Couple quick notes to start: In the wake of Ava's deadly confrontation with Judith, Ava and Penny desperately cover up the evidence of Ava's involvement. They succeed in that the prison officials find no evidence to implicate her, but Judith's group looks like they're out for blood, and Penny says their best hope is that some of them also secretly wanted Judith dead – and when they silently give Ava their desserts instead of a good beating, it looks like Ava's the new queen of the hill. Also, Vasquez's eyes go wide when he sees Katherine at the office, and while "Hale" is her and her dead husband's surname, it turns out she and Vasquez are on a first-name basis – a very smilingly adversarial first-name basis, since Vasquez stood up in court years ago and said terrible things about her husband – and that she was even worse. And by worse, he means "best," at least from my point of view.

Art collects Allison to bring her to an unofficial safe house (I'm assuming); since there's been no specific threat made to her, he can't officially involve the Marshal Service, but the folly of him taking this errand solely on himself is revealed when they no sooner get out the door than does someone start shooting at them and Art takes at least one in the gut. Raylan grimly drives Art's wife Leslie to see him, and on the way, she evenly but pointedly asks why he wasn't there with Art. At the hospital, with Art's condition severely critical, Leslie confers with the doctor while Rachel tells Raylan, who's pretty sure Darryl's responsible, that Chief Deputy Marshal Kirkland (the Detroit guy who helped Art in getting to the bottom of the Augustine murder) is coming in to head the investigation, and Raylan's going to have to defer to him, even if Kirkland's first instinct is to guess that Theo Tonin is behind it. Tim, however, has a side conference with Raylan and suggests they go after Darryl before they can be forbidden to do so, and the fact that Audrey's is now closed suggests the idea is worth pursuing. Raylan, however, decides to keep things aboveboard and stops back at the office – whereupon Vasquez comes in with the news that Theo admitted to ordering the hit and has offered to give up the shooter. Can it be this easy?

Boyd, preparing for the possibility that Picker intends their upcoming meeting to be a one-way visit, tells Jimmy and Carl to hide the half of the stash they still have and not tell him where, just in case. Jimmy and Carl, unwaveringly loyal to Boyd, don't want to let him go alone, but Boyd tells them this errand is on him, only making Jimmy promise to take care of Ava, and the fact that he keeps an unlit cigarette with him for the errand seems to suggest he's pretty serious about the idea that he might not return, OR DOES IT. At the meeting, Katherine observes as Boyd defends himself against Picker's verbal attacks – adding the information about his gambit with having had the heroin hidden – and she then asks Boyd to tell her about himself. When she gives her name, he realizes that she's the widow of a notorious, now-dead criminal, and she replies that she's there to advise Wynn on whether he should kill Boyd – but at this moment, the marshals invade, as Theo fingered Picker as Art's shooter. Well!

Raylan thinks Theo is obviously lying, given that he didn't even try to cut a deal, and he goes to see Picker and shakes him down for the real shooter's identity, so Picker blusters about not being a snitch but does eventually say Darryl is who he heard did it. It's at this point my feeling that Kendal is going to be involved somehow comes into sharp focus, since that would be consistent with Darryl wanting him to prove his loyalty AND would be a complete moral mess for everyone, but for now, they prevail upon Picker to set up a meeting with Darryl – except the office then gets a call from Wendy saying Darryl wants to turn himself in to Raylan. Raylan shows up to a motel and finds Wendy, the evidence of the beating she took at Darryl's hands still fresh on her face, but it turns out this was a gambit to get Raylan there – so Darryl could turn himself and Kendal in at the Marshals' Office without Raylan shooting him on sight.

Boyd comes back to the hotel to finish the meeting, at which he tells Wynn he's sorry for his failures, but he's not going to beg for his life – so how about he gives Wynn half of the remaining half of the shipment and they call it square. Picker starts babbling about Yoon's people being furious and how they should put Boyd's head in a box, but Wynn tells him to shut up so he can go confer with Katherine. Boyd then tosses Picker his pack of cigarettes – WHICH THEN DETONATES AND BLOWS PICKER TO BITS RIGHT THERE ON THE SOFA. Boyd then takes the opportunity to relieve Mike of his piece, which he holds on Wynn and Katherine while telling them his offer still stands before exiting. Wynn, after this, maybe you want to take it?

Once Kirkland and Vasquez have had the chance to debrief Darryl, they come out to talk to Kendal – and sure enough, he confesses to having shot Art. As Wendy sobs quietly, he goes on that he used Danny's gun; he'd gone to see Allison but caught sight of a marshal's badge coming out of her place, and his thoughts went to Danny and he shot Art without thinking – but his story doesn't quite match what we saw, and Raylan isn't buying. Kirkland takes off back to Detroit, but not before telling Rachel she's the interim Chief Deputy – she was Art's choice all along. Raylan then confronts Darryl about having shot Art and gotten Kendal to take the fall before telling Darryl he's going to wish Raylan killed him, and Darryl essentially tells him to bring it on, whereupon Raylan returns to the hospital to keep watch over Art. Two episodes to go; how can we stand the wait?