Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Taylor Elmore
Directed by Bill Johnson
Robert Quarles just can’t seem to die. Multiple people in different parts of Kentucky and even another state want him dead, yet he keeps going like a cockroach. It’s amazing, really, given that he’s descended to being a drug-addled rogue psychopath. That seems to make him even more dangerous.
The saga over catching/killing him is masterfully intertwined with the continued pursuit of the Mags Bennett fortune by many parties. All of the conjecture this season on the whereabouts of the money were proven wrong, as it ends up in the last place I would have expected. If you look back on the reasons why Mags would do what she did with the money, it’s really the last genuinely compassionate thing she did before she took her own life last season. Of course, Dickie is not going to see it that way, but that matters very little because Mags never had any respect for Dickie and the obsession with the money has now put his life in jeopardy.
Now, Boyd is a smart operator. Only, when he finally catches Quarles, he does a really stupid thing and keeps Quarles chained in a trailer, with his hands free, and guarded by two prostitutes who are junkies plus another guy. Even in a drugged-up haze, Quarles easily takes out all three people and escapes. It’s almost like he’s running a gauntlet now. He makes his way to Wynn Duffy’s motor coach, where the guy doesn’t seem to fear Quarles anymore. He’s working for Theo Tonin now, though I had the brief thought that Duffy would just have one of his lackeys shoot Quarles and be done with it.
It becomes much more chaotic when he allows Quarles to follow through on his vendetta against Boyd, and so attaches a set of explosives to Quarles’ car with the full intent of blowing him up after he takes out Boyd. What happens after that meeting is usually what happens in 95% of this show: things never go according to plan. Quarles saunters up to Boyd’s bar, is about to shoot Boyd (who is prepared to also shoot Quarles), then his car is blown up by Duffy. The lead sheriff who has been tailing everyone involved in this crime saga in Kentucky gets in the line of fire and looks to be the only one who was shot by Quarles.
By the looks of the end there, Quarles has escaped, possibly with Boyd as his hostage, and Duffy is likely close on his tail. How everyone gets to the end scene outside the bar is quite well set up. Raylan was on the fringes, hunting Quarles on his own, and I liked that the best lead he could get on the guy was marked by the explosion of Quarles’ car, probably seen by half of Harlan. There’s no telling now what Quarles plans to do with Boyd in tow, but I would imagine it can’t be anything good. The fact that Quarles killed Raylan’s sheriff friend means he’ll go real hard at him, and it might have him caught in a situation where his life is on the line.
Not that I’m that worried about our favorite US Marshal. He put Dickie down in this episode for drawing a gun on him, though Limehouse’s tip did help matters. This episode seemed to clarify what Limehouse’s true motivation were throughout the season. His threats to the various parties who entered Nobles Holler were for show. His true intent was to scare everyone into leaving the citizens of Nobles Holler — including himself — alone. He got rid of Quarles, and here was set on settling all debts with Dickie Bennett. So he has Errol lead Dickie into Boyd’s bar to offer a deal in finding and splitting Mags’ fortune. Boyd almost kills him (it’s shocking how quickly Boyd moves without saying a word) before Ava convinces him to listen to what Dickie has to say.
Again, everyone plays around with the notion that the money is in some specific place, if not a church, then a bank that’s been robbed a few too many times over the years. Nearly everyone involved sees through the ruse — a detail that I really like because the fortune then takes on an almost mythical quality — and only a few people truly know where the money actually is. The surprise here is that Limehouse was ordered by Mags to give the fortune to Loretta, possibly as restitution for her killing Loretta’s father last season. I had thought Loretta would figure into the narrative again at some point, but this was a genuine surprise.
Raylan has a refreshing, and at the same time sternly parental, conversation with Loretta at the end that shows a chemistry between them that has been missed throughout this season. Raylan also took care of any threats that might be posed at Loretta for that money, since he easily guns down Dickie during his lame attempt to assassinate Loretta. It’s Limehouse and Raylan who are the ones standing outside this brewing conflict between Quarles and Boyd and Wynn Duffy and Theo Tonin. It allows them to see all of the angles the others can’t see in their solitary missions to destroy one another.
I still think there’s more bloodshed coming, though. You have all this chaos being created by Boyd and Quarles, and it would be a foolish decision for the show to back off from that without some kind of payoff. I might just be completely wrong about Limehouse here and maybe he’ll pull off some last-minute turn against Marshal Givens. His true agenda has never really been fully clear from the beginning. That has been true of every villain on this show. Though, Quarles is basically scraping the bottom of the barrel now that all of his schemes have failed at some point. That lack of clarity actually builds a good amount of momentum for the season finale, and the climax should be a lot of fun to watch.
Grade: 8/10
