Yay, Justified is back! It's long been one of my favorite shows on TV and I couldn't be more excited to be recapping the fifth season, which kicked off tonight with a premiere entitled, "A Murder of Crowes." Although there were several non-Crowes who bit the bullet tonight, as this episode may have even set the record for the sheer number of people who got done away with. We jump right in with a hilarious courtroom scene where it turns out our old skeezy pal Dewey Crowe and his lawyer are stating the multiple physical assaults poor Dewey has been subjected to by Raylan, who as always, sits on the witness stand with a casual smirk on his face, denying he caused Dewey any real harm over the years. Stephen Root resumes his role (there are a lot of recurring guests tonight) as Judge Reardon, who ends up giving Dewey a $300,000 settlement, which he of course mistakes at first for just $300 dollars total and is stunned and thrilled by the correct amount he just received.
We then cut to another legal meeting, where Boyd, Ava and their lawyer are talking about how to get her out of the prison debacle she was landed in at the end of last season. Boyd cuts off the lawyer and tells him to put headphones on while he then proceeds to tell Ava about the shady manuevers he's pulling, including bribing judges, in order to get her out. It's awfully sweet in a Boyd/Ava kind of way, as they hug and kiss before he promises she'll be wearing her engagement ring soon enough, and Ava is then hauled away in her grey prison jumpsuit.
We now come to the first murders of the night, as Boyd and his goons meet up on the bridge with the guys who are supposed to be selling them their dope from Detroit, and things go very wrong when the dudes try to double-cross them because they don't have it. Boyd and his guys shoot them all dead, including one hiding in the van, but not before a bullet grazes Boyd's ear and he has to spend the rest of the episode in a bandage people keep asking him about. He angrily calls his new partner Wynn Duffy (now series regular Jere Burns!) and tells them they're headed to Detroit.
Man, that was a lot of action before the opening credits. When we get back we're meeting up with some new hicks, one Cuban guy and one seemingly Kentucky hillbilly with a stutter, but it turns out we're in Florida, as the two get in an argument with a corrupt Coast Guard they've been working with, who tells them he wants out of their arrangement. He of course, eventually gets blown away by the stutterer after making fun of him too many times, marking the second bloody death scene in about ten minutes. Meanwhile, Art more or less explains to Raylan back in Harlan who's involved in this and they turn out to be members of the extended Crowe clan down in Florida. Raylan doesn't want to go to Florida though, even when Art drops hints about him visiting Winona and his new baby daughter (good- she finally had that kid after one of the world's longest pregnancies) and prefers to question the local Crowe here in Kentucky.
So he heads out to do so, and we find out Dewey is now the new owner of a bar and is keeping company with some naked girls in his backyard pool when Raylan comes over to badger him. After some typically fun Justified banter with Dewey cowering naked in front of Raylan, he eventually tells them he knows nothing about the murder because he stays away from his Florida cousins, who are bad news all around. Raylan believes him but shoots a couple of holes in his pool before leaving, which deflates immediately as Dewey whines. Raylan now shows up in Florida, partnering with the local marshal Greg Sutter (played by David Koechner), where they're briefed on the operations of the Crowe clan, comprised of Elvis (the Cuban guy) and brothers Dilly (the stutterer) and Daryll Jr., who Raylan has had past dealings with, locking up Daryll before.
Now we get Dilly and Elvis coming to meet up with Darryll to inform him of the murder of the guard, and Daryll is not pleased, yelling at them both to pay to make the body disappear before it turns into a federal situation. Meanwhile Boyd and Duffy are now in Detroit, which is a place so dire it will amusingly be filmed only in a bleak gray saturated palette, like we wandered into a Clint Eastwood movie all of a sudden. Boyd and Duffy are searched at what looks like a condemned building and told to walk up to the 14th floor with a chainsaw and grocery bag.
