Season 3, Episodes 6-7
“This here's the carrot. What's the stick?”
Perhaps my favorite part of any serialized narrative – especially those that are only season-long in length – is the point where it all starts coming together, where the story bits start coalescing into a more recognizable whole. As a fan of serialized television, it feels like a payoff seeing those bits that I couldn't make heads or tails off coming into focus and showing their worth, a validation of the time I spent watching the show as worthwhile. For Justified specifically, this moment is perhaps the second biggest of any season, right after whatever explosive resolution the writers come up with. The show is rightly invested in giving viewers an organic story worth watching, and while it makes for a great payoff, it also makes for frustrated early viewing, and that makes these episodes something of a relief as well.
Last week, Ryan McGee blew up the internet (okay, the corner of the internet that inhabit) when he wrote a piece for The AV Club where he essentially fingered The Sopranos for causing a giant shift in television narratives thanks to its perceived reliance on heavily serialized storytelling, a shift that has cause certain shows to lose focus on crafting good episodes for the sake of crafting a good overall show. It's a piece that caused quite a stir, and quite a deal of heated responses, including one from The Atlantic essentially decrying the current state of television criticism (which itself produced it's own response piece), and a follow-up piece from McGee himself. Yet the question remains unanswered (perhaps as it should), and it's something worth discussing in terms of how Justified goes about telling it's own stories.
As I've said before, Justified has built up a stable of recurring characters, and that along with some strong writing allows the show to pull off strong standalone stories in the face of what has to be (for some) the far more compelling season-long narrative. (In fact, Justified was one of the show McGee included in his original article as getting the standalone/serialized ratio right.) It's been interesting and exciting to see the show grow in this manner, given that the standalone episodes that it produced in its first season paled in comparison to the serialized stuff, so it's good to know that a show is capable of overcoming what many see as an obstacle.
The problem however (and this is admittedly a small one) is that the show is so often used to keeping us on edge about whether or not he show is going to be dealing with serialized storytelling or not – and even when it does, the show often tempers our investment based on how close we are to the finale. Now, the show does standalone and serialization well in equal measure – and it does these really well – so it's not as if this is a large problem for the show, and it that it all manages to works like gangbusters in the end is a testament to how well it works. But it is a disorienting at times, and I think that's something to keep in mind when analyzing the show.
It's perhaps no mistake then that the show builds up to this transition through the past two episodes, and does so beautifully. “When the Guns Come Out” trots out one of my favorite narrative devices, the “standalone plots that actually furthers the serialization” mechanism. While Raylan solving the case of the Oxy farm shootout is a story that can and does reach it's conclusion by the end of the hour (though sadly Raylan loses some of his agency through the fact that he doesn't actually solve the case), it only serve to further the larger story by putting all of the characters in contact with one another through this one crime.
Seeing this all come to something of a head in “The Man Behind the Curtain” is both a satisfying culmination for the reasons that I mentioned above, but also an engaging turning point, the kind of which makes you pump your fist into the air and proclaim defiantly “oh, it is ON!”, regardless of whether or not anybody's around to hear you. I especially enjoy how much we got to learn about Quarles' backstory, both the fact that he's a self-hating gay man, and that he was adopted by a rich family and thus has some weird daddy issues, which I hope the show will return to when it comes time to explain exactly why Quarles works in an illegal business. (I mean, this episode raised some possibilities, but I would like some more firm connections to me made before the season is out because I think it would make for more satisfying drama.)
But despite all the dynamic character work at play in “Man”, it felt like something of a letdown when compared to the events of “Guns”. I tune into Justified for a lot of things – the acting, the quality storytelling – but one of the biggest reasons is the show's flavor, how it seems to capture the Deep South essence without being condescending, and then filter that through a neo-noir lens. Watching Raylan track down those that shot up the clinic was crackling fun, especially when he got into a round of fisticuffs inside a moving trailer, and “Man” just couldn't compete with that. For all the satisfaction the latter episode could provide, it was also a table-setter in many ways, and table setters are never as nearly as satisfying as a lot of other episodes.
In that same vein, “Guns” also suffered from a bit too much serialization around the edges, as it introduced two characters that we had seen before, albeit briefly, and more or less asked us to care about their fates. Ella May's connection worked fairly well because it was mostly an entry point into that section of the story, but it was clear that the show wanted us to be invested in how far she had fallen since her last appearance, but since I can't even remember her last appearance, that's a little hard to do, and it hindered my investment in the episode just a bit. Charlie's appearance was even more problematic, because since we don't really know him, it was hard to feel any sort of perverse triumph (which is what I believe the show was aiming for) in his ability to steal the money from the evidence room.
When you compare these instances to those of “Thick as Mud”, which worked so well because we were much more familiar with Dewey, it becomes clear that there is a fine line that shows walk when it comes to playing up their serialized elements effectively. And while these two episodes mostly worked for me, this is an area which the Justified writers should keep an eye on, lest they stray from the current quality in this or future seasons.
Quotes and Other Thoughts:
“Sneaking up on a man is a good way to get shot.” “And you in your boxer shorts, Arlo? I think I got the drop on you there.”
“I got no interest in shitkicker-on-shitkicker crime.”
“When I saw Kenny Chesney on your computer, I knew you were capable of anything.”
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“I'm going to put a smile on my face and eat a nice plate of steaming shit – unsalted.”
“I got mad ninja skills, buddy.” “Yeah? You know karate?” “And two other Japanese words.”
“There must be some sort of dick test that all FBI agents have to pass.”
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