‘Justified’ Recap: The ‘Weight’ of the 21-Foot Rule

Boyd faces heartbreak, Ava accepts her fate and Raylan experiences what it’s like to go up against the 21-foot rule….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

The last time we visited Justified, Dewey had all he could stand and he can’t stands no more so he plowed over his cousin Danny and a DEA Agent named Miller on his way to cashing in on the 25 bricks of heroin stashed in a car he was towing by truck. Boyd was forced into a new partnership with Daryl and the Crowes to pay them to transfer his heroin from across the Mexican border into America, and Raylan was on the trail of the Harris brothers, who were responsible for kidnapping Hot Rod Dunham before his untimely death.

All caught up? Good because here we go

Goddamn Heroin

First off let me go ahead and say this — does anyone on this planet say the word goddamn with as much power and conviction as Boyd Crowder? Seriously the man paints that word like a Rembrandt every time it utters past his lips. Well this week, Boyd wants his goddamn heroin, which has now taken yet another detour, this time courtesy of Dewey Crowe. He wants $250,000, the same sum he paid for Audrey’s, to give back the heroin to its rightful owner. The plan was doomed from jump street because Dewey’s IQ is somewhere between a 10-year old boy and a cantaloupe — I mean the guy almost lost the car full of heroin because he unstrapped it from his tow truck and it started rolling down a hill.

Boyd in all his wisdom, hands off the duties of getting his goddamn heroin back by telling the Crowes that they are responsible for returning his property and dealing with Dewey. While they are plotting a way to get Dewey to return the drugs, Boyd goes to visit Ava to let her know he has a line on the guy that framed her and put her in prison in the first place. She wants to hear none of it — she’s done depending on Boyd for everything she needs, and to survive in this place it’s all on her. So she tells Boyd she loves him, and walks away from him for good.

Despite her pleas to leave the situation alone, Boyd manages to hunt down pint-sized guard Albert before laying out a speech on him. Boyd’s soliloquy about accepting the fact that he’s just as vile as the criminals he looks down upon was pretty brilliant stuff. As much as ‘Justified’ was always based around Marshal Raylan Givens, it’s Walton Goggins’ portrayal of Boyd Crowder that continues to shine through each episode.

From the criminality speech, Boyd then threatens little Albert in a way only he’s capable of doing it.

Boyd: “Did you cry out from the pain?”
Albert: “I don’t remember”
Boyd: “Well, it don’t matter cause son, you damn sure about to cry out now.”

Instead of pleading for mercy or giving in to Boyd’s demands to tell the truth so Ava can go free, Albert instead weirdly confesses that he loved the blonde-headed convict and would never hurt her, she just never loved him back. I seem to remember he tried to rape her in the first encounter they had together before sending her up the river to a brutal Federal penitentiary. If that’s not love I don’t know what is. Instead of carving up Albert into three bite-sized pieces, he cuts him loose. I’m not really sure where the story was going with Albert supposedly being in love with Ava, but Boyd releasing him seems to signal that he’s also letting Ava go per her wishes. I’ll get into Ava’s dire situation in a bit, but I have a hard time believing that this is the last we’ll see of Boyd and Ava before this is finished. Of course that’s assuming she ever gets out of prison.

The Return of Dickie Bennett

The teaser from last week’s episode let us know that Harlan’s other favorite crazy haired hillbilly would be returning this week as Jeremy Davies reprised his role of Dickie Bennett for at least one episode. He’s the contact that Dewey goes to when he’s trying to unload the heroin, but shouldn’t he know better than to trust a criminal?

Dickie immediately puts in a call to Raylan to turn in Dewey for his help in arranging a transfer out of the maximum security prison to a more accommodating medical facility (he’s stuck in a wheelchair after Raylan shot him in the leg). Raylan rebuffs his offer, with a reminder why he’s sitting in a chair instead of standing upright.

“Your legs are that way they are because you’re an asshole that don’t know when to quit.” ~ Raylan

At this point Raylan has all the information he needs — if Dewey came to visit Dickie with a bag full of heroin in tow, there’s only one place he’s going — one of the old Bennett family dealers who could buy the drugs from him immediately with a pile of cash. Raylan doesn’t even need to know which one because all he has to do is wait for the moron to return home after finishing his deal. It was great to see Dickie back on screen because he is a throwback to the best season of Justified yet, but at the same time his random sampling was just a tease and almost anticlimactic in the big picture. Then again he was made to look like a buffoon and that’s kind of Raylan’s specialty with Dickie.

