We start off tonight along the Mexican border, as a truck barrels along the desert, and we see that Danny, Dewey and Carl are waiting to greet the truck, which is filled with fish and heroin for them to smuggle. While Danny and Dewey mess with the truck, Danny complains about Dewey's hygiene, and then Carl gives them directions for the way to Kentucky, taking one of the trucks by himself and leaving Danny and Dewey the other (bad idea). Back at the bar, Boyd and Darryl get the news that the trucks are on their way, while Darryl congratulates himself on the plan being successful. Boyd lets Darryl know that he knew all along that he planned it behind his back, but Darryl tells him he just wants in on the "family." I think a problem with the season has been that the Crowes are probably the least compelling villains the show's ever had. I just can't stand them most of the time and can't wait for them to leave. Boyd is hesitant to toast their success until the drugs are actually there, but Darryl wants to settle the Crowe's place in the operation first.
Raylan meanwhile is drinking at another bar when he's approached by a very flirtatious girl. He seems interested and runs the Alison situation by her, asking if she'd have been willing to go to Florida with him, and she says she would for $500. Raylan is taken aback by her hooker status and hightails it out of there. He decides to follow up on the murder of Hot Rod's boys in Mexico instead, even though he's on vacation. This takes him all the way to Memphis, TN, where he meets up with what's basically the older version of himself, DEA Agent Alex Miller (played by Eric Roberts) with ties to Hot Rod. They're introduced by another agent (who I know as the guy who wanted to out Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight), and Raylan wants his help, but Miller's reluctant to leave his target practice, where he's having fun with his shooting and his flask. Miller caves though and teams up with Raylan for the remainder of the episode.
At the prison, Boyd is finally there to see Ava through the barrier, as they reunite over the connecting phone. Boyd is glad to see her and she is as well, but asks him for a favor. Boyd says name it and Ava quickly tells him a friend will come to see him and he needs to do whatever she asks of him before hanging up. Boyd promises he will but looks confused as Ava won't give him any more details. Wendy meets Kendall behind the bar at Audrey's and tries one of his home made cocktails, but Kendall wants out of the whole situation. Wendy promises him they'll take off as soon as she gets her cut of the money, and that she'll do her best to get him a normal life. When Darryl comes in he sends Kendall off to make him a drink and tells Wendy they're going to be very rich, and that it's all going according to plan.
Wynn Duffy (yay, he's back) is yelling at Boyd over the phone about having more new partners and also gets pissy about his coffee tasting like "ass on Sunday." Hee. I love Duffy. He and Picker head off to meet the Crowes while Raylan and Miller drive over to Hot Rod's with the Batman guy behind them. There's no one there though except Jay and Roscoe (who haven't gotten enough screentime this season for how good they are), and they claim not to have seen Hot Rod in days. The feds don't believe it and leave Batman guy to guard the two of them while they take off. At Boyd's bar, the nurse from the prison walks in looking for Boyd and meets the new bartender, Caleb (Boyd's friend from the mines) who at first claims not to know him, but then Boyd comes in and meets up with her. Her name turns out to be Rowena and she wants a weekly shipment of heroin from Boyd, plus her cut of the money, and for him to kill the man who murdered her partner. Boyd is very reluctant, mostly because he doesn't know Rowena and didn't know that Ava needed drugs in order to be safe on the inside. Rowena demands it though, and Boyd always comes through for Ava, so of course he'll do it.
Jay and Roscoe spend their time mocking the DEA guy left in charge of them, so he taunts them by spilling the beans on the murders in Mexico. The guys are upset by being screwed out of their money and team up on the Batman dude, head-butting him cold even though they're in handcuffs. They then call their friend who's got Hot Rod tied up and make him question where Boyd is, which Hot Rod caves to. Just then Raylan and Miller turn up at Hot Rod's body shop to find both Hot Rod and the guy watching him dying from fatal wounds, in Hot Rod's case a knife in the stomach, in the other guy's, a pencil in the neck. Ouch. Miller goes over to Hot Rod to comfort him while he dies, while Raylan calls an ambulance. It's no use though, as Hot Rod drinks from Miller's flask and the two have a nostalgic moment together, reminiscing about past times where he helped him out and in one case almost got him fired. It's fairly touching, as Hot Rod goes out almost peacefully. So long, old man.
