Here’s a pro-tip for any and all showrunners out there: if you want a character to come in and royally fuck things up, name him Uncle Jack. It didn’t work out for anyone on Breaking Bad, and Kendal Crowe fares only slightly better on this week’s Justified.
We pick up where we left off last week (duh – just solid criticism there, Trevor), with Kendal’s uncle Jack coming to pick him up in a kick-ass Chevelle. They have a nice back-and-forth, and you start to feel hopeful for Kendal, the only Crowe who’s not a complete asshole. Then he gets in Jack’s car and we notice that Jack’s sunglasses are missing part of their frame (a great touch), and that’s a good indicator that he might not be the savior he’s cracked up to be.
Jack isn’t dangerous, per se, just a grifter, a prevaricator, and as William Forsythe’s Michael puts it, a pussy. He takes Kendal and Wendy to lunch and spins tall tales about the money to be found in fracking and trips to Cedar Point to ride the “rolly-coasters” (his pronunciation of that is another nice touch). He absconds with Kendal while Wendy is in the bathroom, leaving her no choice but to call Raylan, as people in Harlan County are wont to do when anything goes wrong. Dude must spend a crazy amount of time getting cats out of trees.
I’m not a big fan of Wendy Crowe – too much bluff and bluster – but I love when she’s around Raylan because he’s 100% not afraid to call her on her bullshit. He drops a lot of truth when he tells her “You love that boy so much you took him out of a nice Christian foster home and threw him back in that den of wolves.” Granted, there are things Raylan doesn’t know, but one thing we can all agree on is that the Crowes suck.
Turns out Jack (played by Kyle Bornheimer, who had a busy Tuesday night, also appearing on Brooklyn Nine-Nine) is a card sharp on the lam from North Dakota, where he put the aforementioned Michael’s son into a coma. After retrieving Kendal from his brief captivity with Michael, Raylan arrests both of them (Jack and Michael) while delivering the best line of the night, “Okay, you’re both under arrest. You’re a fugitive, and you’re a dick.”
Elsewhere, Boyd and the Crowes are trying to make their way back to America, with a U-Haul filled with four dead bodies and a lot of dope (Daryl Crowe nicely deadpans, “Don’t worry, cousin Dewey, we’ll just hide em under all that heroin”). This leads to a confrontation with the federales, because every show that ventures into Mexico has to include a confrontation with the federales, where Boyd is able to unload the bodies on the corrupt cops, betting on the fact that they’d take the truck.
While waiting for their ride back to the States, Boyd’s right-hand Jake deduces that a double-cross is near at hand (it might not be believable that a semi-Aryan from Kentucky would speak Spanish, but it’s damned convenient). This seems like spectacularly bad plotting from Daryl, who, if you remember, played an integral part in Boyd’s last double-cross. It’s been said before, by a very wise man, that trying to out-think Boyd Crowder can be hazardous to one’s health.
And finally, to close out the episode, Allison dumps Raylan even though he’s the only man in Kentucky who looks like Timothy Olyphant. I’m not really sure why, but I have a sinking feeling that it’s because he called off their impromptu vacation so he could go help Wendy Crowe. I hope it’s not that because that would be petty as hell, and I hold Allison to a higher standard.
A Few Thoughts
– Not a lot of Ava tonight, but she’s finally starting to get her own sense of agency in the prison, instead of waiting around for Boyd and singing “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from Grease (I assume)
– Serious underuse of William Forsythe
– If “Whistle Past the Graveyard” felt kind of inconsequential, well, it kinda was. According to showrunner Graham Yost, they had to slap an episode together after Edi Gathegi’s Jean-Baptiste was killed off at the request of the actor. The stupid, stupid request. What the hell else is Edi Gathegi doing?
– I like to think that in uncle Jack’s spare time, he’s Girthquake from Workaholics
– The only Spanish Boyd knows is “Good evening” and “No problem here.” That says a lot about Boyd
– Daryl Crowe: “I hope one day you stop thinking of us as partners…but family.” Boyd Crowder: “Bear in mind that I just executed the last blood relative I had.” Yeah, I’d double-cross this guy too, Daryl
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