Justified.
Damn. This show.
Every week, I watch it and I’m like “Wow. Yup.” Then I go to work and argue with co-workers about which show is better: Justified or the Walking Dead. I almost always close my arguments with the sound, sage wisdom of “It’s just so fucking good and you need to watch it, blokay?”
How’s that for expository and persuasive?
But on the real, The Walking Dead is about to start back up again and I can’t even remember where we were except that I do recall a little girl zombie got shot in her zombie brain and that was good, if more than a little predictable. Actually, at one point after Sophia went missing, I was like “Really? You’re STILL looking for Sophia?” and Jess and I both agreed that if there was any outcome other than “Sophie is a zombie and they have to kill her” we’d quit the show. So it looks like we continue to watch The Walking Dead because they called my bluff.
But you guys. It is soooooooooo slow. Nothing happens except stupid shit. Shane cuts his hair. Carl pets a deer. Pruitt Taylor Vince gets shot.
Hmmm. That last part seems familiar.
Oh! It’s cuz Glen Fogle from last week’s Justified was played by Pruitt Taylor “LaRouche” Vince. He gets shot and dies in Justified, too, except this time, it was fascinating. Even though there are no zombies. There ARE oxy addicts, though, so close!
He did NOT get shot on The Mentalist, but the crossover of casting on all these shows is really making me wonder how close together the shooting sets are in the Hollywood lot system. If only Raylan Givens would show up on the Walking Dead. He could just kill everybody except Darryl and they’d have themselves a badass-off. Raylan would clearly win, but still.
Yes. I really like Justified, a-no-duh! Last week’s episode, Harlan Roulette, in particular, was really a fantastic hour of television. So much happened! This show is just clicking right along!
There’s a scene at the end with cold, creepy pill mill partners Robert Quarles (Neal “Tin Man” McDonough), Wynn Duffy (Jere “No, lift the eyebrows up! I want to look perpetually surprised!” Burns) and our hero Raylan Givens (Timothy “My lower abdominal muscles haunt Tanis’ dreams” Olyphant) that is just, ugh, so good it’s gross. It’s fraught with tension and barely disguised malice and fear and curiosity and they pulled it off so perfectly you almost want to puke.
What happens is, Raylan knocks politely on the trailer door where Quarles, Duffy and a stooge are meeting. He quickly dispatches the bodyguard, lets himself into the trailer, punches Duffy in the face and then steps on his neck. After explaining that he doesn’t give a shit about all the bodies stacking up around here because he knows Duffy has had something to do with them all, he says “Look here,” then drops a bullet on Duffy’s chest. “Next one’s comin’ faster.” He is, of course, immediately confronted with Quarles, who asks Raylan with chilling politeness how fast he thinks the bullets will be when they’re heading back at him. Raylan’s response is grimace at him as he silently takes out his cell phone and snaps a photo of Quarles, who creepily smiles for it.
I haven’t even gotten to the great scene where Vince’s character, Fogle, is shot by his flunky (Jamie “May The Killing be forever on hiatus” Wright) while they both try to ambush Raylan. But not before Raylan gets to charm me with his “Me and dead owls don’t give a hoot.” line. OH, SHOW! Let us not forget an earlier great scene between Raylan and his ol’ buddy Wade Messer (James “Dude, that is a brilliant disguise and you are a much better actor than I ever gave you credit for” LeGros) when the Marshall tells Messer about respect and not goin’ in to a person’s home without their permission. He then casually opines that “We all have our lines we gotta cross” when he reveals he has done just that to obtain Messer’s firearm. This is almost as good as the scene before THAT when Fogle makes his fuckup flunky play Harlan Roulette, a version of Russian Roulette where the house ALWAYS wins. If the house is a bullet in your brain.
Things I don’t even have time to discuss, but which I wish to draw to your attention:
– The scene between Dickie and the prison guard, Ash Murphy (played by Todd “I was on the Mentalist, too!) Stashwick. I really like Jeremy Davies. I thought his talents were wasted on Lost and it’s so sweet to see him just disappear into Dickie Bennett, a role that is simultaneously playful and pitiful. I can’t help it. I like the way the man wears his prison jump suit.
– So tell me about your fast sliding gun arm, Quarles. “Funny you should ask. I was out Christmas tree shopping…” I’m sure that, had he not been interrupted by Raylan, Quarles would have given a totally logical, reasonable, not at all creepy explanation for how he got his menacing quick-draw device that helps him murder people with expediency and a minimum amount of fuss and muss. That involves Christmas tree shopping.
– The scene between Limehouse (Mkelti “Bubba” Williamson) and Boyd is also exceptional, as is Boyd’s thumping of Devil, who is so stupid that he thinks $5,000 is a fantastic sum of money, even as Boyd is angling to take over organized crime in Harlan. Wonder if he’ll run up against any outside influences like the Dixie Mafia or the Detroit Mafia or the Limehouse Mafia.
– The scene where Boyd and co. take back the bar is pretty OK, even if it does get a bit ridick. I’m excited that Johnny’s back, though. I love him!
– The scene between Devil and Boyd once they have the bar back is very interesting. Well played by both actors. The title of the next episode The Devil You Know does not bode well for anybody by the name of Devil, methinks.
– Maybe, if I’m lucky, this week’s episode will have more Tim “Babyface” Gutterson. Because I like his swagger and the last episode had almost everything… except some sass from the office.
It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything at length about TV, so I apologize for the scattershot point form near the end. You know why, though? It’s because Every Day We Tumbln’. Join us, won’t you?
Boob Tube 