Raylan and Greg make their way to the Crowe swamplands to interrogate the guy who poaches the alligators, but he claims ignorance even though he's clearly associated with the Crowes. Raylan claims they've met before when he came after Daryll with a search warrant but the guy won't budge, showing off his folksy storytelling instead. Raylan drops the info about Dewey's newfound wealth within earshot of the guy, who immediately calls Daryll to tell him they're looking for him when the marshals leave. Back in the washed out world of Detroit, Boyd and Duffy are searched again by a new set of guys at the top level, including Picker, who needs the chainsaw to interrogate a guy in the back room. Boyd won't give him the money and wants to see Sammy Tonin instead, who's now running the operation. He shows up in his familiar weaselly manner, but as soon as he steps toward Boyd he's blown away by Picker along with the guy in the back room. Bye Sammy. Hardly got to know you again. Boyd and Duffy are showered with blood splatter and are at first stunned, but Boyd quickly gets the upper hand on Picker, forcing him to tell him that he's made a deal with the Canadians who wanted Sammy dead. Boyd demands a meet with the Canooks.
Raylan and Greg are hanging out in a diner exchanging pleasantries, and it turns out Greg's quite a family man, with kids of his own and passive aggressively hints Raylan should pay a visit to his, but Raylan shrugs it off. Suddenly a redheaded woman claiming to be Daryll Crowe's lawyer comes up to them and tries to gain a deal for Daryll's parole ending on the basis of his cooperation. She also reveals she's Daryll's sister before Daryll himself walks in and sits down with the marshals, denying knowledge of the murder, but offering to give up Elvis and Dilly with a plan of his own.
Boyd and Duffy are now suffering through a snack with Canadians Will Sasso and Dave Foley ("shitty donuts" according to Boyd), who say they're finished doing business with them because of the escalating chainsaw violence. Boyd turns over the money and is fairly upset, while Picker offers up a new dope pipeline if they go through Mexico instead. That was one weird appearance by Foley and Sasso- which means they must be back sometime soon, right? In Florida, Daryll and his sister (whose name is Wendy) are now fighting over the mess they're in with the marshals. Dilly and Elvis come up to them and Daryll tells Elvis he's out of the business, but he wants to be paid off with $20,000. Daryll sets up a plan to pay him at a motel later that night (where Raylan will be told to catch him) and Wendy drives him off, while Daryll has Dilly added to tonight's body count as he's killed by his brother's henchman with a knife. Ick.
Rayland and Greg march into the empty motel room while Wendy purposely crashes her car when Elvis pulls out a gun. She then runs off while Elvis wanders out of the crash site and plans to get in a makeshift boat to Cuba. Wendy calls Raylan to rat him out, and the marshals catch up with Elvis trying to take off in a lifeboat. Raylan stops him by shooting a hole in it so it deflates (he likes doing that tonight) but Elvis draws his weapon so the marshals simultaneously shoot him dead. And there goes Elvis. We barely knew ya. Raylan meets up with Daryll on a bridge, where he waxes philosophical about family while keeping the two deaths from Raylan, who calls him on his bullshit before walking off. Greg offers again to take Raylan to see Winona but he once again brushes it off. Greg's last word of advice to Raylan is about how it's harder to say goodbye to his kids when he leaves than it is to not see them for a while. The last scene we get of Daryll is of the alligator guy telling him about his cousin Dewey's new money as Daryll wonders what he'll do now that Florida's over for him. Well, I guess we'll be seeing Daryll again.
Boyd is depressed back at the bar in Harlan, and even more so when he finds out that the one honest judge with no family to threaten is the guy who received Ava's case. Raylan's back at the office later that night, skyping with Winona and the new baby as she wonders if he'll come to Miami to visit them soon. He promises to, but looks a bit ambivalent as they say good night. Finally, Boyd's last move is to drive over to Paxton's place to essentially beg him to be paid to make Ava's charges disappear. He offers exactly $300,000 (gee, wonder where he'll get that?) for it to happen. Paxton's got a new young wife from Latvia whom he shows off as having bought, but he refuses to help Boyd out in any way, unless he himself is willing to sign a statement as being the one who killed Delroy and swap places with Ava in prison. Boyd hesitates as Paxton laughs that he knew he didn't love Ava that much, which sets Boyd off as he beats him to death with the gun handle. The Latvian wife comes running and Boyd offers her the same deal he gave Paxton, but she's non-committal as she tells Boyd to kill her or leave the house. Boyd leaves, dejected, and the woman cradles Paxton, who is apparently dead, but she appears to be planning something as she looks him over.
And that's it for the premiere everyone. Things are definitely being set up, even though we spent a lot of this episode getting to know a bunch of Crowes who didn't make it to the end of the hour, but clearly Daryll will be back, and maybe this mysterious Latvian wife of Paxton as well. Can't wait to see how it all plays out. See you next Tuesday!
