Maybe it’s just me, but this final season of Justified is not exactly getting to the point in a hurry. I know they are setting up Sam Elliot’s character, Avery Markham, as the big boss that must be taken down as a sideshow to Raylan versus Boyd. But there has been too little screen time for Raylan so far in the first three episodes. It doesn’t matter if he is just tracking down the lowest level criminals, we need more of his one liners and epic threats to keep us engaged.
This week’s show starts out with Ava and Boyd laying drunk on top of a bar after an all nighter. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Ava to get trashed while she is working as an informant for Raylan. Letting the wrong thing slip would be a death sentence since Boyd doesn’t really trust her anyway. The 7 a.m. text message to the blond beauty didn’t build upon any trust Crowder still has left.
Ava, still half drunk, meets up with Raylan who had beckoned her with the early morning text. The Marshal gives her a lecture about her drinking and tells her it is real bad timing. She sees why when Rachel and Vasquez show up to continue harassing her as her head pounds from the hangover. Since Ava has given them no useful information on Boyd, they let her know just how useless she has been. Ava is in a tough spot, just like any rat. She is between ruthless criminals and law enforcers who only care about her in relation to how much she can help their case.
Ty Walker visits Boyd’s bar to find Mr. Crowder in no mood for company as he is recovering from his own hangover with a cheeseburger. This Walker character is very calm, but I have a feeling once he is forced to unleash some violence, he may be a nasty fellow. He tells Boyd that he is simply the messenger and then is asked to leave.
Raylan and Rachel are trying to find out where Boyd got the explosives to do the bank job. They talk to a local foreman at a mining operation where Raylan worked as a young man. Going over the log books, Givens finds some sketchy numbers that the old boss can’t really explain.
While Raylan and Rachel look for more information on the explosives, Ava is sent to check out the old pizza joint. She spills some Coke on her shirt to have an excuse for finding the ladies’ room. Not real sure why she needed an excuse to head to the bathroom. She may be the worst informant ever, as she is caught pretty quickly in the basement as she takes a few photos of the safe and the layout. Choo-Choo is smitten with her, but Walker asks her to exist.
Boyd can tell a lot from the pictures Ava took back to him from the former bank building. He tells Carl he will need some more explosives to get into that specific safe. If there’s one thing Boyd knows, it’s how to blow up shit. Most of his plans that don’t involve a detonator usually fail.
Raylan along with Rachel find Carl’s whiny brother Earl meeting up with the mining foreman’s son, as he is the one snatching the explosives. Earl is quick to let Raylan know how powerless the Marshal is without the “pussy ass” badge, at which point Givens manhandles the boy with a nut grab. So much for the tough talk.
While Boyd is busy getting snatched from his own bar, the Raylan Rachel combo follows Earl and the stoner son of the foreman. The youngsters plan on stealing the explosives and roughing up the dad so it looks like strangers did the heist. Brilliant….except for the part where they were followed by two U.S. Marshals. Earl, wearing a gargoyle type mask best I can tell, says he has nothing to lose and looks to make Raylan waste a bullet on him. That’s when the foreman shows up and tells Raylan that he will just take the fall for his boy on the theft. That threw a monkey wrench into the whole deal for the Marshals. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure they had enough on these two idiot criminals to make a case.
Boyd wound up in a barn with two masked fellows in Markham’s crew after they had snatched him up. They make a few threats and act as though they may cut his fingers off. But ultimately the threats are empty and they simply let him go as they make it clear that Ava should stay away from the pizza place or she could get scuffed up. Scenes like this are a bit of a time waster. Boyd was not hurt at all, so I don’t see this striking fear in someone like Boyd.
Poor Ava is put in the middle again as she gets a visit from Avery Markham at her home. He and Walker try to explain that she is in the wrong business and is basically a token that will be used against her man. Boyd is outside the house and eventually joins the party inside. Either Crowder is truly scared of Markham or he is good at pretending. He apologizes for trying to steal his belongings at the bank and tells him he had no idea he was the owner of the property he was seeking to steal. Ava doesn’t seem real confident in Boyd after this little meeting since he looked like a little kid saying she was sorry for breaking the window of some rich guy’s house.
Turns out Wynn Duffy has a personal tanning bed and some disturbing attire to go with it. He is irritated by Mike letting him know Boyd is coming for a meet up with him and Katherine Hale. The ole cougar says she is setting up Markham by sleeping with him. Boyd clearly doesn’t trust any of this, yet says he is going to go ahead with the plans then put a bullet into the big time gangster’s head. Not the most detailed plan of action, but at least he appeared to have his confidence back after the poor showing in front of Ava.
Once Boyd returns to Ava she starts prodding him for info on what’s next. He is guarded with any information with her still. She tells him she is simply afraid, then tells him they could just leave and be done with Harlan and all these ruthless people. Once again Boyd seals his fate when he says he isn’t leaving with nothing. To which Ava responds perfectly, “I’m not nothing.” She beckons him to bed when he says he doesn’t even know who she is since she came back from prison. He is powerless to resist and joins his lady. He would be wise to take her up on her offer to run away together, because “nothing” will be exactly what he is left with once the dust settles in Harlan this season.