New Show Recap: Justified 5×08, “Whistle Past the Graveyard”

Justified may have only five more episodes before the end of this season but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a few surprises left to spring on us. Let’s recap!

Last week, we saw Boyd finally pull a Henry II and rid himself of his own troublesome priest, i.e., Cousin Johnny (who really is dead, since I was wondering). This week, he has to face the consequences as delivered by Alberto, Mr. Yoon’s right hand man. Mr. Yoon is not, predictably, very happy that his one instruction — don’t kill anyone while you’re on the Mexican side of the border — was ignored. Alberto tells Boyd that as punishment, Mr. Yoon is ending their fledgling business relationship, keeping the money Boyd paid and taking back the heroin, too. Boyd offers to haul the corpses of the dead men over to the U.S. side for burial, removing them from Mexican soil and making that “dead bodies in Mexico” problem disappear.

That solution appeases Mr. Yoon but leaves Boyd with his own set of difficulties: namely, how to transport said corpses and said heroin into the United States. Danny Crowe helpfully reminds Daryl of an old friend named Flores, who back in the day helped them when something needed transporting. Daryl isn’t sure Flores will be all that willing to provide assistance now, especially since he and Danny apparently had a bit of a tag team thing going with Flores’ sister. (Do yourself a favor and don’t think about that one too much. It’s not a picture you want in your head. Never ask me how I know this.) Boyd makes it clear that since they’re the ones who opened fire in the first place, he holds the Crowes responsible for their current predicament. Flores it is.

They set off again through the desert. Boyd and Daryl are in the middle of a touching heart-to-heart chat about executing your last living blood relative when their respective cohorts get tired of sharing the hot-and-getting-hotter back of the closed delivery truck with four dead bodies. (Ewww.) They steal a second car and keep driving, until they’re pulled over in the middle of the night by Mexican police.

The officers take one look at the motley crew of Crowders and Crowes and know some shit is up, and it has nothing to do with the missionary work Boyd insists they’ve come to Mexico to do. Despite Boyd quoting Romans and Daryl wanting to know if they’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb, the police officers demand money, first $1000, then $2000 and then everything in the wad of cash Boyd pulls out. They want the truck, too, and after a token protest, Boyd lets them have it. The officers drive away without opening it up so we don’t get to see their reactions when they discover what sunlight and heat in an enclosed space can do to four dead bodies. Bummer.

Thank goodness the group stole the other car, though. Boyd and Daryl and their respective gangs find a little roadside bar to wait for Flores, who is late but does finally show up. Daryl promises him one brick of the 50 heroin bundles that are hidden in the car in exchange for his help getting the drugs across the border into the U.S. The plan is that Boyd, et al, will swap vehicles with Flores, et al, and once safely across the border, the two groups will meet up again to exchange payment/drugs.  Flores agrees but the speed at which he accepts the deal strikes Boyd as suspect and he wonders out loud why Flores isn’t more upset with Danny and Daryl over their three’s a party with his sister. Daryl wants to brush all that old history under the rug and after a tense moment, Flores basically says he doesn’t have enough bullets to kill every white boy his sister has sex with and that he’s over it. Boyd’s suspicions are proved well-founded, though, when Jimmy overhears a couple of Flores’ men talking. Boyd doesn’t even have to speak Spanish to know that Daryl has tried to run a set-up but for the moment, he has no choice and plays along.

Back in Kentucky, Ava is still in jail, without a clue about what’s happening with Boyd, and concerned with her own efforts to find drugs. Penny’s way of getting them inside the prison seems to be via a crooked infirmary nurse. Ava allows Penny to deliberately dislocate her shoulder and when she’s with the nurse, asks for something stronger than aspirin. Her painful efforts seem to be for naught, though, when the nurse gives her a “bitch, please” face and sends her back to her cot.

Mother doesn’t seem to believe Ava’s assurances that more drugs are coming, nor is she all that impressed when Ava tells the story of shooting Bowman, and she makes it clear that she expects Ava to deliver on her promise of heroin, with an “or else” left unsaid but strongly implied.

Lucky for Ava (if you want to call it that), the unhelpful infirmary nurse returns later that night as Ava is finishing a shower. She bitches at Ava for being indiscreet and then says she’ll help but (i) Ava can’t tell Mother where the drugs are coming from and (ii) Ava’s “man on the outside” has to agree to do the nurse a favor, the nature of which is yet to be determined. Ava agrees to both conditions (I’m sure Boyd will be thrilled) and goes back to Mother with the good news. Mother isn’t happy that Ava won’t share her sources, though, and it’s obvious the two women aren’t on each other’s Christmas card lists.

