Justified: The Gunfighter

"Sorry about your tablecloth."

I've been thinking for awhile that it's going to be pretty much impossible for them to top season two. So you know what? I'm not expecting it. I just want to be intrigued and entertained.

And I was. Dry humor, check. Creepy bad guys, check. Raylan and Boyd Crowder in spectacular frenemy form, check. Gunfights over a table, check. That gunfight with the tablecloth might have been the best they've ever done. It was so cool that we rewound it and watched it again.

I'm not sure I'm crazy about a season-long story centered around the despicable Dixie Mafia, but that might not be where they're going and I'm willing to wait and see. Mr. Detroit was predictably evil, and I could just feel that he was planning to take out Emmet and his unfortunate secretary, Yvette. (I thought Yvette would make it longer than the end of the episode, though.) And of course, Wynn Duffy makes my skin crawl, although I thought they dialed him down just a bit so that he wouldn't overshadow Mr. Detroit. It was fun that Duffy remembered every syllable that Raylan said to him.

On the bright side, I'm so glad that Raylan and Art have kissed and made up, because the banter was flying all over the place. Winona seemed happier with Raylan, too, although she's still trying to control him (good luck with that, Winona). Raylan was even talking about giving up his tiny motel room for something more permanent. Note how they set up the tablecloth gag by having Winona doing a little decorating.

I'm less happy that Ava has gotten involved in Boyd's business, even though she's much smarter than Devil and Arlo, and I must admit that there's something delightful about Boyd and Ava as partners in crime. I got such a charge out of Boyd deliberately picking a fight with Raylan right there in the office, since he had so much fun doing it and obviously did it to get access to Dickie Bennett. I'm sure that whatever Boyd does to Dickie, it won't keep him in jail permanently.

(I wonder if Dewey Crowe befriended Dickie on purpose in order to help Boyd? No, Dewey's not smart enough to pull off something like that, is he?)

Raylan and Ava were both suffering from their gunshot wounds three weeks later. On a show with a ton of shootouts, I thought that was a nice bit of realism because in fact, it does take a long time to recover from a gunshot wound. Sometimes you don't get better at all, as Johnny Crowder can confirm. Raylan couldn't shoot in an early scene, except that later, he did just fine. Ava had trouble cooking using one hand, but then she whacked Devil in the face with a cast iron skillet. And ouch. Don't ever underestimate Ava, Devil.

I have no idea where they're going with the Bennett pot or Tennessee Beard Guy, or how Boyd is going to run the Harlan County underworld from a jail cell. We shall see. I hope Boyd doesn't end up working for the Dixie Mafia.

Bits and pieces:

-- The cast and credits are exactly the same as last season. Yay. The action took place directly after the season two finale, and three weeks later.

-- Poor pizza delivery guy. He died so that later on we'd think it could happen to Winona. And actually, I do believe that any character on this show could get killed. Except for Raylan, of course.

-- Did Gary Hawkins leave the country like he was told? I doubt it somehow. I bet he gets dead this season.

-- Desmond Harrington, who played Fletcher Nix (great name), plays an incompetent detective on Dexter. He has some acting range, doesn't he?

Quotes:

Art: "Did you try lefty?"
Raylan: "So I could shoot the side of a barn?"
Art: "All right, we'll try one more week of medical restriction, and then I'll issue you some hand grenades."

Art: "Only thing that saved you is all that body fat you got going on there."
Raylan: "I'm starting to feel uncomfortable."
Art: "Why? We're alone."

Raylan: "Did you do something you shouldn't have?"
Boyd: "Well, that's a pretty low bar, Raylan."

Boyd: "If I found that kind of money, I'd be in Mexico by now."
Raylan: "Boyd, I been to Mexico. I don't think you'd like it."
Boyd: "How so?"
Raylan: "There's a lot of Mexicans."
Boyd: "Raylan, if a book could only be judged by its cover, you'd be a best seller."
I bet that was a sideways reference to Elmore Leonard's new novel Raylan, which was released the same day this episode aired.

Duffy: "Raylan, I am sorry, I would like to be of more help, but I got to get back to watching women's tennis."

Nix: "I like the hat. Not much call for cowboys these days."
Raylan: "You would be surprised."

Raylan: "You ain't gonna let me do anything, are you?"
Art: "Well, you can't run and you can't shoot. What good are you?"
Raylan: "Well, I could be the guy on the radio telling people what to do."
Art: "That's my job, asshole."

Ava: "My fried chicken is to die for."
A creative, deadly double entendre.

Winona: "I could choose... Jiffy Pop. Or Palmolive. That's a good one."
Raylan: "Jiffy Pop."
Winona: "Jiffy Pop."
Raylan: "Jiffy Pop for a boy. Palmolive is obviously a girl's name."
They also discussed "Felix."

I'm leaning toward three out of four cast iron skillets. What did y'all think?

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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