‘Justified’ Season 5 ‘Raw Deal’ Recap: Some Men Lead, Some Men Follow

Boyd and Johnny’s feud comes to a final conclusion, Raylan chases after a one-legged bandit and Ava finds out what it really takes to survive in prison….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Johnny Crowder has been out to get his cousin Boyd ever since the moment he got shot by Bo Crowder back in season one, and no matter how many times he’s seemingly reconciled with his wayward family member, there’s always a shotgun blast between them that seemingly destroyed any bridge that could ever be built to bring them back together.

It should be no surprise then that the entire season thus far of Justified has watched Boyd struggle and fail at getting his heroin supply up and running and the man putting road blocks up at every turn is his old cousin Johnny. Whether it was hijacked shipments or deals gone south, Johnny Crowder is proving to be a formidable opponent for Boyd this season and it could not come at a worse time. Ava is still rotting away in a prison cell, Boyd’s dealers are getting anxious and his stranglehold on the criminal empire he was beginning to develop in Kentucky is starting to wither away.

On the latest episode titled ‘Raw Deal’, Boyd is headed to Mexico to seal the deal with his new suppliers led by Mr. Yoon, but after a brief stop in Memphis to check on Hot Rod, he realizes pretty quickly that cousin Johnny is already headed for south of the border. Boyd employs the Crowe family to watch his back once again and he’s off to Mexico to try and kill two birds with one very big stone.

Down Mexico Way

Johnny gets the jump on Boyd by arriving first into Mexico so he’s able to procure a meeting with Mr. Yoon and his offer is this — he will pay up to $40,000 a kilo of heroin, which is a far greater price than what his cousin is giving him. If Yoon agrees, Johnny will hand over a million dollars in down payment and in exchange he’ll get the heroin shipment he wants and a vengeful cousin handed over, bound and tied up, that he needs to settle old grudges.

Once Boyd arrives he hears about the deal and is shocked that the drug kingpin would actually take the higher offer over his previously agreed upon amount of money. He also happens to notice unlike himself, Johnny has arrived sans any money, which could cause a bit of a problem once it comes time to pay off the Mexican drug lords.

“Why cousin Johnny I don’t see a briefcase anywhere — you got a million dollars shoved up your ass?” ~ Boyd

Johnny promises his money can get there in a moment’s notice, and just like that he and Boyd are both cuffed, left to sit outside together while they wait to see if the payment arrives. It’s here that we see the last strands of a bond once shared by these two cousins. I’ve theorized numerous times that as a team Boyd and Johnny really could be a formidable power in Harlan County, but apart they just tear away at each other until there is nothing left but a trail of tears and broken bones. Alas, despite my grandest wishes that these two could commiserate over shared ex-girlfriends and family barbecues, there’s no going back from here. Johnny even tosses out the fact that once Boyd is dead, he’s going after Ava. Boyd’s response is timid at best, which while clever should automatically clue you in that there’s more to this situation than meets the eye.

“Well I guess there’s something to be said for keeping it in the family.” ~ Boyd to Johnny after hearing his overtures for Ava.

Johnny’s money shows up moments later and Yoon has his new partner. Johnny gets cut free, and Boyd is packed away in the back of the SUV headed towards the border. Yoon and his boys give one fair warning before they leave — nobody dies on this side of Mexico. Dead Americans bring cops and cops are bad for business so leave the gun play for Texas or New Mexico or California just so long as it’s not in their country.

At this moment, Johnny feels so victorious but it’s almost as if he scored a touchdown and left two minutes on the clock and gave the ball back to Tom Brady with a full compliment of offensive weapons and the defense down two cornerbacks. Arriving at the truck transport back to America, the Crowe family pops out guns packed and ready to fire. It appears Yoon really is a man of his word because he was in on this entire ordeal from the beginning, thus now you see why Boyd was never sweating Johnny’s threats to go after Ava. Boyd lays it out on the line for cousin Johnny, who could have been a great soldier, maybe even a general, but he just wasn’t cut out to be president.

