Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Justified: "Dark as a Dungeon"

The episode began with Raylan gathering up Arlo's belongings and putting them in his old Army footlocker, which he took out to the lawn, poured whiskey over, and set on fire. The next morning, a man with a backhoe arrived to talk to Raylan about exhuming his parents' remains. Raylan is pulling up stakes in Kentucky to transfer to a field office in Florida so he can be close to Winona and Willow. He hasn't left yet because he has unfinished business with his one-time mining buddy and current arch-enemy Boyd Crowder.

Raylan had a sit-down with Markham and they discovered they have a common problem: Boyd. The thing standing in their way is Walker. Raylan makes a deal with the crime boss: He'll take care of Walker if Markham helps him get to Boyd. In exchange, Markham will get the land that belonged to Raylan's parents. Markham agrees and takes to a local radio station, offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Walker's arrest.

Walker is at the Crowders' place getting stitched up at Ava's kitchen table. They decided not to kill him because he knows the combination to Markham's safe. Raylan pays a visit and is led right to Walker so the Crowders can collect the reward. Walker becomes the latest addition to the series' body count. Raylan also informed new boss Rachel that Ava's been burned as a confidential informant. At this point, Ava's ultimate fate is anyone's guess.

Only two items of Arlo's seem to have escaped the burn pile: a black-and-white picture of Raylan's mother Frances and a mystery key. The key turned out to open a shed on the Givens' property. Raylan goes inside, but there seems to be nothing at all in the shed. Raylan muses aloud that he used to have nightmares about what could be hidden out there; he and Frances were forbidden to go inside. This leads to him having a chat with his father's ghost, who claims it was nothing more than a quiet place for him to be alone. I'm not entirely convinced by that; there were some doors and small rooms in the shed itself that Raylan didn't explore. Still it was a nice symbolic scene about putting your past behind you.

No comments:

Post a Comment