Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Benjamin Cavell
Directed by Michael Watkins
It’s a rarity to see Art out in the field. He is the caretaker for modern-day Marshals like Raylan, but when the need arises — like when a Marshal gets murdered — he knows what he has to do. He gets things done.
Raylan helps with the investigation into the Marshal’s murder, paired with an Assistant Director that he worked with previously. The Assistant Director is a familiar face to fans of the Elmore Leonard novels that have inspired this show. Another surprise in this episode has Boyd going after Dickie for a different reason than what was initially suspected. That reason leads to the introduction of the second Big Bad villain of this season, and continues the solid direction underway now.
The swiftness by which the “case of the week” was solved surprised me here. The plan by Poe, a protected witness, starts out simply enough: He follows and tracks a senior US Marshal responsible for witness protection to the locations of other witnesses assigned to him, then extorts money for the addresses, only to murder the Marshal afterwards. The Harlan office is low on manpower for protecting all of the witnesses so Art has the job of confronting Poe. The scene where he gets the drop on Poe, then ties him to a chair in order to have him confess to murdering Marshal Nichols was the best scene of the episode. He’s smart, detailing to Poe (and the audience) exactly how he’s going to frame the scene to make it look like he reacted in self-defense. I didn’t think Art had those darker impulses in him.
While Art was basically torturing Poe, Raylan and Assistant Director Goodall get their own scenes together that show a chemistry between the two that he doesn’t have with any other woman in his life, even Winona. There are implications from their collective dialog that they may have engaged in some kind of affair when he was working in Miami. Maybe Assistant Director Goodall is due for a return to Harlan County some time soon. She made an impression here, but aside from the scene at the hotel, she regrettably didn’t do much.
The ongoing arc for the season takes an interesting turn in this episode. Turns out Boyd did not get himself intentionally locked up near Dickie as vengeance for shooting Ava. That’s part of it, but it’s revealed that he’s thinking beyond that: He wants a hidden fortune that Mags stashed away before she died. Only Dickie knows where the fortune is hidden so Boyd presses him for information. He holds all the cards there. There’s a time element involved here as well, since Raylan showed up at the jail to tell Boyd that he won’t be staying there as long as he initially thought. Raylan chalked it up to a dust-up between old friends and we have no idea if he knows the true reason why Boyd wanted to get close to Dickie, or it’s just that it was a genuine mix-up.
Nothing is ever cut-and-dry with conversations between Boyd and Raylan. Nevertheless, Boyd’s long-term plan is going to involve facing off against Limehouse, a scary butcher who keeps his underlings in line by threatening to burn their hands with lye. If the suited man from Detroit is the show’s more corporate criminal, then Limehouse is at the very opposite end of the spectrum. From how he talks, to his methodology, to the description of his backstory, it’s clear he might be the most dangerous and unpredictable bad guy of them all. His one scene cements that impression from the beginning. Boyd might regret taking this guy on.
Now that Limehouse is here to complete the picture, the season should start to take off soon. I am curious as to how the writers will structure the episodes that are coming. Will they lean more towards a standalone tack, or alternate between each of the serial threats in the man from Detroit and Limehouse? I remember wondering about that during the beginning of last season and it came together quite nicely by the end.
The multiplying of enemies sitting out there adds a little more complexity to the show, which is welcome. Boyd will likely take on Limehouse to try and get Mags’ fortune, while the Marshals are left to deal with the Dixie Mafia. How everything is going to end up is very much in question right now.
Grade: 8/10