“You know what you could never understand is that some men lead and some men follow, and when you can’t lead and you refuse to follow, you die alone in the desert.” ~ Boyd

Before Boyd can pack his hostages back across the border, Danny Crowe motions at his cousin just as he unloads his machine gun into the two gunmen who were working for Johnny that had already given up and were sitting on the ground. Rapid fire rounds go off and soon all of Johnny’s men are dead, blood is in the dirt, and there’s at least three dead Americans on Mexican soil. What’s one more dead body, right?

With one single bullet, Boyd finally severs ties with his cousin Johnny for good. He places a call back to Mr. Yoon and tells him ‘we have a problem’.

Obviously, Danny and Daryl were in on the gunplay to cause this problem, but my guess is they did it so they would still have some use to Boyd even though he’s now got his heroin supply problem fixed and will reinstall Hot Rod as his point man in Memphis. The Crowes need long term money and that can’t happen if Boyd doesn’t have a reason to use muscle any longer.

He’s Big But You’ll Get Used to It

Ava’s time in prison as a newbie has gone wrong from jumpstreet, and it’s only looking worse from here on out if she doesn’t get some protection. During visiting day, Boyd is nowhere to be found so once again she’s on her own to find a way to survive. She befriends a girl named Penny, who we met last episode that tried to warn her away from the groups and gangs she was associating with when she first arrived. Penny wants to bring Ava into her group — led by a woman named Judith, who is a religious zealot but in reality the group of ‘believers’ isn’t touched by the other gangs inside for one reason — drugs.

Penny’s friends are the drug runners in the prison, and they are willing to allow Ava entry so long as she keeps her cool and doesn’t mind being the low end of the totem pole for a while. Penny takes Ava on her first drug run to show her the ropes before handing over this part of the operation. Everything seems well and good — the drugs are brought in by a cleaning company and he gives them the heroin they need with no problems. A guard arrives and he’s a sweet as cherry pie introducing himself to Ava and saying hello to Penny, but that’s when the bomb gets dropped.

The price to allow the drugs to come into the prison cost Penny a romp with the guard every time they need to pick up. She tells Ava it’s no big deal, he’s a nice guy and while he is big that over time she’ll get used to it. Ava finds out the hard way (no pun intended) what being the low person on the drug totem pole (again no pun intended) is really all about. Instead of cow towing to this way of doing business, Ava instead drops one of the balloons of heroin back into the cleaning man’s bucket, which he gets busted for on the way out of the prison during inspection.

So the heroin pipeline is cut off and Judith isn’t very happy about it. Ava tells her, however, that she may have an alternate plan to get them heroin and Penny says she believes she knows how to get it into the prison. It appears having a fiancé, no matter how absentee he’s been lately, that’s a heroin pusher works out well in these situations.

Shithouse Duty

There’s no better way to put in really but Raylan is in the doghouse with Art following the revelation that he was involved in the gangland style shootout that ended with Detroit mobster Nicky Augustine getting riddled with bullets in the Marshals backyard. Part of his ongoing punishment is to work the walk-ins — which means Raylan gets to talk to every person coming off the street, directly into the Marshal’s office with some kind of story to tell. The first one through the door actually peaks his interest, probably more so than he ever imagined it would.

It seems this guy lost a ton of money when a backgammon site was shut down and seized by the Federal government. The reason why this is of interest to Raylan is because the website was owned and operated by Charles Monroe (you remember him right — money man for the mob whose house and car Raylan was driving this season). Raylan goes to the website and sure enough it’s been seized — or has it?

The genius hacker that was smart enough to put up the message failed to spell U.S. Marshals correctly (don’t feel too bad I thought it was Marshalls too for the longest time) and so it tipped Raylan off that whoever ‘seized’ this site probably made off with the funds as well despite those actually belonging to the U.S. government.

Raylan, Tim and Rachel work with computer guy Chris to track down this hacker so they can find out where he’s stashed the stolen cash. Unfortunately for this guy TC, the backgammon expert hired muscle and tracked him down first. An even bigger problem for TC, the muscle then turns on his employer when he hears that the sum owed is $250,000. So now this hired gun is in business for himself — TC the hacker has eight hours to find the money he hid on the internet or he will kill his girlfriend, who he’s taking as a hostage until the cash is in hand.

