Justified Recap ‘Cash Grab’: An Offer You Can’t Refuse

In the latest Justified recap, Boyd tries to cash in on his bank robbery, Raylan tracks down the person who was robbed and the new big bad in Harlan is revealed….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

The final season debut of ‘Justfied’ was like any great action movie — introduction to characters, set up the story and then hit the audience in the face with huge explosions and a thrilling sequence. In this case it was Boyd Crowder returning to his bank robbing ways as he hit a series of safe deposit boxes while in the service of Wynn Duffy and Katherine Hale and he did it all right under the noses of the cops who have been watching him for weeks.

The only down side to this caper was the safe deposit boxes didn’t have hordes of cash, but instead some land deeds and a ledger with all sorts of accounts and numbers etched into the pages. Now my assumption last week was this is exactly what Wynn and Katherine were after, but as it turns out a ‘Cash Grab’ was as deep as this heist was supposed to go.

Episode 2 of the final season of ‘Justified’ turned things up a notch with a little less action and a lot more narrative as the chess pieces started to move into place. We found our bishops and rooks (a pair of dangerous sorts named Ty Walker and Sea Bass as well as a dim-witted, hard hitting henchman named Choo-Choo), we found our pawns (a squirrely real estate wheeler dealer named Calhoun), the queen is still lurking around the board (and Katherine Hale does seem to get around) but what hasn’t been revealed yet is who is wearing the crown as the king. Then again, maybe we did…

Let’s recap the latest episode of Justified titled ‘Cash Grab’…

Who’s Got the Action?

Ava’s days are filled with a lot of fear, guilt and a healthy dose of whiskey as she tries to keep her life together by avoiding jail while simultaneously betraying the man she loves, who would kill her dead if he knew she was working with the cops. Each day seems harder than the next — Boyd wants to get closer, but she’s pulling away. Raylan needs results, but she scared to give them to him.

The perfect opportunity arises this week when Ava wakes up and hears a ruckus in her barn. She heads out there, gun drawn, ready for a showdown but the only thing awaiting her inside is Boyd claiming to be there looking for pain that Dewey dropped off (he’s dead so clearly a lie). Ava erupts and tells him that he can’t just stop by like that unannounced, but when he leaves she knows Boyd wasn’t there to do more house repairs. She searches around and finds a ledger and an envelope hidden underneath some paint cans. Maybe this is the evidence that will put Boyd away and keep Raylan from tossing her back in prison?
Meanwhile, the manager from the bank that was robbed in last week’s episode gives her statement to Rachel and the FED’s, Raylan watches his baby on Skype while he and Tim pontificate about the kind of lady the manager might be. If she’s from the area of Harlan County that Raylan knows she’s one of two things — either a Nazi or scared to death of Boyd Crowder. As it turns out this lady is scared of just about everything and everybody. More on her later.

Back at the hotel, Boyd is having a not-so-friendly breakfast conversation with Wynn and Katherine. It seems the big bank heist was a cash grab after all — $3 million dollars to be precise. They were robbing a local real estate agent named Calhoun, who has been buying up properties all over Harlan with unlimited funds at his disposal. This safe deposit box was supposed to have his cash, but instead only held an envelope of land deeds and a ledger (that Boyd was hiding at Ava’s). As upset as Boyd is about not having any money and a trio of pissed off rednecks waiting for payment, Katherine is more curious if he burned them and took all the cash for himself.

“If I had taken that money, I’d be halfway to Mexico wearing a smile and my Ray-Bans. Not sitting here taking questions from a woman I hardly know and a man who should know better than to ask me in the first place.”
~ Boyd Crowder

Wynn seems convinced, Katherine not so much and as it turns out neither of them believes Boyd’s loving fiancée was just released from prison so conveniently without making some sort of deal. Boyd won’t even address it but his partners in crime are very curious.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

There’s somebody with deep pockets and a smooth talking bearded man on his payroll buying up land all over Harlan County. He’s the same one who showed up at Raylan’s family home last week trying to buy the place sight unseen with a briefcase full of cash. His name is Ty Walker and he’s still searching for all the people in the area who might want to unload their property. Actually, he’s even going after those folks who aren’t willing to sell. Sometimes those local people call him a ‘peacock’ for not understanding when to take no as an answer, although they probably regret that decision when he shows up back up later that night with spools full of plastic wrap and blankets to presumably carry their dead bodies out because dead people can’t say no.

When Raylan and Tim show up at Calhoun’s real estate office, he assumes the Marshal is there to hand him the business to sell his father’s house and land not even realizing that his safe deposit box was stolen and ransacked in the robbery. Calhoun tries to charm Raylan into the sell and promises to get a deal done that same day because the interested buyer is just in the other room — enter Ty Walker.

