deserve each other." – Raylan
As I said above, we got to see a new side of Raylan tonight: irritability. We have often see Raylan angry – that’s part of the show’s hook, after all – but never irritable, and as funny as some of the scenes with a hung-over Raylan were, they also point to oppressive nature of all that he has gone through in the past few weeks. As strong as he is, he can’t handle everything, and as the show goes on, and things get even hairier, you can bet that Raylan will drink even more, and pick fights with more frequency.
There were also a few nice beats for other characters tonight. As hard as Art’s suspicions about the money swap are on Raylan, they seem equally hard for Winona to deal with, and odds are that this might tear them apart once again. (Either that or Raylan will give into his obvious attraction to Carol.) Boyd continues to fight his past criminal ways, avoiding having to stoop to illegal means to carry out his new bosses’ wishes – for tonight, anyways. And as evil as Mags seems to be, and as sure as I am that Boyd’s guess that she’s up to something is correct, the show also tapped into the actual anger that exists in concerning corporate intervention, which leads to a much richer sense of place for the show.
And then there were the instance of back story, where we learned just why it is that the Givens and the Bennets seems to hate each other, and just how it was that Dickie came to have that limp. While it’s not the most original tale – and something about the origins of the family feud being based on moonshine running just seems a bit too farfetched, a tall tale that doesn’t belong in this show’s universe – much like the introduction of the coal mine plotline, it seems to enrich the show’s back story, building up this universe with its own back story.
“I leave Harlan, you give me a bag of money? Actually, I kinda like that deal.” – Raylan
The one subplot that I didn’t like was all of this talk about whether or not Raylan is going to leave Harlan and go back to Miami – or wherever. I didn’t buy this plot line when it was introduced in the premiere, and I didn’t think it improved tonight. The problem is that even though a show could exist with Raylan in any city, it wouldn’t have the flavor that it has while located in Harlan, so there’s no way that the show is going to relocate. While this plotline did provide a nice moment between Rayland and Helen, it really only seemed to be brought up tonight so that Arlo’s debt could be settled, and plot that was really crying out for resolution.
Yet this was a small compliant from a truly terrific episode, another classic in the Justified canon.
What did everybody else think?
Additional Thoughts:
“Yeah, I tracked your phone. It’s not like landing on the moon.”
“Nothing about beating the shit outta no teenager. Would that be okay, then?”
“The only thing we’re one the same side of is, like, this car.”
“It’s nice to see the work you’ve done on your boy’s self-esteem has paid off.”
“You ain’t gonna wear that to the meeting, are ya?”
“It’s the least Black Pike can do…after I saved you from that firecracker?”
Carol calls her cat “Cat.”
“That phone hasn’t worked for months. You would know that if you ever called.”
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