Another terrific episode tonight, with every storyline interesting and coming together already in ways reminiscent of how the show usually concludes its seasons, rather than starting them. It's really been a good, solidly plotted season so far, and we're only in the fourth episode. We start off with a quintessential Justified opening scene- dark and violent yet dryly funny at the same time, as Dewey has dragged bartender Wade Messer out into the woods to presumably kill him as Darryl ordered him to. Dewey tells Wade to pull out a shovel to dig a hole under the pretense of digging up Dewey's money, but Wade produces his "weebilo" shovel from his Boy Scout days, completely befuddling Dewey, who calls it a midget shovel. As Wade turns his back, Dewey pulls out a gun and clumsily attempts to shoot Messer, who is hit but pounces on Dewey, wrestling the gun from him. Dewey gets the upper hand and manages to beat him to what he thinks is death, but then he goes to the car to get a better digging tool, and when he returns Wade has seemingly wandered off. Dewey panics and roams off into the woods, calling his name in the dark, but stumbles badly into a ditch and is himself knocked out in an ominous fashion. Never send Dewey to do anything, Darryl. That's the lesson here.
After the credits, Raylan is in Art's office, being informed by the D.A. that Wade Messer was actually a confidential informant, who'd been feeding them info on Boyd's criminal activities, so his having gone missing is a concern. Raylan is annoyed that he wasn't told and doesn't buy that Wade was giving them legitimate info- and also annoyed at having to now find the guy who once tried to arrange his death. Art sends Tim out to accompany him, which is just another thorn in Raylan's side this morning. Now back to Dewey, who's woken up in the middle of nowhere and can't get service on his phone. He cries out helplessly as we go to Johnny Crowder showing up at the prison to see Boyd and Ava, who are waiting for him in stony silence. Johnny makes it clear he's still pissed at Boyd for shooting him years ago, but Boyd offers to team up again in order to make money for both of them. Johnny basically shoots him down and subtly flirts with Ava, who emphatically does not respond (there's always been a weird hint that Johnny is in love with Ava from afar, so I guess that's still there). He insults Boyd and refuses to join him, as he gets up and notably, walks out, having finally gotten out of that wheelchair he'd been in for three plus seasons. Boyd also gets up and leaves, calling his henchman to track Johnny in his car.
Raylan and Tim show up at Aubrey's to find another Crowe brother, 14-year-old Kendall, now tending bar in Wade's place. Raylan questions him about Wade, Dewey and Darryl, only to get snarky answers in return. They take off as we cut back to Dewey, still wandering around lost, who now gets on his knees to pray to God that he let him find Wade so he can finish the kill before Darryl finds out (ha- nice praying, Dewey). Miraculously, Dewey suddenly finds fresh blood on a rock in front of him, which tells him Wade is around there somewhere after all. Tim and Raylan go to Wade's place to find Danny Crowe and his attack dog, Chelsea, living in his house. After Danny calls off the dog, Raylan questions him about Wade and Danny is evasive, mostly insulted by Raylan's comments about Chelsea. He skulks back into the house as Raylan looks suspicious.
Dewey finally comes across what looks like Wade's dead body, still bleeding out from his gunshot wound, but when he gets to him Wade looks up and begs him not to shoot. Dewey hesitates, and then a kid and his mother out in the woods walk into the scene, but only see Dewey, thinking he's a guy who needs help for sunstroke. Dewey of course panics and yells at them, but when Wade starts making noise, Dewey flees with the family, hoping to get out of there and hope Wade bleeds to death on his own. Back at Aubrey's, Darryl, Danny, Batiste and Kendall are wondering what could have happened to Dewey. Danny thinks Darryl should have just killed Wade himself, but Darryl says Dewey had to prove himself. Kendall's worried about the marshal but Darryl's not so concerned about that yet, saying he has to find Dewey himself to see if he offed Wade, and if not he'll take care of the both of them.
Now for the creepiest scene of the episode, as Ava faces down a disgusting prison guard (played by Danny Strong, who will always be Jonathan from Buffy to me), as he taunts her for smirking at him, getting her to admit she was laughing at his height. He then tries to rape her but is stopped by a female guard, who orders her out of the cell, while icky Danny Strong leers on in the background. At Boyd's bar, he's preparing to go after Johnny but is stopped by a visit from Tim and Raylan, who demand to know if he has any idea where Wade is. Boyd is annoyed by this, but Raylan tells him he knows that Wade was feeding the feds false info from Boyd as their informant, while also skimming from Dewey's money on Boyd's account. Boyd cooperates by giving Raylan Wade's non-government tracked phone number so he can find him, but Raylan has Tim watch over him for a while as he tracks it. Back at the marshal's office Art gets a call from the Detroit fed who has somebody that Art wants to see.