Walker tries once again to get his hands on Raylan’s place, but that’s not why he’s there. He’s curious about the contents of Calhoun’s safe deposit box. The real estate shark claims there was nothing in it and the papers and financial documents he did have were taken out a day earlier. Walker knows that the Marshals showed up because Calhoun had to be the target of the robbery so he sends an associate to follow them and find out who they were visiting next. His plan to find out what they know is a little medieval in nature. Calhoun starts sweating because he knows he’s mixed up with the wrong people.

“We follow the Marshals, which will lead us to a suspect, at which point we grab the guy, pull his teeth out until he tells us what we want to know and then probably kill him. I’m just kidding Calhoun — we’ll definitely kill him.”
~ Ty Walker

Unfortunately, Calhoun’s associate isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Raylan and Tim spot him immediately tailing them but instead of just ditching him, they stop him cold in his tracks. Actually, Raylan stops him by standing in the middle of the road forcing him to step out of his vehicle. The man inside is a rather large fellow named Choo-Choo (named that cause he hits hard and fast just like a train). It seems Choo-Choo is a lot of brawn and zero brains so Raylan just drives off with his car and leaves him in the middle of the road.

But he won’t be there for long.

Because Raylan sends Tim back to pick him up doing his good deed for the day because Choo-Choo never saw him and this will be a great chance for them to get to know each other. Sure enough, Tim gives him a ride and Choo-Choo is not only stupid, but he’s also rather chatty. He tells Tim about this sweet set up they have at a local business called the Pizza Portal and how he works for a company called Tiger Hawk security. He also reveals that in a perfect world he would have choked out that cowboy looking dumbass Marshal who stole his car, but then if somebody happened by he’d have to kill them. He gives Tim all this information — before they even make it back to the bar.

Finally, Choo-Choo’s superior Sea Bass tells him in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up and finally Tim reveals himself — he’s a U.S. Marshal and he’ll gladly pass along the information they spewed to the cowboy looking dumbass who is currently driving around town in Choo-Choo’s broken down hatch-back.

Bossman

Following her early morning meeting with Boyd and Wynn Duffy, Katherine Hale takes a different kind of meeting all together with a new player in Harlan — a man named Avery Markham played by SAM GODDDAMN ELLIOTT!! He’s a national treasure.

It seems Avery was a business partner of Katherine’s husband Grady. When somebody rolled over on Grady and send him to prison, Avery thought best to get out of down as quickly as possible. Now he’s doing well for himself as he rolls back into Harlan — driving a Rolls Royce and wearing $500 boots. He and Katherine are awfully chummy in bed while enjoying some paranoia free weed.

The conversation eventually turns to Katherine asking Avery how he keeps people so loyal to him. His answer — he overpays. But what happens if somebody does betray him? Well, cutting off fingers didn’t save Grady and cutting out only one eye still allows somebody enough vision to get a driver’s license. Gouging out two eyes, however, that’s a good start.

It’s clear Avery Markham is the big boss of the new outfit that’s buying up property all over town, but I wonder if Katherine knows she’s in bed with the same man she’s trying to rob or if she’s going after him because he got away while her husband went to jail?

Found or Found Out?

Ava asks Raylan to meet her later in the afternoon so she can finally give him something worth while and hopefully keep him off her back for a little while. She hands over the deeds and the ledger that she found after Boyd hid them in her shed. Raylan isn’t sure if these items are valuable enough for a full scale robbery or not, but then again maybe Boyd just put them there to see if Ava would take the bait?

Ava was already paranoid, but now Raylan manages to put some real fear in her heart. Maybe she can borrow some of that weed Avery and Katherine were smoking to calm her nerves? When she arrives home, her paranoia only heightens because Boyd is there waiting for her. She thinks quick and immediately cops to taking the ledger and the deeds. Ava accuses Boyd of robbing the bank and even worse leaving stolen goods on her property, which would land her back in jail. She gives him the ledger and the envelope back and tells him to get going. Nice save in a pinch.

While Ava’s handing over Boyd’s stolen goods, he’s attempting to blackmail the man they belong to. You see Calhoun is a real estate hustler, but once he got into bed with Walker and the rest of his team, he knew he was in way over his head. So Calhoun started taking down account numbers, addresses, phone numbers and any other information he could gather on his new ‘partners’ and all that information landed in his ledger. It was a parachute just in case Walker, his boss or anybody else tried to toss him from the plane before he was ready to jump.

Now Boyd is ready to cash in on the ledger so he calls Calhoun and offers to exchange it for a truckload of money.

“Calhoun, when I say substantial I mean a whole lot of money or you and me gonna have a problem that ain’t easy to solve. You dig?”
~ Boyd

Calhoun is ready to give it all up but not before one last big bang — or blow as the case may be — thanks to a paid lady friend who stops by to visit him before Boyd drops by later that night. Unfortunately before Calhoun can unload his burdens, Raylan shows up again and finally gets the truth out of him via his vivacious under the desk companion.

