Justified Season 3 Episode 3 recap

Last week Carla Gugino appeared as Deputy Director Goodall, and some people were like, “Hey, why didn’t you mention that Karen Sisco was on Justified?!” Well, it’s because, due to a legal matter about who owns what Elmore Leonard property, they couldn’t call her “Karen Sisco”, thus the “Goodall is my married name” moment. Also, some media outlets ran into issues with referencing her as Karen Sisco, so I’m avoiding the whole problem by calling her “Carla Gugino”. Now, on to episode three, in which season three of Jusitifed goes from good to REALLY GOOD.

We’re back with the barbequing Limehouse, who is meeting with Ava. I swear, Joelle Carter’s accent went from “okay” to “horribly cartoonish”. Ava introduces Boyd and Limehouse who calls out Boyd’s former white supremacy bent. Boyd looks appropriately ashamed. This is why I think his prison conversion was for real, because he’s embarrassed/annoyed whenever any brings up his racist past (see also: Raylan’s Mexico joke from episode one).

Boyd smacks the sh-t out of Devil for disobeying his order to burn the weed. Boyd is a scary dude.

Every time I hear the theme for Justified, I find myself wondering how John Hawkes is not on this show.

Oh man, Raylan and Winona’s first scene is SO OBVIOUSLY LA that it’s obnoxious. I barely manage to accept eastern Los Angeles County as Kentucky, please don’t shove a Melrose coffee shop down my throat and expect me to think that anything in Kentucky looks like that.

Wade Messer (he set up Raylan at the end of season 2 for Dickie Bennett) tries to flee a roadblock and ends up in a ditch. Since Raylan’s reputation precedes him, at what point do people stop trying to run away from him? It never works out.

The crooked prison guard who helped Boyd get to Dickie now wants in on getting Mags’ money. I guess this is going to be the set up for season 3—everyone trying to get Mags’ money, and/or trying to control the Oxycontin trade.

OMG it’s Otis The Fat Cannibal from The Walking Dead! Show synergy!

Otis The Fat Cannibal: “Kiss your mama with that mouth?”
Skeevy Dude: “I sure do…if she were still alive.”
Dialogue. You’re doing it right.

Otis The Fat Cannibal is a pawn broker (true story: I initially wrote that out “prawn broker”) with ties to Wade Messer and the Dixie Mafia. There’s gotta be a southern rock band called “Dixie Mafia”, right?

Holy sh*t, Otis The Fat Cannibal is taking out his “Shane shot me in the leg and left me to be eaten alive by zombies” rage by playing a game called “Harlan roulette”, in which he makes someone keep firing with a maybe-loaded gun until they blow their brains out. Except the gun isn’t really loaded, and when the frustrated Oxy fiend turns the gun on Otis, he loads it and kills the guy. HARSH.

Boyd unloads his rotten weed on Limehouse’s crew, then he outlines his plan for his new criminal enterprise. Basically he wants to control everything and answer to no one. Don’t we all?

Now it’s Quarles’ turn to outline his plan, which is to make up for the dying Florida Oxy trade in Kentucky. Obviously his drug trafficking will run afoul of Boyd at some point. I find the occasional phone calls from Quarles’ family frightening. He sounds like a good dad! But he’s a TOTAL PSYCHO.

Otis The Fat Cannibal and Raylan square off. Man, Raylan can stir up trouble in 0.2 seconds flat. Of course, Otis is tied to Winn Duffy, who tells him to use Wade to set up Raylan. Which is actually Quarles’ plan, because as per usual in Justified, all the criminals are f*ck ups except the Big Bad and Boyd, and that plan is a little too slick for Otis.

Welcome back Johnny Crowder! Boyd & Co. take back the Crowder bar from season 1. Minus the white supremacy bullsh*t, when motivated purely by avarice, Boyd is seriously scary.

And this is how cool Raylan is—he’s already at Wade’s house waiting for him, thus wrecking the plan. He tells a random story about his childhood, then uses Wade to lure out Otis The Fat Cannibal.

Raylan is still the baddest mofo in Harlan, completely getting the drop on Otis and playing Otis and his drug addict sidekick against one another. Annnnd Otis and the druggie shoot each other. Poor Raylan. Even when he doesn’t pull the trigger, everyone around him dies.

Boyd and Devil reminisce. I buy that Boyd really has left his racist bullsh*t in the past, but Devil is still totally a racist prick. At some point, this is probably going to cause trouble with Limehouse and his crew.

Somehow Quarles’ custom wrist-gun thingie involves Christmas tree shopping.

Raylan beats the tar out of Duffy. He does that thing where he gives a bullet to his intended target as a warning. He should be careful with that. That move totally backfired in Drive.

The episode concludes with Raylan and Quarles meeting for the first time. OMINOUS.

Raylan’s body count so far: ½