The 21-Foot Rule

The first time we heard about the 21-foot rule this season was in conversation between Danny Crowe and Jean-Baptiste when they first arrived in Kentucky after some animosity broke out between the alligator wrangler and the slack jawed yokel. We heard about it again last week with Danny and Agent Miller. This guy is just itching to show somebody the 21-foot rule in action.

He finally gets his big chance this week!

Danny has to saddle up the heroin after finding out that Kendal accidentally let his dog Chelsea run into the street before getting hit by a car. Kendal runs away to visit Allison, who promptly turns him back over to his less than reliable mother/sister Wendy. Back at home, Kendal tells Danny about the dead dog while also ratting that he killed Jean-Baptiste. Needless to say Daryl was none too pleased about this development.

So after a long day filed with dead dogs and a search for heroin, Danny returns home to bury his precious Chelsea before turning the heroin back over to Daryl. Unfortunately just as he said he would do, Raylan was waiting for him at home and while he was as sympathetic as could be about Danny’s deceased pet, in the end he just wanted the Crowe brother to put his gun down and go quietly under arrest.

Instead, Danny decides to test his 21-foot rule against Raylan.

Danny makes it about three feet before he falls into the hole that was dug for the grave of his beloved Chelsea, and in the process his knife goes right through his jaw and up into his mouth where he chokes on his own blood before dying. Wendy’s had enough of this violence and extreme ignorance, and she’s taking Kendal and leaving town but Daryl has other ideas. He gets into a fist-fight with his sister and after punting her in the stomach like she was a football, Daryl decides to promise a blood oath with Kendal before telling him that he’s finally a man. This will undoubtedly lead to Daryl asking Kendal to do something really stupid and obvious that he’ll get busted for long before it actually happens.

I have to say the Crowes were touted as the big bads for this season of Justified, but what they really have been is one major screw up after another. Danny was a psycho with more balls than brains, and whatever brains were supposedly left over for Daryl kissed him goodbye long ago. Wendy had promise because she was the smart, educated one of the group, but now that we find out she’s actually Kendal’s mother and a willing accomplice this whole time — so she might be the dumbest one of all. All told, the Crowes have had a few memorable moments this season, but by in large they are nowhere close to the Bennetts, Crowders or even Limehouse’s of this world. It’s been a scattered season when it comes to Justified’s best characters — most notably Boyd and Raylan, who have both been pulled in 15 different directions and rarely end up in the same place where they are by far the strongest.

Survival of the Fittest

Following her bouncing Boyd to the curb, Ava realizes the only thing she can do to survive this situation is to kill Judith just like her new pal Rowina instructed her to do so the heroin can start flowing freely in prison again. Even Penny wants her dead because remember the guard she was forced to have sex with every week they got a heroin shipment? Well he didn’t like to use protection and she’s ended up going through several ‘medical’ procedures because of it.

Ava decides against killing Judith, but once the haggard religious leader lunges at her and goes for the shiv, her mind is kind of made of up without much choice. Ava struggles to get free, but eventually she jams the implement into Judith several times before she falls to her death. Ava walks out as calmly as she walked in and now she’s apparently the new queen of heroin in the Kentucky Federal lockup.

Welcome to the Show

This week we saw the debut of Mary Steenburgen, who plays Catherine — an ex-mob boss’s wife who used to work with Wynn Duffy back in the day. He’s reaching out to her in this episode to help him decide on whether he should continue his business relationship with Boyd or Picker. One of them has to go, but she’s apparently an expert in understanding people so for a mere $50,000 price tag she’ll consult on the case and tell him what he should do. As the story goes, Catherine is supposed to stick around until the final season next year so she’s going to have at least a somewhat significant role from here on out.

Best Lines of the Week:

There were a few solid ones this week, although Boyd was surprisingly lacking outside of his statement to guard Albert as we already covered in this episode.

“You know Duffy, I really do not understand this fascination you hold for Boyd Crowder. What is it? His hair?” ~ Picker

“A lot of confidence for a man who wears shorts with combat boots” ~ Raylan

“It’s a ringer. Between that and the pleather, someone’s going to be in a world of disappointment getting this case.” ~ Raylan

“You slide your hand any closer to that gun, you’re going to meet Chelsea’s fate at a much younger age than she did.”

Next week on Justified: Raylan ordered some protection for Allison after Danny’s death and Art takes it upon himself to do the duty, but he ends up getting shot in the line of duty. With Art on death’s doorstep, will this finally force Raylan to make a hard choice to get rid of the Crowes once and for all?