While Ava and Boyd are trying to build separate drug empires, Raylan is just trying to talk Alison into going to Florida with him for a little R&R&hotel sex. She’s a bit iffy because of the whole “isn’t that where your ex-wife and baby are?” but she’s got two weeks off with pay and is just beginning to see the potential (did I mention hotel sex?) when Raylan’s phone goes off for what seems like the hundredth time with a call from a blocked number. He should have kept on ignoring it because when he does answer, Wendy Crowe is on the other end.

Last week, Kendell was seen calling “Uncle Jack,” clearly hoping to get the hell out of Harlan. This week, Uncle Jack (guest star Kyle Bornheimer) shows up and takes both Kendall and Wendy out for breakfast, where he tells them all about the fracking business — except that he’s not actually in that business, per se, he’s more in the line of setting up card games to make money off the actual workers. Wendy is unimpressed and wants him gone but instead it’s Kendall and Jack who are gone when she returns from a visit to the ladies’ room.

She’s pissed but when she returns to Audry’s to find a dangerous man named Michael (guest star William Forsythe) looking for Jack, too, her anger turns to fear. She hides the rifle kept at the bar behind a trash bag and once outside, blows holes in Michael’s tires and takes off herself.

The first thing she does is try to enlist Raylan’s help in finding Kendall and Jack. He’s uncooperative until she mentions that Daryl and Danny have gone to Mexico and offers to give him more information on their illegal activities there. When Alison hears that Kendall might be in trouble, she obviously expects Raylan to help, too, so the Florida travel plans are put on hold.

Kendall thinks Jack is taking him on a roller coaster riding holiday but Jack is as much a loser as the Crowes. When he and Kendall stop for gas, Jack gets a phone call alerting him that Michael is after him. He feeds Kendall a bullshit story about stopping a rape in progress by beating up a guy whose brother is now after him. A few minutes later, though, he’s trying to steal a different, unrecognizable car and Kendall calls him on his lies and then drops the bombshell that he knows that Jack is his father and Wendy is his mother. Hello?!? That came out of nowhere!

The father and son don’t get much of a chance to enjoy the moment of revelation, though, because Jack sees Michael pulling into the parking lot and takes off running, leaving Kendall behind. When he calls Wendy a few minutes later, she’s livid at his cowardice. Raylan has never been accused of having Dr. Phil-like tendencies and is more than a bit fed up when Wendy and Jack start in on each other like a couple in a bad therapy session. He wants to return Kendall to Wendy, collect Wendy’s information on the whereabouts of Daryl and Danny and get down to sunny FL, in that order.

They set up a meeting with Michael to hand over what’s left of the cash Jack skimmed from his crooked card games but Michael doesn’t want the money, he wants to beat the shit out of Jack for hitting his son in the head with a brick and leaving him in a coma. Before Raylan can stop him, Michael lays into Jack. The last thread of Raylan’s self-control snaps and he arrests them both.

Unfortunately, when he turns to Wendy for the lead she promised about her brothers, she tells him that she doesn’t really have anything other than the bit about them being in Mexico. She doesn’t know where they are or what they’re doing, she just wanted Raylan’s help finding Kendall and figured that was the best way to get his assistance.

Raylan is disgruntled but altogether not all that surprised and is taking his leave and anticipating Florida when he stops to have a last conversation with Kendall.

Kendall… well, I want to say that kid is just screwed, bless his heart, but as Raylan points out in an attempt to offer the boy some hope for the future, he grew up with Arlo as a father and he turned out okay. Kendall translates Raylan’s “I turned out okay” into “I’m a cop” and is not even remotely impressed, even when Raylan points out that options were limited and a lot of the kids he grew up with ended up dead or in jail. Something in Kendall strikes a chord with Raylan, though, and before he leaves Raylan gives Kendall the $2000 he won from the radio station, the same money he was going to use to finance the trip to Florida with Alison.

He returns to Alison’s apartment and gives her the news about having located Kendall and about having giving him the money. He also tells her that Wendy promised to call Alison’s boss and have her suspension lifted. When Raylan mentions the new, less extravagant scale of the Florida trip, Alison points out that she no longer has two weeks off and has to go back to work. Raylan throws out Plan B, heading down at the end of next month. Alison tosses back Plan C — she’s breaking up with him. Personally, I would have waited until after the hotel sex to break up but hey, that’s just me.

So, there you go. Life is never dull in Justified-land, is it?