Another solid episode, with storylines ramping up and already beginning to intersect with each other- I think this is the first time Justified has kicked off its season with the long arc clearly plotted out from the start (although last year's mystery was similar, but there were still several purely episodic plots near the beginning). But sadly, it looks like I was right about this Boyd/Mara thing- seems to me that he's definitely going to cheat on Ava. Sniff.
We pick up right where we left off, with Boyd on the phone with Duffy, asking him if he ripped off the shipment. Duffy denies it and claims it was probably one of Boyd's thugs, which seems to give Boyd pause as he hangs up the phone. Meanwhile, Raylan and Alison are going at it in the crook Monroe's house, when Art calls to interrupt, warning Raylan that Monroe's going to be out on bail the next day and he should be on the lookout. Raylan walks in on Alison smoking weed in the bedroom, which she's not even hesitant to do right in front of him, and Raylon doesn't seem to mind much either, as they get back to it. But then Monroe's car alarm goes off and won't stop, dragging Rayland outside to confront a hillbilly with a clover leaf tattoo on his neck. Raylan thinks he's been sent by Monroe to shake him up, but the guy doesn't seem to know who Monroe is, as he swings a baseball bat rather menacingly. Raylan shakes him off like he always does, but looks unsure as the guy skulks off, smirking. When Raylon gets back in the house, Alison suddenly bails on him, leaving him even more unsettled.
After the credits, Raylan meets Monroe at the courthouse on his way out of jail, telling him not to send any more goons his way, but Monroe is genuinely surprised to hear somebody was at his place the night before. He asks for more details, but Raylan is obtuse, simply threatening him not to do it again. At the hospital, Mara is begging the newly awakened Lee Paxton to make Sheriff Mooney back off of her, which he does, as Mooney is in the room looking pretty upset at Paxton's resurgence. Paxton yells at him, but orders him to kill Boyd and not pay him off, as he wants.
At the bar, Boyd's goons haul in a whiny Cyrus, who Wynn Duffy proceeds to terrorize in hilarious fashion with his own BB gun, while Boyd barks at him to tell him who he told about the shipment coming in. Ah, so that's why we got that scene with the hooker last week. Cyrus eventually caves in between all the BB shots to his face, confessing that he told a hooker named "Candy" who had asked him for the details. Boyd then gets a call from Mara, presumably regarding Paxton, which interrupts the session as Duffy continues to have his fun. At the marshal's office, Art isn't happy with the late night visitor Raylan received, and is now sending Rachel to stay with him at Monroe's place, which annoys Raylan, even though Art also guesses that Raylan's been using the place to entertain personal guests and Rachel is more or less acting as his chaperone now.
Over at Aubreys, Dewey comes out front to again come in contact with Darryll, who's moved in and made himself comfortable, telling Dewey he was ripped off when he got the place from Boyd, especially given how Boyd took $250,000 of the $300 grand that Dewey got in the settlement. Daryll basically intimidates Dewey into going to Boyd and demanding $100 grand of the money back, so that Daryll can take his half of it and be out of Dewey's hair. Poor, pathetic Dewey is terrified of his cousin and cowers almost immediately. Back at Monroe's, Rachel questions Raylan as to whether the intruder from the night before might not have had anything to do with Monroe, but Raylan isn't convinced. He spoke too soon however, because when Alison shows up to see him and Raylan tells her what really happened, she lets on that she knew the guy after all. Raylan is appropriately annoyed once again at his taste in women.
Boyd's visiting the jail now, and demands information from Ava about the mysterious Candy, who may have worked at Aubrey's when Ava was running the place, but Ava is less than forthcoming. She's pissed off at Boyd for failing in all his recent attempts to get her out, and upset that he doesn't even ask her how she's doing in there. But Boyd isn't in a great mood and basically dumps all this on her for moving the body alone and stating flat out that she's the one who killed Delroy after all. That's it for Ava, as she gets up to leave, but Boyd still manages to get the info about Candy from her.