Thinking Without Arguing

Boyd shows up at Calhoun’s ready to cash in, but there’s only one problem — nobody home. Well except Raylan, who shows up just seconds later. He tells Boyd he’s there because Calhoun went to the cops after nefarious type tried to blackmail him for the good stolen in the bank robbery the day before. Raylan also reveals to Boyd that his days in Harlan are numbered because he’s moving to Florida to be a father and husband again. The more and more Raylan talks about moving, the more and more I suspect he’s the one who will never leave Harlan alive.

The tension is thick, the conversation is juicy, but Boyd finally reveals his intentions with Calhoun. It seems he was going for coffee when he happened upon a ledger and some deeds laying on the ground and like a good citizen, he wanted to return them to their rightful owner. Instead he hands them over to Raylan, who will gladly get them back to Calhoun. Of course Raylan knows Boyd was the blackmailer and the man behind the bank robbery but there’s one big problem — no proof to link him to any of it so he’s gotta let him go.

One other note in this conversation — Boyd drops a line that says he’s learned to think without arguing with himself any longer. Maybe arguing with himself is what makes Boyd’s trigger finger one second slower than Raylan, who never hesitates to draw down. Maybe this is just another preview of the showdown that’s eventually coming between Raylan and Boyd although unlike the pilot, maybe the bullet holes are reversed.

Boyd: “You see Raylan, I’ve learned to think without arguing with myself.”
Raylan: “Well I slip a Glock in my holster every morning so when you hand me them items, do it slow, or I’ll shoot you.”

While Boyd and Raylan are chatting, Walker is over at the bank manager’s house, bracing her for information. Remember the lady who is afraid of everything? Well a couple not so subtle threats end with the bank manager revealing the name of the prime suspect the cops were quizzing her about when she went in to give her statement. It’s a local boy by the name of Boyd Crowder. It looks like Walker might want to get his pliers out because he’s got some teeth to pull.

Later that night, Boyd is at his bar, sipping a drink and ready to call it a night when Ava comes by for a visit. She’s learning to play this game a little too well already and she knows to stay in Raylan’s good graces she has to get back into Boyd’s. So she tells him point blank she knows he robbed the bank and she wants in, but Boyd may not even know the goldmine he’s sitting on currently. Ava looked through the ledger and all the deeds and noticed once in particular — the deed for the Pizza Portal and you know what that place used to be right?

Whatever it is, Boyd jumps up in celebration, plants a kiss on his woman and goes for the good Bourbon. It’s not until the end of the episode when Raylan and Tim go to the Pizza Portal to return Choo-Choo his car keys and run into Walker and his boys that he reveals what this building used to be many years ago. See, Raylan hadn’t been there since he was a kid and in those days this building was a bank.

There’s another heist coming to Harlan but who is going to get to it first?

REVIEW:

A great episode with huge implications for down the road. Ava’s guilt is only clouded by her desire to stay free and she’s learning real quick how to manipulate both sides of the law in this game of cat and mouse. Boyd had one rug pulled out from under him only to discover a hidden treasure. Little does he know there’s a big bad wolf that will be bearing down on him in now time. Raylan wins the day, but still doesn’t know what’s lurking behind the curtain. Lots of suspense, acting was off the charts this week with Joelle Carter taking home the gold statue and we even got Boyd to drop a perfectly time ‘goddamn’. Also can’t forget to mention a real standout performance from Garrett Dillahunt as Walker, who is turning out to be a great addition and I can’t wait to see what Sam Elliott is going to do this season.  He’s a life cowboy and while his good is really good — his bad seems awfully menacing.

BEST LINES:

Tim isn’t going to give out case information to just any Joe Dipshit who asks questions, you know?

“You’re kind of a dick, huh guy?”
~ Ty Walker to Tim

Choo-Choo isn’t sure what the answer is to this question

“Son, are you real smart or real stupid?”
~ Raylan Givens

“Get me something Ava! Risk your life and then put ’em back!”
~ Ava

“You just about hit me and now you’re going to sling foul utterances in my direction?”
~ Raylan

Fancy meeting you here…

“You know I’ve never been entirely certain what that phrase is supposed to denote. Does it mean this gathering here must be fancy because your present or is it simply an expression of surprise at such a random meeting between two friends or acquaintances.”
~ Boyd

MUSIC:

The only song identifiable tonight was the track playing when Ava shows up to Boyd’s bar towards the end of the episode

“And the Lightning, He Will Ride” by Joe Marson

Make sure to come back next week for the third episode of the final season of ‘Justified’ titled ‘Noblesse Oblige’ as Boyd comes face to face with the new power in Harlan.