When Raylan shows up to talk to TC, the hacker has other ideas to evade capture. Namely revealing that he’s actually only got one leg so he tosses his prosthetic out of the windoe, shimmies down a pipe and gives Raylan the finger on his way out. Oh and the cash that was hidden on the internet? Yeah that was a lie because he’s had it stashed in his house the whole time.

Raylan really, really wants to nail this guy but TC the hacker is smarter than your average dumbass criminal as it turns out. He hacks into Raylan’s personal credit cards and wipes out his accounts, and threatens worse if the U.S. Marshal keeps coming after him.

Thanks to some sleuth work from their own computer guy Chris, the Marshals track down TC’s hostage girlfriend and her abductor, and she decides to turn him over to the police. Not because she feels bad or that she’s worried he’ll do something rash — no it’s because he questioned her ability to hack and write code on the computer and that’s the kind of betrayal no Silicon Valley wannabe can handle.

Raylan and crew track down TC and pull him in. While riding back in the car, Raylan gets to know TC and it seems he’s not a half bad guy after all. He offers to put Raylan’s money back into his accounts, and even lets him in on a little secret. The TV’s, the computers, the toys, all of the expensive stuff laying around TC’s apartment wasn’t stolen goods and it wasn’t bought with laundered money. No, TC reveals that he’s always caller No. 7.

You know the radio contests where they say ‘if you’re caller No. 7 you win a new television or tickets or a car or whatever trinket they are offering up that day’? Well TC’s hacker skills have allowed him to find a work around with the phone systems and he’s always caller No. 7. Sure, it’s unethical and technically he’s stealing, but Raylan appears okay with this method of thievery because ultimately nobody gets hurt. TC even promises if Raylan helps him to get leniency, that he’ll teach him out to be caller No. 7 as well.

A Crowe in the Nest

Allison Brander is about to have a bad day after running into Wendy Crowe on her way into the office. Ms. Crowe, through her vast legal knowledge obtained at a local community college that she’s been enrolled in for quite some time, has filed a complaint against Allison and the result is a two week suspension. Allison isn’t very happy about this news, but she’s even less happy when Wendy, in no uncertain terms, lets her in on the fact that she’s going to seduce Raylan to get what she wants out of the U.S. Marshal (which we assume is to leave her family alone).

Allison shares the information with Raylan and he promises that’s not his type.

“Criminal family, tramp stamp, I thought that was exactly your type.” ~ Allison.

Later that evening, Raylan ends up having a drink with Wendy and he offers to allow her to get her life back on track in Miami if she helps him get Daryl. He mentions in passing that Daryl is responsible for Dilly’s death (the other Crowe brother killed in the season premiere), which she is clueless about and obviously taken back when hearing the news. Wendy tries to get Raylan up to her room, but he declines. He’s taking notice of her, however, and that attraction can’t be denied.

Raylan loves to flirt with fire, but the only problem is the flames don’t get burnt.

The Last Exit

Following a day of walk-ins, one-legged hacker thieves and a bad evening with his lady friend, Raylan decides to confront Art for the first time since he slugged him last week without saying a word. Raylan has an ultimatum for his boss — either start treating him like a deputy again or transfer him out of Kentucky. For the next two weeks, Raylan will go on vacation, go to Florida to see his kid (will we ever learn this kid’s name?) and when he comes back Art can make his final decision.

I think we all know Raylan isn’t leaving Kentucky, thus the entire point of Justified is gone, but I’m starting to believe Art may be taking an early retirement to absolve himself of this situation. Art has been teasing retirement all season long and maybe this is the final nudge he needed to make the decision. Remember, Art got a huge bust this year when he captured Theo Tonin, and there’s no better time to leave than when you’re on top.

Come back next week for the new episode of ‘Justified’ when it debuts on Tuesday night via FX at 10pm ET/PT.