"Trust" - Justified - 6-10

The mark of a truly well thought out and established character is when the character is able to surprise us in a convincing way.  That's Ava Crowder in "Trust". 

Ava was introduced to us six years ago as the woman who blew her abusive husband away as he sat at the dinner table eating his favorite meal which she prepared for him, calculating that that would give her the best chance to put a whole bunch of shot into his chest.

When Raylan gives away that Vasquez is putting her behind bars regardless of what she does, she knows she can't get anything out of cooperating.  Her backs against a wall, living an inescapable life, much like the one where she lives in a broken down town with an abusive husband.  So she shoots her way out.  It's not what we expected, but it makes sense, especially considering Boyd's short temper with her lately.  She has to recognize those signs, even if there's a good chance Boyd won't become Beaumon, she's going to make sure.

We're so caught up in the Raylan vs Boyd, where Raylan realizes Boyd is not going to fall for their trap at the same time Boyd is realizing Raylan wouldn't allow the money to be moved in the way he expects, that we forget about Ava. 

I've expected Ava to bite it for almost two entire seasons now.  This is the final season and nearly every episode has echoed "never leave Harlan alive" in one form or another.  The suspense builds to where you're constantly worried about these characters while also fully expected them to bite it by the end. 

• Dewey's necklace appears again, but it doesn't have the effect I expected, unless we aren't done with it yet
• Boon is a creep man.  Just as the whole series is able to create tension on a macro level about whether Raylan, Boyd or Ava are going to survive, he's able to do it on a micro level, with two characters we've never seen before.  Just when I thought we were out of ways to make a henchman unique, we have this guy.  Then again, should I have been surprised?  Elmore Leonard wrote about 100 novels.
• Speaking of Mr. Leonard, we get a call back to Raylan enjoying vanilla ice cream.  Originally an item from the books, Justified dropped it in a few early episodes, namely when Raylan stops in a conveinence store in 'Riverbrook" and when he orders it when meeting Pinter in "Fixer".

"Burned" - Justified - 6-09

Things that got burned:

• Ava as an informant
• Wynn Duffy as a long ago rate
• Avery's pizza kitchen
• Zachariah's element of surprise

Other observations

• The number of people getting killed in these hotel rooms is getting out of control.
• Best use of a rock hammer since Shawshank
• Unsure why Zachariah had to throw that other guy down the shaft to get his shot at Boyd

The Party
In television, if a party is being thrown, it has the the benefit of bringing together a bunch of characters who normally wouldn't be in the same place.  In this case we have Markum's pizza party.  RSVP-ing yes to this we have Raylan, Markkum, Katherine, Loretta, Boyd, Ava and Boon.  We've seen smaller groups of this cast but never together.

Boon brings to mind The Gunfighter from early Season Three who fought with an ice pick until Raylann hilariously defeated him.

Anyways, it seemed like there would be a big event at the party as the second act of the season draws to a close.  Something that sets things in motion for the series' final four episodes. 

It may have been as simple as the Boyd-Loretta alliance.  When Loretta got up to speak, ending with approval from her fellow Harlanians (?) one had to think of Mags standing up to the coal company in Season Two.  She made a dramatic speech to Rebecca Creskoff's character, only to take the money herself later on. 

Something tells me Loretta would stay more true to the "Keep Harlan Weird" mantra that she spouted.

Community's back!

Dart: Personally, I don't own a tv.

Abed: You're the first person to say that I didn't immediately delete from my brain.

"The Hunt" - Justified - 6-07

In true Justified fashion, it's all gone pear shaped for the intruders.  Markum is invoking his loyalty scheme, which mainly involves paying big bonuses to his men to sell out the others/not abandon him.  They write off Walker as lost, but with him running loose in an ambulance, he's most assuredly not done yet with our story.  Walker wouldn't have gone to all that trouble stitching himself back together just to die immediately. 

You have to admire the ingenuity of calling 9-1-1.  He needs help and can't go to a hospital.  So he commandeers the ambulance.  Giving his credit cards away was smart.  His '1212 Main Street' address is only surpassed by '123 Fake Street.'

This episode made us doubt a lot of things.  When Boyd reloads the gun, we don't know for sure what he was thinking when questioning Ava, and we really don't know what he's thinking now with a loaded gun.

We don't know if Markum did snitch on his partner.  Or who killed the U.S. Attorney.  It doesn't make sense for either Markum or Hale to have done both, the actions are at odds with each other.  Unless they thought they could snitch, get themselves free so they can mitigate their snitching, having planned it all in advance.

Raylan is walking a weird line with the baby where he does not seem entirely invested, taking the baby to the office and lying about it to Winona (and getting caught immediately) and not helping with the manhut.  He's there but he's not helping.  Rachel's contempt for Raylan is at an all time high, she seems to grit her teeth every time she talks to him.  Her question of if he asked Tim if he wanted to hold the baby made me think back to that season one or two line where Rachel asked Raylan what  he thought would happen if she was the one showing up to work in a cowboy hat.