Restitution - Justified

No small thing, taking a life.
 
I think Season Five is going to be best viewed after we've seen Season Six.  For the first time, the overall storylines of this entire season will inform the storylines of next year.  There have been aspects in the past that carried over, such as Raylan/Augustine/Art or Mag's money or the immediate chase of the Miami crew at the end of Season One.  But this felt more like The Wire Season Four, which ended without much resolution, besides finding the bodies.

Season Five also spent an enormous amount of effort culling the herd, to the point where it was almost perfunctory when Picker got blowed up, leaving a head and a gigantic concave piece of his torso.  All the killing simplifies the cast to where it is largely only Raylan and Boyd left standing, with a few supporting players directly connected to them.  It leaves a less complicated version of Justfied to finish the story next year, which will be a nice change of pace after the multiple cities, countries and new characters we had this year. 

Justified did a lot in Season Five.  It spanned three countries and the weird world that is Florida.  Plus Tennesee and Detroit.  There was a lot going on, and while the season felt strung along in some places like "Ava's One Thing" each week, it needed the time to connect all the other business that was happening.  At the same time, much of the need to address that business was self imposed just this year.

The end result?  Boyd's not one to strike out on his own, dealing with large outside criminal organizations.  He's a medium fish in a small pond who nontheless is really really good at a few things, like blowing things up which appears to be the route he's taking next year.  So he's going to rob banks.  Raylan on the other hand is finally going to get the chance to serve justice to Boyd now that Boyd has no further use to the marshals, and has also connected himself to a crime boss who AUSA Vasquez has no love for.  Thus, the showdown.

It really did all have to come down to Raylan versus Boyd in the end, didn't it?  And this is the way to do it.

Ava's gone from self made widow to Raylan's girl to solo operation to Boyd's girl to informant.  I really thought she was going to bite it in prison, but this makes even more sense.  Placed in a holding pattern, or cell, for the entire season, she needed to be in a place where she truly, finally, absolutely had run out of options.

Raylan's running up against the cop cliche of "one last job" making plans go to Florida but putting them on hold at the last moment for Boyd's case, which he doesn't hesitate for a moment to do.

I've always viewed the "Never Leave Harlan Alive" song as more appropriate for Ava than Raylan, but it was nice to hear it come on as both Raylan and Ava leave the bridge.

Things that make it Justified

• Late night bridge meeting
• Marshals and outlaws being astonishingly upfront with each other, per Tim and Daryl's tete-a-tete
• The crux of the show is that Raylan became a lawman because he hates his father and his father is a criminal and therefore Raylan hates criminals, and it was never better said than his time with Kendall in this episode.