Last night’s episode of Justified was all about plans going awry. Boyd’s plan already went to hell, and when we picked his story back up, he was scrambling from a hospital bed. Markham’s plan to put down roots in Harlan with his two-timing fiancee came to an abrupt end with her death. Ava and Uncle Zachariah’s plan too run to freedom through the hills of Kentucky with $10 million is on life support, which is a lot more than you can say for Grubes. (R.I.P. Grubes.) Even Raylan’s simple plan to go on a sweet helicopter ride got ruined, thanks to Art and his stupid “rules” and “orders” and “reasonable requests under the circumstances.” But first…
[sighs]
Current status.
Justified has killed off a lot of characters in a lot of different ways. There have been poisonings, shootings (lots of shootings), ding dong safecrackers getting blasted into a fine mist, etc. But even with that long and inventive history of offings, I can’t remember a death scene that got to me more than the send-off Mikey (I’m sorry, “Michael”) and Katherine got last night. Maybe that’s just recency bias, but, like, man. I was really sad about Mikey. I am really sad about Mikey. So much so that Katherine’s death — which is probably more important to the actual progression of the plot — almost feels secondary. This is a shame. It is not often that a saccharine-voiced crime boss grandmother gets body-slammed halfway through a table by a sensitive Greek meathead who is acting in self-defense. Overlooking it entirely would be a folly.
What a scene, though. The whole thing, from the shot of Katherine as she entered the Winnebago to the very tender moment between Wynn and a dying Mikey at the end. There’s a great breakdown of everything in Graham Yost’s weekly postmortem at Yahoo, which I definitely recommend reading if you want a fun little peek behind-the-scenes. For example, this little tidbit:
One of the big contributions was Eric Beason’s. Eric is the editor, and we’d established earlier in the episode that Mike liked classical music, and so it was his notion of playing “Pachelbel’s Canon.” I will say that is the one note that we got from FX on the episode: “Isn’t ‘Pachelbel’s Canon’ too on the nose? It’s such an overdone piece of classical music. Could it be something else?” And my argument was, “But Mikey’s not the smartest person in the world. He’s not going to have the most esoteric taste in classical music. It’s not going to be Bartok or Schoenberg or something.
Aw, Mikey. I’m gonna miss you almost as much as Wynn will.
It was a rough episode for henchman across the board. Poor Carl met his end on the floor of a hospital, too. I mean, of course he did. Boyd’s drones are not long for the world, in general, especially after they have pulled a gun on their boss and especially when their demise can further Boyd’s interests in even the teenist tiniest little way. Come on, Carl. The man just sold you and your brother out to the cops 30 seconds ago and now you think he’s gonna split $10 million down the middle if you just, like, uncuff him and maybe give him that gun? Carl. Carl. Come on.
So. Anyway. What does all of this mean for us now? Well, Markham is in the same position Boyd was at the end of last episode, recently stripped of his money and fiancee (albeit under different circumstances); Boyd is dressed like a cop, driving a police cruiser, and hunting Ava and his money (not necessarily in that order); Raylan is hunting Boyd and Ava over Art’s objections and outside the confines of the law; and because of that last thing Art is preparing to hunt Raylan. And there are only two episodes left before we shut this thing down for good. Hoo boy.
Other notes and highlights:
– Wynn cradling Mikey as he died coupled with the very lover’s-quarrel-y nature of the earlier scene where he begged for his freedom by offering to occasionally drive and pick the music re-raised an issue that has been bubbling up throughout the last two or three seasons: Were they, like, together? I reached out to Justified writer and producer VJ Boyd for some clarification, and this is what he said: “That depends on who you ask. I have always written them that way and say yes, although Wynn is bi. Graham would probably give a different answer, but at least half of us wrote them with the idea that Mike is a sort of consort.” We learn fascinating new things about Wynn Duffy every week.
– Would I listen to a 20-minute loop of Sam Elliott saying nothing but the words “my fiancee?” I’m pretty sure I would. I’d definitely make it past the 10-minute mark.
– Very cool scene between Markham and Katherine in the hotel. If you have to lose your sweetheart in a violent RV murder, I imagine it’s somewhat comforting to know the last things you did were compare her to high-quality pot and promise her your mutual enemy’s decapitated head as a wedding present. If that ain’t love, brother, I don’t know what is.
– On the subject of heartbreaking deaths, Graham Yost also revealed in his postmortem that the original plan — or at least one of them — was to have Tim show up at the hospital and get killed by Boyd. No. NO. If they had taken Tim and Mikey from me in the same hour, I would have been inconsolable. I wouldn’t even have written a recap. I would have just posted the video for “End of the Road” and an MS Paint self-portrait of me crying into a bowl of ice cream.
– Boyd Crowder put a little hat-twirling mustard on that murder. I’d be willing to knock 2-3 years off his sentence for that. So fancy!
– Lotta hat stuff last night, between that GIF and Boon being really, really excited about his new lid. I wonder if he got it from the hat store the hipster told him about last week. I choose to believe he did.
– You know what? I like Boon. He’s a creepy violent sociopath (and a “hot kid”), and I’d probably be okay with Loretta putting him down for good via Apple Pie or shotgun or piano wire or whatever before the whole thing shuts down, but he’s damn compelling bad guy. Got those crazy eyes. And purple balls, apparently.
– Poor Earl. Poor, poor Earl. Loses his brother and finds out about it in the coldest possible way, just as a toss-off right in front of him while Raylan and the crooked cop were having their pissing contest. Raylan Givens is many things, but an empathetic grief counselor is not one of them.
– Vasquez think Raylan’s dirty and plotting with Ava to run off with the $10 million. He… he doesn’t make a totally unreasonable case either. He’s wrong, and kind of an ass, but not unreasonable.
– In conclusion, I made this. I think it sums things up pretty well.
Your thoughts below.
