An unbelievably great episode, with surprises all over the place and a body count straight out of a Tarantino film. Mooney calls Lee in the middle of the night and tells him that thanks to an anonymous tip, a bunch of corpses of murder victims were discovered on his property and he's suspected of a shady deal with local crime. Immediately realizing that Mooney is now in Boyd's pocket, Lee turns on the light to find Boyd (probably let in by Mara) sitting there; he goes for his gun, but Boyd's beaten him to it. Boyd intones that profiting off murder victims will be a stain on Lee's reputation so great that it'll be no surprise he killed himself (and the unstated addition is that now his testimony against Ava won't be credible), and having already served as judge and jury, he now plays executioner as he wraps the weakened Lee's hand around the gun and forces him to blow his own brains out. It's like Boyd heard me contend that he prefers not to kill and decided to personally argue the point.
In Canada, ALAN TUDYK finds Will Sasso and -- after obtaining info at gunpoint on what he gave the Feds -- sends him off to that great Tim Horton's in the sky. Soon after, Art takes it upon himself to find Picker and in doing so he realizes that Alan Tudyk is after him as well. It looks awfully likely that Alan Tudyk means to kill Picker right in the middle of a diner, but Art catches him in the parking lot and persuades him it might not be the best idea for anyone concerned. Art then strides in and sits down with Wynn, Mike and Picker, and Picker is not so pleased to realize Art knows all about him, but consents to take a walk with Art when he tells him his business is unofficial. All this congeniality, though, is interrupted when Alan Tudyk walks in, not having been so put off by Art after all, and drips menace all over everything and everyone as he tells Picker to come with him if he doesn't want his family to suffer. It really seems like a firefight might happen, but Alan Tudyk eventually leaves while making it clear he's not going anywhere on a broader scale.
Wendy Crowe comes up from Florida to collect Kendal, whose case worker just so happens to be Allison. Allison, of course, lets Raylan know about this development, so Raylan makes sure to tell Wendy it'd be in all her kin's best interests to get her brothers out of Kentucky for good. Wendy, however, isn't impressed -- and neither is Allison once she figures out that Raylan used Kendal as a pawn in his campaign against the Crowes. Raylan's not thrilled to hear that lecture, nor is he too psyched when he tries to have Vasquez revoke Darryl's parole and Vasquez tells him he's too busy, because Picker's in the house. Raylan also learns that Art went to Detroit, and he grimly sits in as Vasquez lets everyone know that Alan Tudyk is "a high-value target at the DOJ" by the name of "Elias Marcos, Theo Tonin's consigliere and one-man Pretorian guard." It also comes out that Tonin recently left Tunisia thanks to a heart ailment, but Picker is not willing to cooperate on any front, so Raylan asks Art for two minutes alone with him. When Art grants that, Raylan supposes Picker wants to take Marcos out himself and as such has an idea where to find him. After some quiet, I'm-not-threatening-you-just-stating-facts work from Raylan, Picker sends him and Art to a shipping warehouse. While they're looking around, Raylan asks Art why he went to Detroit, but Art doesn't get a chance to answer before Alan Tudyk starts shooting at them with an automatic weapon. Raylan ends up dropping him dead, which is a little anticlimactic, until they find Theo Tonin hiding in another container, which AMAZING.
Wendy, meanwhile, takes Kendal back to Audrey's despite thinking that Raylan had every right to haul him out of there, and she's in the process of chewing Darryl out when she realizes he wanted her to come up there for the sake of the family dynamic -- she's better at wrangling wild cards like Danny than he is. Wendy isn't interested, however, and warns Darryl that with Raylan coming after his parole he at the very least needs to find a suitable place for Kendal so CPS doesn't haul him away again. They decide to "do the old thing," and we'll have to wait until next week to find out whatever horrible developments that may entail.
Boyd walks into the bar to find Darryl waiting for him; Jean-Baptiste is there too, and the two of them drop some thinly veiled menace in Boyd's direction until he draws on them. Darryl tells Boyd he wants the money back from Audrey's, but Boyd isn't impressed and kicks them out. Boyd then talks to a "Hays Workman," who tells him he knows Boyd's solid but he's having trouble with the idea of never seeing his wife and kids again. It's unclear what he means -- until he walks in on a public meeting between Mooney, Boyd and Mara and shoots Mooney dead. Boyd then explains to Mara that Workman was terminal (thanks to black lung, which suggests he and Boyd go back to the coal mines), so he agreed to off Mooney in exchange for money for his family -- that money that Mara thought was hers. Boyd tells her to leave Harlan and never come back, but might she be a loose end that comes back to bite him in much the way Cassie did last season?
