The Justified: City Primeval Roundup is a weekly recap feature where we take the various people, places, and things from the new limited series and score them on a scale from one to five cowboy hats. We play fast and loose with the rules here, similar to the way Raylan Givens handles an investigation. A real loose cannon situation over here.
EPISODE SEVEN — “THE SMOKING GUN”
Getting double-crossed
Tough week for Raylan and murder weapons. He got his hands on the gun that killed Judge Guy and had a slew of great plans to either use it to get Mansell through legit means or trick him into putting his prints on it through various threats of gunplay at various airport bars, and everything went sideways on him thanks to various women in his life playing fast and loose on him. First, it was the redhead lady cop who went and tried to pin the whole thing on some poor PCP aficionado, either because she wanted an easy win or because she was in Judge Guy’s crime book or both. Then, it was Carolyn setting the Albanian mob on him during his big standoff with Mansell, all of which resulted in the gun getting dumped in a Detroit river, which, I mean, it’s rarely a good thing when you have to use the phrase “getting dumped in a Detroit river” to describe any part of your day.
The end result here is probably the one we were always headed toward anyway, the one where Raylan and Mansell end up staring each other down with pistols in hand and menace in their eyes, but I do have to give Raylan some credit for at least trying to do things the right way. Kind of. There is growth here, is my point, even if he is getting thwarted by all the women in his life.
Getting murdered by a man who is wearing your kimono
Tough week for Del the High Roller, too, who walked into his apartment to the following things:
- The boyfriend of the woman who had been playing him for a chump lounging around his home
- Said boyfriend wearing his kimono over a pair of tighty-whities
- Said boyfriend murdering him in said apartment while wearing said kimono
Really just bad times for Del.
Carolyn
We learned a lot about Carolyn this week, mostly tied to her relationship with Sweety, the closest thing to a father she ever knew, all of which we learned with flashbacks involving cussing children and boxing lessons and all kinds of neat little foundational information. It was fun. I think we like Carolyn. The problem is that she makes a lot of dicey decisions, between her associations with the underworld — Mansell, the Albanian mob, etc. — and little things like “sleeping with lawmen who are investigating and/or trying to frame one of her clients for some murders he very much did.” Lot going on with Carolyn.
Bad guys who eat milk and cookies
There’s something so ominous about bad guys doing wholesome things like this. I’m still not entirely sold on Clement Mansell as a fitting Big Bad for this show — not entirely his fault, as every Raylan standoff gets shoved through a “Wouldn’t it be cooler if he were talking to Boyd Crowder?” filter, which is just a ridiculously unfair scale to judge any character on television — but I will say that if I come home later today and see someone helping themselves to milk and cookies at my dinner table, I will be very upset. Partially because of the creepiness of it all and partially because, like… those are my cookies. Please do not steal my cookies. Thank you.
Raylan
ON ONE HAND:
Not his most triumphant week for reasons laid out above involving disappearing murder weapons and every woman in Detroit playing him for a chump.
ON THE OTHER HAND:
There are not a lot of people capable of looking this cool in a denim jacket.
It’s nice to have him on my television. We should just start dropping him into other shows, too. Get him in an episode of … And Just Like That next.
Crooked Radisson waitresses
I didn’t catch it right away but I did enjoy the Albanian mob dudes slipping her some cash on their way out. I’m just going to go ahead and pretend that all waitresses at all airport-adjacent bars are a little mobbed-up from now on. A fun little treat for me.
Stanley Garlick
Two notes here:
- It’s kind of funny how like 90 percent of the action this season is tied to crooked judges with criminal ledgers that implicate most of Detroit but then also there’s this running subplot about a painting people just like a lot
- I think I’m going to start dropping “it’s a Stanley Garlick” into conversations sometimes just to see if people catch on
Moving on.
The Albanian mob
Kind of love these guys?
I don’t know.
It’s weird.
Sandy
ON ONE HAND:
Everyone she gets involved with ends up dead or mangled in a hospital room
ON THE OTHER HAND:
All she wants to do is get some money together and flee to the Caribbean, which is actually pretty relatable
I don’t know. I shouldn’t like her this much. I feel like even just typing this out is going to result in me getting heaved off of a balcony. But here we are.
Norbert the cop
I already liked this guy on account of him sneaking the gun back to Raylan out of a weird sense of justice and honor, but then I did some googling and discovered the character is named Norbert Bryl and the actor who plays him is named Norbert Leo Butz. Now he is my favorite character on all of television. There are not enough Norberts these days. I have always said this.