Darryl finally gets a call from Dewey, who's of course panicking on the other end, as Raylan follows the GPS coordinates to a deserted area where he finds crows flying in a herd and realizes Wade's body must be there somewhere. Meanwhile, Darryl and Dewey are on their way to the same spot, as Dewey tries to makes excuses for having left Wade out there, and while Darryl is not amused, when they pull up to the area it's surrounded by cops as Raylan turns over Wade's corpse- he did actually bleed to death. Darryl and Dewey hightail it out of there as Darryl tells Dewey he's lucky the problem solved itself.
Back at the bar, Tim and Boyd are playing Scrabble (!) while waiting for Raylan to get back, and when he does, Boyd assures him it had to have been one of the Crowes who killed Wade, as there was really nothing in it for him. Despite his love of antagonizing Boyd, Raylan already knows that's probably true and seems to accept Boyd's reasoning. Meanwhile, at the prison, the female guard sides up to Danny Strong in the break area to beat him down with a crowbar and tell him that Ava's "protected," threatening to burn his eye out with a cigarette if he ever goes near her again. He's sufficiently cowed as the guard walks away, and although it makes sense that Boyd would have her protected in there, I'm sort of wondering if it might be Johnny somehow in a twist.
Dewey is, as usual, in distress as Darryl keeps in locked up in a trailer, and he yells at Darryl for making him kill Wade. Darryl beats him down though and finally tells him he's got no choice, as he made him do it to prove that he IS one of them, and now that he is, he can go it alone and take all the blame or join them in their quest to build up some kind of operation in Kentucky. Dewey looks sad and trapped, as we go to Boyd staking out Johnny, whom he sees is now working for Hot Rod Dunham, the guy from a few episodes back that Raylan threatened. Boyd seems to set a plan in motion to take them both down for greater gain, while Raylan is lectured by the D.A. on Boyd having something to do with Wade's murder, seeing as he is a crime boss and all. Raylan is amused at his describing Boyd that way, but denies his involvement in it, thinking he knows Boyd better than him. Which of course he does, but maybe too well.
Art's now in Detroit to meet with the Canadian drug dealer for information on what happened the night Nicky Augustine was killed. The guy tells him it's all hearsay but that Sammy Tonin had told him he had some Kentucky lawmen on his side who was there that night. Uh-oh. He doesn't have anything concrete though and tells Art he's got to ask Picker about it (the guy who killed Sammy), and that he's now holed up in KY with none other than Wynn Duffy. Art looks troubled as he leaves, and this obviously can only lead to bad things for Raylan, and probably very soon. Speaking of Raylan, he's now in bed with Alison, who tells him she's troubled by one of her cases, where a guy threatened to beat her to death for taking away his kid, who he kept chained to a radiator in the garage, and would have killed her if the police hadn't been there. Raylan is disturbed by this too, and comforts her as he seems to be pondering his own thoughts on something else as well.
Finally, we get back to Lee Paxton, who unravels the hand that Mooney and Mara present to him in a towel and pass off as Boyd's (it's from a corpse, remember). Paxton is glad that Mooney has killed Boyd but when Mara asks him if he's still wanting to pursue the case against Ava he insists on it, saying she deserves everything she gets. Well, I guess that didn't work out. They're going to have to get rid of Paxton after all. Raylan goes back to Aubrey's, finally deciding to order the Crowes to vacate the premises and get the hell out of Kentucky, but of course Darryl refuses, leaving Raylan to at least tell them to remember he gave them a chance when it all ends badly. He does produce a court mandate allowing him to take Kendall away though, seeing as he's a minor they had serving alcohol in a whorehouse, but Darryl and Danny freak out at this, telling Raylan they're prepared to kill him rather than let him take their brother. Raylan accepts the challenge, but at the last second Kendall offers to go willingly so no one gets hurt. Darryl is pretty pissed though, as Raylan and Kendall walk out of the bar. The last scene of the episode is Boyd coming across the complete pile of bodies, apparently piled up from the night he and Jimmy got hit and from when the shipment was taken.
So that's it, everybody. Things are happening really fast, and despite all the new characters they've introduced this year, I already feel like I know them all pretty well. I still think this is the fastest start Justified has ever got off to, and for me this is already a better season than last- I'm just excited we're still at the beginning. Next week Wynn Duffy's back and Art seems to be finding out more about Raylan's involvement in Augustine's death, so stay tuned!