Raylan finds the clover leaf guy and kicks his door down, beating him with the bat he used, as it turns out this guy, named Henry, was a father whose kid Alison had taken away from him after planting drugs in his apartment. He's out for revenge and is convinced he was framed, but Raylan has little sympathy, as the kid had bruises on him, which Henry claims came from his mother. He admits to being a meth cook, but insists he never brought it home and that Alison planted the stuff. Raylan lectures him on his values and threatens him if he comes near Alison again. Meanwhile, Monroe is in bed with his maid Gloria (we saw her last week), and is worried about who might have come over to his house the night before. Turns out he actually does have gold stashed away in a wall safe that only he and Gloria know about, and he intimidates her into talking by first strangling her into unconsciousness, and when she wakes up going on to smother her with a pillow. When she wakes from that, she coughs out Wynn Duffy's name as a suspect, since he's the one who installed the safe. Monroe buys it and tells Gloria she's going to go in and get the gold for him.
At Monroe's house, Rachel is lecturing Raylan on not even suspecting Alison of having something to do with the break-in, given her suspicious behavior, as Raylan continues to deny her involvement and his own bad judgment. Gloria then comes to the door and begs to come in to check for the stash, which Rachel and Raylan reluctantly allow. At the bar, Boyd sends his henchman Carl to kidnap Candy, while Dewey storms in demanding the money back. Boyd essentially brushes him off and gives him a hilarious pep talk, telling him to stand up to his cousin and let him know who he is, a man who can't be taken. Dewey leaves somewhat pumped by this, in typical Dewey fashion, influenced by whoever he talked to last. Back at Monroe's, Gloria opens the safe and finds all the gold, while Rachel and Raylan tell her to report back to Monroe that it's been stolen.
Mooney gets a call from Mara at the sheriff's office to go over to her house, which he does, only to get caught with a gun at the back of his head from Boyd, as he and Mara force Mooney into doing their bidding. Mooney agrees to tell Paxton he killed Boyd in exchange for the money he offered Paxton. Gloria tells Monroe the gold is gone, which sends Monroe after Duffy, and sends Raylan over to Duffy's trailer as he's eating dinner. This leads to the consistently amusing scenes between Raylan and Duffy, as the lines they exchange whenever they meet are always priceless. Duffy this time is particularly cowed that Raylan is apparently saving him from a situation he created, but then Monroe shows up outside and shots are fired. When Raylan looks out he sees Rachel with Duffy's goon on the ground, as he's fired at Monroe, who they've also cornered hovering a few feet away.
This leads to my least favorite scene of the episode, as Boyd and Mara flirt and exchange pleasantries at the bar, with Mara asking to see his tattoos. He obligingly takes off his shirt so she can examine each one in very slow fashion, and proceed to eye him up and down a little too intimately. Finally, she decides to replicate one of his tattoos on a dead man's hand in order to fool Paxton. They both have bodies available, seeing as Paxton owns that funeral home. Damn. Looks like something's going to happen between these two, unless Boyd's playing at something else this whole time, which is possible.
Alison is taunting Raylan now with never suspecting her involvement, as Raylan continues to insist that he doesn't try to think about what the women he's attracted to might be up to on the side. She thinks he likes risk and the thrill of danger, which is probably correct, and they flirt and make out on Monroe's desk. Dewey finally comes back to Aubrey's and orders Daryll to leave, trying to be forceful like Boyd said. Daryll laughs at him and takes him to the back room where he, the Haitian Baptiste, and another cousin named Danny have beaten up the bartender, who admits to having been skimming and cheating Dewey out of the money he should have been making each week. Dewey is upset and leaves, while Daryll follows him, telling him he's got to be the one to shoot him, and hands him a gun. Dewey looks strained and unsure, but that's where we leave him for the week, under the influence of his bad news cousin.
At the bar, Boyd's drinking alone when Carl finally lugs back Candy the hooker, whom he's got tied up in a trunk. When Boyd interrogates her to find out who she told about the shipment coming in, she cries and says she doesn't know where he is, she just called him on the phone to give the location. Boyd grabs her phone and scans the call back numbers, finally picking one to dial- and what do you know, the culprit turns out to be Boyd's dear cousin Johnny. Everybody remember him? Of course we do. Good ending tonight, as next week promises to move things along quickly, with all the various plots continuing to revolve around each other, moving closer all the time. Loving the season so far. Until next week!
