Why is it that Justified, already starting its fourth season, continues to surprise?
There are a few common denominators shared by what we consider “quality TV shows” that even casual viewers pick up on at a glance; from Mad Men and Downton Abbey’s period-piece polish to Louie and Girls’ heavy, often dark comic sensibilities. On the other hand, someone unfamiliar with Justified might group it more closely in the category of generic TNT and USA procedurals like The Closer or Burn Notice—the working title for Justified was the flavorless “Lawman,” after all. But there’s so much more to it than cops and robbers; more than Raylan’s cowboy hat would suggest, at least. And that’s just part of what makes Justified special—its ability to stand out in a TV landscape where all too often it seems like we know what shows will be critical darlings before they even make it to air.
Season Four’s opener, “Hole in the Wall,” has the air of a slow-building mystery, setting itself apart in tone from previous seasons to a certain extent. But it doesn’t stray far from Justified’s wheelhouse, as its shocking final scene ultimately proved.
It opens in January, 1983, where a parachuter falls dead to the ground riddled with cocaine. Thirty years later, Raylan finds a canvas bag the man was carrying hidden in Arlo’s wall when a couple of kids are caught breaking in. The plot stays mostly innocuous until Raylan visits Arlo in prison—as he very clearly told his buddy at the hardware store earlier that he had no interest in doing—to inquire about the bag and the recovered I.D. of a “Waldo Truth.” Arlo mistakenly shows his hand, and Raylan knows something big is in play. So too does one of Arlo’s fellow prisoners, who watched over their meeting from a distance. When he offers Arlo help appraising and selling the bag, and Arlo helps him to a shank in the throat, it paints a pretty clear picture of the stakes for this season. It was as raw, unexpected, and entertaining as hell. Justified is back, alright.
Along the way, new guy Constable Bob is introduced in a perfect role for Patton Oswalt. He’s a bumbling sort of character one might often find in a small town. Stuck in a low-paying, little-respected job, he’s as overconfident as he is self-loathing, much as he tries to hide the latter. Justified has always had its fair share of comic relief, so Bob’s sort of sad Barney Fife shtick fits right in. It made for great banter with Raylan as well, as he chased a contracted loose-end perp down in a car salvage lot. Bob is a good fit for Raylan, and already demonstrated his usefulness in helping him do things outside the confines of the Marshall service. Raylan seems willing as ever to do so for a little with a baby on the way, and surely that will present its own troubles. I’m excited to see where they go with Constable Bob, knowing Patton has a penchant for these kinds of manic-depressive characters (as he also played in Big Fan and Young Adult).
Meanwhile, Boyd is back in business, but don’t ever say he makes it look easy—as he asks Ava, “No one ever said running a criminal enterprise was gonna be this hard, did they?” He reunites with an old friend from Desert Storm, Colton Rhodes, in a really sharp scene in Johnny’s bar that flips expectations as well as Justified has ever done. Boyd brings Colton on a ride-along as you might expect a cop to do, eventually hiring him and bringing him along to an interrogation of a dealer, Hiram, that flaked and owed Boyd money. Hiram informs Boyd that he “found the light” through Preacher Billy at a backwoods Southern Baptist church, Last Chance Holiness. Hiram does end up coughing up the rest of the money he had made before quitting dealing, but when Boyd tells Colton to “take care of him,” he shoots poor Hiram where he sits.
Much as Hiram played a sad, desperate character, he was an excellent foil to Boyd for the episode. Boyd accuses him of lying, to which he responds, “The truth always sounds like lies to a sinner.” It’s exactly what Boyd told Johnny back in season one, when he didn’t know what to make of Boyd’s newfound religion. Nobody would have expected Boyd to come this far this fast; in just four short seasons, the former neo-Nazi has dropped the word of God in favor of Isaac Asimov and John Maynard Keynes. And that’s precisely why Preacher Billy is set to be a great nemesis for Boyd.
“Hole in the Wall” doesn’t set up such black-and-white bad guys as season two did early on, or as season three went a bit overboard with. Instead, we’re mostly left to wonder about the mysterious preacher, waving a poisonous snake on his arm like a carrot and stick to Harlan’s down-and-out. Surely Boyd is set to meet him as a threat, as Preacher Billy steers those like Ellen May away from drugs. I fully anticipate the likely upcoming scene where Boyd stirs the church crowd mid-sermon, akin to the excellent and memorable town-hall speech he gave in season two. But knowing Justified, I have to believe there’s more to Billy than meets the eye, and I’m ready for whatever Season Four has to offer.
Raylan’s Zinger of the Night: “It’s from Lebowski. Netflix it, you can be one of the cool kids.”