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Justified: Save My Love

Winona: "Say something."
Raylan: "Wow."
Winona: "Say something else."

And we thought the cage money plot was over. Or maybe we just hoped that the cage money plot was over.

I sort of hate stories like this one. It makes you want to yell at the characters, "What were you thinking?" I spent the entire episode certain that Winona would get caught. She kept calling attention to her bag! Didn't she realize that would, um, call attention to her bag? It got to be almost comical, in a "how far are they going to take this bag gag" kind of way.

At least it was done well, and Raylan only made me love him more. Bless his heart, he didn't yell, he didn't stomp, he just got up and got dressed and said he would go find the bill. Timothy Olyphant did his usual terrific job of conveying emotion with very little expression. There was carefully concealed shock on his face when Winona pulled the bag of money out from under his bed, as well as general unhappiness throughout the episode. When Art caught them in the cage, Raylan's usual poker face just wasn't up to the challenge. He kept his cool and so did Winona, but they both knew they'd blown it and Art knew something was wrong. I really hate the idea that Raylan might have damaged his relationship with Art, such as it is. If Art looks into this, Raylan could lose his job, or worse. Ditto Winona.

Okay, enough about the plot I didn't like. What I did like was Boyd and his new career in (wait for it) security. I kept thinking Carol Johnson from Black Pike must have had something up her sleeve, and she did -- she chose Boyd to take out the Bennetts. Which is actually pretty smart. For her. Horribly dangerous for him.

I absolutely loved the courtroom scene, with Boyd helpfully offering to show Raylan where he, Boyd, would have planted explosives. Even better was the two of them explaining their long and complicated frenemy relationship to Carol Johnson, and her response. "My. Sounds like a love story."

And the suit. Black suit, black tie, rumpled white shirt. It was exactly the suit Boyd Crowder would buy at JCPenney.

Bits and pieces:

-- Yay to the return of Judge "The Hammer" Reardon. I only wish he and his Speedo could be in every episode. (Where was the Speedo?)

-- Judge Reardon likes both Raylan and Winona, and he was making transparent attempts to get them back together, without knowing they were already back together.

-- Jere Burns also returned as the terrifying Wynn Duffy, although we only got a minute of him. I absolutely could not believe Gary was stupid enough to go to Wynn Duffy. Inconceivable. Gary can't possibly be doing all this to get Winona back when it's likely to have the opposite effect.

-- I was confused about what the video was about, but Dan explained it to me. The guy in the video was doing an expose on mining practices, was too close to the explosives, and a boulder fell on him and killed him. Someone put the video on YouTube, and Black Pike was sued for wrongful death. Right?

-- You know, they could just invest in a decent coffeemaker. But that would eliminate a ton of jokes about the bad coffee, so we can't have that.

-- Boyd went to Kuwait. I don't think we knew that. I suppose that means he could be drinking at the VFW.

Quotes:

Winona: "I'm really sorry."
Raylan: "I know that. It's the only reason I'm not beating you over the head with a phone book."

Gary: "I'm glad you agreed to see me, given our history."
Duffy: "Our history, indeed. I took a bullet, lost seven pints of blood, and eighteen inches of intestine. I had the surgeons keep it for me as a memento of that day preserved in Lucite. Would you like to see it?"
Gary: "Okay."
Duffy: (in a "what an idiot" voice) "Gary, I didn't have eighteen inches of intestine preserved in Lucite."

Rachel: "You've been a bad boy."
Raylan: "I get that a lot. You're gonna have to be more specific."

Raylan: "Do you think he was telling the truth?"
Art: "He's a bank robber, Raylan. Why would he lie to me?"

Judge Reardon: "Shit. I know fifty men in this building would pay good money to sniff your gym clothes."
Winona: "Well, I will keep that in mind if I'm ever short on cash."

Tim: "$210,000 in forgotten money. We should run off to Mexico, start a cult, what are we doing here?"
Art: "I feel like Geraldo Rivera right before they opened Al Capone's vault. Don't tell me you don't know who that is."

Okay, I'm conflicted. As I said, I hate this type of plot. But they did it well, and the episode never stopped moving. And hey, Boyd in a suit! How would you rate this one? How many black suits from Penney's out of four?

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

8 comments:

  1. I'd go with a 3. I really hate this kind of plot, too, but I found this episode surprisingly tense. My stomach kept knotting up throughout. Plus, it ended up tying back into the Bennett story, so overall I'd rate this one higher than 'Blaze of Glory.'

    Gary really is an idiot, isn't he? As dumb as Winona was to take that money, Gary takes the cake for foolhardy. I can't believe he went back to Wyn. And with some sort of race horse scheme! Oy.

    (Of course, I was still kind of excited to see both Stephen Root and Jere Burns back in the guest credits.)

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  2. I'm going to go with a two. This was the low point of the season for me. Maybe even the entire series. But I can overlook this one misstep because the rest of the season (the next two episodes especially) is just so bloody good.

    Oh, and can they please get Rebecca Creskoff back now that Hung has been cancelled?

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  3. I'm with Mark and a two. Not the greatest episode, but not the worst. I would have been very surprised if Winona and Raylan had been caught, but I did think they kept up the suspense very well.

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  4. I always liked these kinds of dread/tension-inducing plots where the MC is at odds with his team and trying to pull one over them. It can be infectious, for example when Gutterson and Art were bantering in the background I was just kind of unhappy and focused on Raylan getting from Point A to Point B lol.

    But I have to agree with the general consensus about this being a low point. Winona does not have good subplots. I don't like Carol Johnson either.

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  5. Okay I'm a decade late to this party but, funny as it is in the show, JC Penney never sold a suit that ratty in its entire history.

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  6. I loved this episode, especially how it increases the tension scene by scene. And I loved how he showed the lengths Raylan would go to cover for Winona. This man is so in love (and as he later admits in another episode, he did it because he's in love with Winona). Raylan often does things with a clear sense of purpose or justice. For him to help Winona in the name of love, is actually really romantic and makes me see Raylan very differently. He is capable of being more than just a lawman.

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  7. I loved this episode and I also am just rooting for Raylan and Winona (well, I know how the series ends but it's nice to think they actually do get a happy ending).

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  8. Super late to Justified but just finished this episode and found this review and loved the recap. My two cents: Up until now, it seems like Winona has her life together more than any other character. She's pragmatic, dressed to the nines, lives in a beautiful home, looks like a supermodel, and is entirely removed from the Harlan "redneck" world. She's a city girl through and through. You see why Raylan is so infatuated with her, she represents the dream girl to him (and well, any man let's be honest. They cast Natalie Zea for a reason). I like this two-parter starts to dismantle the illusion of Winona. She's actually quite the wreck. For all her outward beauty and sophistication, she is falling apart. She's great at putting on a presentation. She knows she can make any man swoon. So, she seemingly gets by in life on what I would consider pretty privilege. Natalie Zea really does a great job in these episodes of demonstrating how Winona is coming undone. She knows stealing the money is wrong. She has second thoughts at the bank. But when Raylan takes care of it in the last episode, she thinks she's ok. She hasn't actually thought through what she should do next, is she going to keep the money if Raylan was successful in his first attempt at saving her? And when he's not, that's when she decides to come clean. It's a fascinating arc for a character that has really stood out as the beautiful, fancy woman that Raylan desperately wants. I far prefer her to Ava at this point (both in acting and just the overall arc. Zea and Olyphant also have terrific chemistry that is giving me Coach Taylor and Tammy Taylor vibes).

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