New Show Recap: Justified, 5.03, “Good Intentions”

This season of Justified is setting up to be one long twisted road to What the Hell Just Happened? In other words, shit’s getting real, y’all.

Let’s start with Boyd this time, because it seems that poor guy just cannot catch a break. I mean, all he wants is to sell a little heroin, make a little money and get his fiancee out of jail before she’s convicted for a murder she did, in fact, commit. I mean, really — is that so much to ask?

Apparently so. If you’ll remember, we ended last week with his shipment of heroin being hijacked. Boyd immediately suspects Wynn Duffy, and if Duffy’s eyebrows could actually move they would be raised high because he is shocked — SHOCKED, I say! — when Boyd accuses him of such a dastardly deed. He points out that other people knew the date of the shipment, including the room full of dealers. Boyd immediately remembers Cyrus, the loud mouth who was doing most of the complaining. Cyrus ends up on the wrong end of Wynn Duffy and an air rifle, several times, and pretty soon Boyd knows he was shooting off more than what you’d expect him to be shooting when a guy is offered a Pop Rocks blowjob. Armed with that telling job description, Boyd pays another visit to Ava at her new prison home.

To say things are a bit tense between Ava and Boyd would be like calling the Great Wall of China a cute little fence. Ava wants O.U.T. and Boyd is not delivering on the many promises he’s made. In fact, she calls him out for fucking up one opportunity after another, which leads him to make clear the pointed fact that, hello! he’s not the one who killed Delroy. (Oh, snap!) While that may be true, it doesn’t make her particularly amenable to helping him when Boyd asks for the names of any former employees of Audrey’s who specialized in the oral arts.

She does give him a name, though, which is unfortunate for Candy/Teri as it leads to her being delivered directly to Boyd by way of tied-up-in-a-crate. Once he knows he’s dealing with Candy/Teri, Boyd also knows who’s behind his stolen shipment of heroin: Cousin Johnny.

But that’s not all Boyd is dealing with. Mail Order Bride Mara seems to be staking out ground as the Other Woman in a Boyd/Ava triangle. In a move that, I’ve gotta admit, impressed me, Mara went straight to Paxton (awake and alert, dammit) with Mooney’s assault on her. She plays the “frightened little woman” card well, and Paxton not only takes her side and reams Mooney for scaring her but orders the gormless Deputy Sheriff to kill Boyd himself. We all know that’s not going to happen, and it’s especially not going to happen when Mara calls Boyd to warn him of the plan that’s afoot.

Together, she and Boyd lure an unsuspecting Mooney to her house where Mara gets a bit of personal revenge by squeezing him where it hurts (I hope she has long fingernails) before Boyd apprises the lawman of the facts of his new situation. These facts are mainly that Boyd intends to be the last man standing when all is said and done.

Mara doesn’t trust Mooney and wants to kill him (I concur!) but Boyd believes he can keep the coward on a tight leash. Since Paxton wants Boyd dead, she and Boyd concoct a plan to cut off a dead man’s hand, add tattoos that look like Boyd’s and show that to Paxton as proof that the deed has been done. On the way to that decision, though, Mara gets a guided tour of the rest of Boyd’s tattoos. Boyd usually keeps those secrets hidden beneath those tightly fastened shirts he wears, but he was mighty quick to slip off that button-down and let Mara’s hands roam his chest and back like she was checking him for ticks. Raise your hand if you’re waiting for the inevitable Ava/Mara showdown. You know one’s coming.

And what’s Raylan doing while all this is happening?

Well, Raylan being Raylan, he’s trying to get laid (told you that no-sex thing with Alison wouldn’t hold) when their tryst is interrupted by a car alarm that won’t stop. Turns out, Mercedes Benz have very sensitive security systems and when you’re a big hairy guy with a baseball bat, all it takes is a tap on the bumper to set them off.  Raylan assumes Mr. Rich Guy (whose name is actually Monroe) sent the goon to scare Raylan out of staying at the house, especially since Monroe is scheduled to have a bail hearing where he will, in all likelihood, be released on his own recognizance.

Raylan pays a visit to Monroe, who denies having sent Big Hairy Guy but still manages to issue a few more threats. Art thinks it might be a good idea to station Rachel at the big house with Raylan, a fact which you know had Rachel wondering why the hell she always ends up babysitting Raylan but had me cheering because, Rachel.

Rachel gets in a good lecture about Raylan’s rather erratic behavior, which Raylan ignores because he’s Raylan Givens and that’s what he does. She then points out that Big Hairy Guy could have been in cahoots with Alison to get Raylan out of the big house so she could steal whatever Monroe might have left behind. Raylan pshaws the whole idea (you know, because he has such sterling taste in women) but, as it turns out, Alison is hiding a few secrets, not the least of which is that she thinks nothing of rolling up a joint in front of a law enforcement official.

It turns out that Big Hairy Guy actually wasn’t sent by Monroe to harass Raylan, he came of his own accord to harass Alison. Why, you ask?  Because Alison, in her role as a social worker, planted meth among his son’s toys so she had an excuse to remove the child from his family, an action she wanted to take because the boy’s kindergarten teacher had noticed bruises stemming from abuse. Once Raylan knows the truth, he pays Big Hairy Guy a visit and after a friendly conversation involving a few swats with a baseball bat, convinces the guy never to come near Alison again.

But just because Monroe didn’t send Big Hairy Guy after Raylan doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the Detroit moneyman. Since he didn’t send the thug after Raylan, Monroe surmises that someone else did in hopes of stealing a stash of gold he kept in a hidden safe. The someone else he suspects is Gloria, his maid/mistress. After almost choking the woman to death a few times, Monroe convinces her to show up unannounced at the house, check to make sure the gold is still there and if so, get it out for him. Unfortunately for her, she’s caught in the act by Raylan and Rachel. They talk her into telling Monroe the gold actually has been stolen, which leads him to suspect . . . wait for it . . . Wynn Duffy. Remember that safe installation business Duffy has? Well, as it happens, Duffy is the one who installed Monroe’s hidden safe. Raylan has an attack of conscience, I guess, and pays a visit to the Wynn-abago (ha!) with an “oops….” kind of warning. While he’s there, Monroe shows up and is shot by Mikey, Duffy’s bodyguard-cum-bodyguard.

Almost lost in all this fun we’re having is that Cousin Daryl Crowe found out that Boyd overcharged Dewey when he sold him Audrey’s. He sends Dewey to ask Boyd for a refund but instead, Dewey ends up the personal recipient of a hellfire and brimstone Boyd Crowder preaching sermon! And I tell you what, not enough attention has been paid to that moment because it was a beautiful thing! By the time Boyd said, “Put your foot down, Dewey Crowe!” I was ready to crawl to the altar myself. Dewey, full of the spirit and inspired by some fine Boyd preaching, rushes right back to throw Daryl out, only to find that he’d beaten Messer to a pulp and as a result, had extracted the confession that Messer had been skimming from Dewey on Boyd’s behalf. Are we setting up for a Daryl/Boyd showdown, too? Why, yes, I think we are.

God, I love this show.