The theme of the final season of Justified has been, basically, “Ava’s in trouble.” Other things have happened, of course. Gary Busey’s son blew himself up last week, and his splattered guts ended up all over Wynn and Boyd. I’m still not over that, and I may never be, but the overarching through-line of the season to date has been Ava Crowder and her current location between a rock and a hard place (or a rock and a group of suspicious criminal-types led by a menacing cocaine-fueled grandmother, if you prefer). The pressure has been building every week, with Raylan pushing her for information, Katherine pushing her on her story about getting out of jail, and Boyd changing his plans in a way that put a bullet in her hopes of escaping Harlan once and for all, and last night it all got to be just too much, causing Ava to
freak
the
hell
out.
And freak out she did, completely and recklessly, heaving her phone out the window of her car and trying to go on the lam with nothing but a push-up bra and like $2000 to her name. Poor Ava. Poor, poor Ava. She was so out of sorts that she somehow thought double-crossing Limehouse would be a good idea (it is not, and I suspect that will come up again in the near future), and all she ended up getting for all of her trouble was a lecture in a junkyard. And a kiss. But we’ll get to that. It was weird.
Elsewhere in Harlan, Boyd is blowing stuff up and attempting to make amends with cantankerous old coots — played by Jeff Fahey from Lost — using wire transfers and bottles of whiskey in some sort of mysterious mining-based plot to become the Marijuana King of Kentucky. I have so many questions about this plan and how it may or may not relate to Markham’s secret pizza vault full of illicit narcotics money, but I’ll save those for another day. Let’s see how this all plays out. I think Boyd Crowder has earned some leeway.
To the highlights:
– So this was weird, yes? Like, I get it. There’s always been this dense sexual tension between Ava and Raylan, and it’s more than a little understandable that a person in peril would throw her lips at her last Stetson-wearing glimmer of hope, but still. Maybe it was just that Raylan was in full Dad mode at the junkyard, yelling at her the way you would a teenager who repeatedly missed curfew, and the quick switch from father to lover set off my creepy alarm. Maybe that’s why this felt strange. Or maybe there’s still a small part of me that hopes Jackie Nevada comes prancing back into town in the finale to sweep Raylan off his feet, and my subconscious is now viewing Ava as a threat. No way to tell, I suppose.
– Aaaaaaaaand welcome back to the party, Albert Fekus, you pint-sized little sexual deviant weasel. Actually, no. I’m being unfair. He took a few million volts of electricity from Mikey’s cattle prod without breaking, so I guess I should cut him a little slack. A little. I still don’t like him, though. He aplexes me.
– One thing that jumped out at me in the wake of Fekus’s tasing: Wynn Duffy, hardened criminal, was actually far more sympathetic to him afterwards than Tim. Wynn actually expressed hope that Fekus could still perform for the possibly fictional hooker. Tim just said “Maybe you shoulda thought about that before you stabbed yourself and blamed it on Ava.” I tend to side with Tim here, but look at Wynn getting all soft on us. Kind of.
– On that note, I wish Katherine had gotten called away for something and Wynn was forced to babysit her grandkids. That would have been fun, just to see how he dealt with children. The man fascinates me to no end. I want to study him the way Jane Goodall studied chimps.
– Back to tasing-related business: There were actually two tasings last night. The one with Fekus and the one where Limehouse’s henchman got tased in the nuts by returning hero Constable Bob in the hardware store. Fun fact: This was at least the second nut-tasing in Justified history. What a delightful television program.
– Between shouting “If you ain’t the man that means you’re the man sitting beside the man, which means get your ass to work” and telling a freshly-deafened underling that he was “fine,” I’m starting to think Boyd missed his calling as the greatest high school football coach in history. His halftime speeches would have been glorious, and his eventual fall from grace for fixing games and/or killing referees would have been a fun scandal. I’m picturing Dewey Crowe at defensive coordinator.
– There is no sentence in the English language — or any other language, in all likelihood — that cannot be made terrifying by Sam Elliott.
– R.I.P. Calhoun, killed by Choo-Choo’s Amtrak haymaker. You were a crooked, hooker-loving Foghorn Leghorn and you will be missed.
Another solid episode in a solid final season. The crap continues to pile up all over Harlan, inching closer and closer to the fan. I can’t wait. I’ll leave you with Constable Bob’s “warrant.” Looks official.
