You remember Robert Quarles, yes? The mysterious, well-dressed carpetbagger from Detroit who came to Harlan during Season 3 of Justified and promptly revealed himself to be a totally unhinged pill-popping lunatic sadist with a penchant for chaining attractive young men to bathroom fixtures and splattering the walls with their blood? Yeah, that guy.
Anyway, last we saw of him, in that season’s finale, this was happening…
… which seemed like it might have been his swan song on the show. I mean, maybe. Probably. Unless, like, a bloodthirsty Quarles recovers from his surprised backwoods amputation and returns to Harlan to seek revenge in the final season. But that seems like kind of a long shot, right?
Oh, Quarles isn’t dead. [Showrunner Graham Yost] and I had talked about me coming out of prison with my one arm, and seeking revenge or just wreaking havoc on the whole cast — and if it’s the last season, taking a few down. We’ve talked about it. Whether he can make that happen or not — are you kidding me? To jump back into Robert Quarles’ skin one more time for a last hurrah would be the joy of my career. It really would. Because he was such a fantastic, flawed human being. To go from this Oxy businessman to a complete degenerate, drug-addled nutbag [laughs].
Hopefully we’ll get one more chance at that, and I’ll take Raylan down, or Boyd down — I’m takin’ somebody down.
That magical little blockquote is from this Q&A with actor Neal McDonough, who played Quarles on the show. It all sounds very hypothetical and a teensy bit far-fetched (barring a 20-30 year leap forward between seasons, minimum, I’m not exactly sure how a drug-dealing mob figure with multiple murders under his belt just “comes out of prison” in time to do all that), but whatever. Bring everyone back, I say. Everyone. JUSTIFIED SEASON 6: ONE-ARMED QUARLES & ZOMBIE MAGS VS. RAYLAN & BOYD.