Boyd calls a meeting with Hot Rod, who recalls Boyd's dad fondly before offering him half the take he stole to square things between them. Boyd, however, is more interested in the following deal: Hot Rod pays him nothing, but he turns Johnny over to him and helps him smuggle heroin into Kentucky from Mexico. Hot Rod isn't so sure about going the horse business, which is far riskier than weed, but Boyd gets his attention when he offers to cut him in for half. Hot Rod duly has his men cover Johnny, intending to turn him over to Boyd. But the script is neatly flipped when, as it turns out, Johnny had paid Hot Rod's men off to be in his pocket, so that's bad for Boyd, although possibly not as bad as it'll be for Hot Rod. Also, Boyd's machinations with Lee and Mooney work, and Ava's lawyer tells her she'll be a free woman the next day -- but Danny Strong, with an assist from Ava's cellmate, shanks himself cosmetically and pins it on Ava. A wild-eyed Boyd goes back to the prison only to learn Ava's already been transferred to the state pen, so the second half of the episode is definitely not as good for Boyd as the first.
What else? Danny is a loose cannon who gives Kendal a bunch of shit, and Jean-Baptiste decides he's had enough and literally challenges him to a duel to the death. Danny, like all cowardly bullies, backs off from a straight fight but then blows Jean-Baptiste away with a shotgun once he gets the chance before ordering Kendal not to say anything, because no one had died in like ten minutes and things were slowing down.
In the end, the marshals and Vasquez are delighted that Art's getting such a huge collar so late in his career; also, possibly to thank Raylan for solving his Alan Tudyk/Theo Tonin problem, Picker tells Vasquez that there was a Federal agent present when Sammy killed Augustine⦠Barkley. So everything looks great for Raylan -- until he turns back and confesses to Art (who still looked like he suspected Raylan) that it actually wasn't Barkley -- "and I can tell you that for a fact." DUN!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
A phone rings on a bedside nightstand, and through the darkness Lee grabs the phone and groggily says hello. It's Mooney, who's calling with the news that he and his men got an anonymous tip earlier that led them to "a pretty gruesome discovery." Whether you apply Mooney's personal standards or the show's, I'm willing to bet he's not exaggerating. And indeed, they found several corpses -- so that's what the very last scene last week was all about -- stashed away in one of Lee's funeral homes, and from the prison tats and blunt-force evidence, he's concluded that they're murder victims. He goes on that his anonymous tipster "said that we would find this horror show because you made a deal with the local criminal element." It's at this point Lee figures out he's lost Mooney to Boyd: "You told me he was dead." Mooney simply hangs up, whereupon Lee turns on the bedside lamp and starts moving to raise holy hell⦠only to discover Boyd sitting quietly in a chair.
Lee goes for the gun in the nightstand, but Boyd smugly produces it. And in case it wasn't clear, that suggests Mara's complicity, because he wouldn't want to risk searching the whole room and waking Lee up. (Of course, her question to Boyd about whether he could get multiple bodies last episode is even greater evidence that she was in on this whole plan.) Another grim sign for Lee is that Boyd is wearing gloves as he intones that disposing of murder victims for profit, "that leaves a bad taste in a Christian's mouth." Getting to his feet as ominous music plays, Boyd continues that people in Harlan will never forget and "will marvel at your debasement and venality." Even Johnny probably wouldn't begrudge him the ten-dollar words in this little speech. Coming close, he concludes that the people of Harlan "will take your suicide as the last act of a coward," and even at this point I thought Boyd might be using this whole scenario to leverage Lee, that he might offer him some way out of this scenario, but no -- he tellingly notes that Lee's "reputation is ruined" before intoning, just like a judge in medieval times might: "Death will not be an end to your suffering." With that, he pushes him down onto the bed, wraps the weakened man's hand around the gun, and points it up into his chin, and Lee desperately tries a "Mr. Crowder," but those prove to be his last words. There's no cutaway for the shot, either, as a nice fine spray of blood immediately decorates the wall, showing once again how much the relevant crew position earns its pay. I don't want to tell the show its business, but with an amazing cold open like that, the rest of the episode's bound to be a letdown, right?
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