Boyd shows up at a nursing home to pay a visit to a dying old man named Elmont Swaine. This is of course, the man who killed Rowena's partner. He threatens to shoot Boyd, but Boyd seems sympathetic, especially when he finds out the guy did it because his wife was corrupted in prison by the drugs, when she was only doing time for check fraud. Boyd offers him money instead of killing him, and a place to spend the rest of his life in peace. The guy appears to take the offer, as we get back to Raylan and Miller, who confesses that Hot Rod gave him tips in return for letting him peddle his pot. Miller goes with Raylan back to Kentucky to find Boyd, while Danny and Dewey have now fallen far behind Carl with their shipment. Turns out they're lost as Dewey can't get the GPS to work, continuing his season-long battle with finding good cell phone reception. Danny threatens Dewey to make it work or he's dead.
Jay and Roscoe show up in Kentucky and make their way to Boyd's, beating up Caleb and threatening him, as he freaks out and denies knowing where Boyd is. Back at the prison, Ava is approached by an angry addict who's pissed about their supply being interrupted and comes at Ava with a knife, but Judith intervenes, forcing her to back off and vouching for Ava's dependability. Raylan and Miller show up at the bar now to find Caleb tied up on the floor behind it, which Miller sees as he pours himself another drink. They get Boyd's location from Caleb and then leave him there, shouting about what kind of a place he got hired in. Poor guy.
Darryl's meeting with Wynn Duffy and Boyd now, and Duffy is thoroughly unimpressed with Darryl's proposition, considering the drugs aren't even there. Picker and Duffy flat out deny him the 20% cut he's asking for, while Jay and Roscoe make their way to the whorehouse and force Jimmy in through the back way at gunpoint. The guys all pile into the room and Boyd is now fed up, figuring these two people he's never seen before are also there to demand money, drugs, or revenge from him. He makes a big show of everyone wanting everything and even says they can shoot Darryl right now and take his place, at which point Darryl balks and says he'll take 10% (ha!). And then, of course Raylan and Miller walk in as well and call it the "United Nations of Assholes." Jay and Roscoe won't back down so easily though and make a lengthy King Lear analogy to their situation, but it all goes to waste because trigger-happy Miller suddenly shoots Roscoe out of the blue and Raylan forces Jay to surrender, slowly.
As the cops take Jay and Roscoe in, Miller bids Raylan farewell and tells him to take his Florida vacation (fat chance), before taking off back to Memphis. Now, Boyd and Jimmy are driving old man Swaine to his purported destination, but that turns out to be the side of the road, as Boyd steps out of the car and Jimmy strangles Swaine from behind. Boyd does look a bit wistful about it though, as he calls Rowena to tell her it's done. Wendy and Kendall are playing cards while she promises him yet again that in just a couple more days they can leave, but Darryl suddenly comes in and rummages through Kendall's drawer, accidentally finding the money Raylan gave him. Darryl demands to know where it came from and Kendall claims he stole it off the johns, but Darryl takes it as Kendall storms off. Wendy tells Darryl that she and Kendall want out, but Darryl says he just has to kill three people and then they can take over the heroin business in Kentucky. Wendy want no part of that however and storms off herself as Darryl looks frustrated.
Ava comes in to the infirmary, where Rowena confirms that Boyd came through, but she has one more condition. Ava is upset at her upping the terms again, but the new condition is that Ava kill Judith in order the get the heroin. Ava looks worried, as her ordeal continues. At the marshal's office, Raylan is filing the report when Art sees him and rips him a new one for never following the rules or respecting his authority, yet somehow working things out anyway. Raylan wants to resolve things between them right now, but Art says he's still got time to make his decision, and time to make him squirm is really the only thing he's got over Raylan at this point. Finally, Miller's headed back in the middle of the night when he sees Hot Rod's truck coming up the highway and makes a u-turn to try to stop it himself. It's obviously a bad idea, as Danny and Dewey panic at the sight of a DEA agent, who pulls them over and demands they get out of the car. Danny pulls a knife and steps out, while Miller draws his gun and Dewey makes a sudden attempt to take control of the truck and run Danny over. Unfortunately, he misses and just barely hits him, but does take out Miller as he speeds ahead and drives off down the road, crying out as Danny glares at him from behind.
Well, it was a better episode than last week, but the storylines are proving to be very disjointed this season, without intersecting like they were at first. And even though I liked some of the new characters they introduced at the beginning, I now feel like a lot of them didn't get nearly enough time to shine this year. Like Jay and Roscoe, they were good but now they're done? That was it for them? They were far more entertaining than the Crowes and could have been bigger, more important villains. And the Johnny-Boyd feud had way more juice in it than they ended up using as well, and he was more interesting than the Crowes by a long shot. Well, we'll see how they wrap this season up, but it's starting to look right now like it was a year that started off promising but might have run out of gas too early. See you next week!
