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Justified: Whistle Past the Graveyard

Raylan: "It gets better, Kendal."
Kendal: "Man, I ain't gay."

What was the point of this episode? That Kendal is the Crowe family football, and he knows it and can do nothing about it? He's obviously important to the story somehow and I feel for the kid, although he has never inspired the affection and interest I felt in Loretta McCready from the very beginning. The discovery that Wendy and the destructive, careless "Uncle Jack" were Kendal's real parents made sense, but it didn't change anything, did it?

At least Boyd finally got his dope (and the way he and Darryl "gave" the bodies to the Mexican cops while pretending to be missionaries was pretty funny), but when Darryl talked about wanting to be a member of Boyd's family, I immediately thought of Cousin Johnny before Boyd even said it. Darryl and Danny are incredibly untrustworthy, Boyd is no fool, and the Crowder/Crowe partnership is so obviously not going to last for long, so am I just missing the point? Maybe the season will end with a surprise I haven't thought of, or great big shoot out with Boyd and Raylan on the same side like the end of season one. Hey, I can dream, can't I?

We didn't get much of Raylan. He was planning to take Alison to Florida with him to see Winona and his new daughter, but by the end of the episode he'd given his "caller seven" money to Kendal, and Alison had broken up with him. Really? I hope this doesn't mean he's going to hook up with the duplicitous and unpredictable Wendy Crowe. I expect more from Raylan than that.

And speaking of which, I expect more from Justified than what we're getting. Yes, the whole prison thing is giving Ava a story of her own where she isn't just an adjunct to Boyd, and I liked that the "heavenly mother" said that every woman in jail was there because of a man because it's mostly true. But I'm finding it hard to get into the Ava-in-prison story, like pretty much everything else this season.

I was trying to think of what might have changed from last season to this, and of course, it's obvious: Elmore Leonard passed away last summer. Has the heart gone out of the show?

Bits:

-- That dislocated arm thing made me cringe. Ava is tough, though, and her play worked. For now, anyway. At least Boyd can be her supplier now. If something else doesn't go wrong before they get that shipment back to Harlan.

-- I only just now realized that Danny Crowe is played by A.J. Buckley, who also plays Ed the Ghostfacer on Supernatural. I can't believe I missed that. I knew he looked familiar, but the characters are so different and there were glasses... so that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Quotes:

Dewey: "That's gonna look awful bad, we get pulled over with a load of dead dudes in the truck."
Darryl: "You ain't gotta worry, cousin Dewey. We'll hide 'em underneath all that heroin."
LOL.

Raylan: "You know that tee shirt? I think you've mistaken me for someone…"

This isn't a terribly long review because I am about to move and my life is a mess right now, so please feel free to post and/or discuss anything I missed in the comments.

Two out of four footballs,

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

5 comments:

  1. If anything, this episode set the stage for a great victory for Boyd or an even bigger fall. If not that then it at least gives the option of a high stakes shootout. Little does Boyd know that Ava has raised the stakes even higher with her own gamble.

    I'm still not sure where Raylan fits into the equation. He's been kinda milling about in the background this season, I sure hope he steps it up soon. He may miss all the fireworks if he keeps this up. Then again Raylan does have a habit of showing up at the most inopportune times, at least as far as the criminals are concerned.

    Concerning your realization about Danny. It seems Superman's disguise isn't as far-fetched as people seem to think, haha.

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  2. Wow. I, too, did not realize that Ghostfacer Ed and abominable Danny Crowe were played by the same actor. That's pretty shocking. Freeman really may have a point about Superman's disguise. :)

    This episode didn't do much for me overall, but the "heavenly mother"'s line about most women being in jail because of a man, did get me reflecting on Ava's situation a bit. I like Ava a lot, and while watching, it's easy for me to feel bad about her plight, and to start thinking she's a victim in all this. But the truth is that she's in jail for murdering Delroy --- a crime she actually committed. No one made her do it. He was a terrible guy and I didn't shed any tears over him, but Ava made the choice to kill him. If memory serves, it didn't really play like self defense or defense of someone else. She was pissed and she shot him dead. (Please correct me, if I'm misremembering.)

    And Boyd was none too pleased about it, though he did try to help her cover it up. Certainly, Boyd's activities and machinations have made Ava's situation more complicated, as people have tried harder to hurt her because of her connection to Boyd. But she wouldn't be in that situation in the first place if not for her own choices.

    Just something my mind was chewing on, since this episode didn't give us much else to really get into. :)

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  3. As I was watching this episode, I hit upon what it is that isn't working for me this season. There is no sense of the imminent danger there has been in the past.

    While the Big Bad is usually someone with whom I can relate, there has always been a real sense of peril, that whomever is currently the villain can cause real harm. I do not feel that way with about the Crowe family. The characters are written in a way to be almost stereotypical rednecks and, therefore, very difficult for me to take too seriously.

    Your comment about Danny and Ed being the same actor made me smile. For me, A.J. Buckley will always be Adam Ross.

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  4. That lame break-up at the end, lawl. Alison was even worse than Mara. I think I'm just prejudiced against her face, there's something unshakably untrustworthy about it. If it weren't for Wendy I'd say all the female newcomers this season sucked.

    I agree about Kendall turning out to not be that compelling after all. Loretta stays the king.

    "Hey, thanks again, Marshall"
    "That was your first thank you"

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  5. Just finished this episode and I really hope this is the last we see of Alison. What a boring and terribly conceived character. Amy Smart is not very good in the role but it's quite underwritten. This is the first time I've noticed that an actor has zero chemistry with Timothy Olyphant (I didn't think the actress who played Lindsay in S4 had much chemistry with him either but she always felt like a throwaway character). What is wrong with Raylan though, to take Alison to Florida the FIRST time he is meeting his child? And I LOL'd at Alison musing over whether Raylan is trying to make Winona jealous. The least Raylan could do is show Alison a picture of Winona. They are not just operating in different leagues, they are on different planets.

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