Justified – “Dark As a Dungeon”: Strange bedfellows

“I just can’t imagine you’re part of the solution.”

– Avery Markham

This week gives us two team ups we didn’t expect to see – Ty Walker working with Boyd and Raylan working with Avery Markham.

Of course, both partnerships are short-lived. Particularly the Boyd-Ty partnership, which starts off on rocky ground and implodes before they even really begin working together. Once Raylan shows up and offers the $100,000 reward, Boyd gives up Walker, which leads to a shootout and Ty getting shot in the back. (Giving us one of Raylan’s most ruthless and bad ass lines, “You want to get hit in the front, you should have run toward me.”)

I wonder how things would have played out if Boyd and teamed up with Ty. As Walker predicted, Avery seemed to be all alone guarding the vault, so if Ava could have distracted the marshals and the combination really hadn’t been changed, perhaps they could have killed Avery and taken his money. But Boyd goes for the bird in hand – settling on the $100,000 reward and ridding himself of Ty. Of course, now that he’s gotten a look inside the vault, we know he’ll be going full speed ahead with the robbery. (Which Raylan knew – that’s why he got Markham to put up the reward money.)

Speaking of Raylan and Markham – their “partnership” was little more than Raylan manipulating Markham in order to get rid of Ty and to show Boyd the vault. I have to imagine Markham isn’t too pleased with the outcome of their team up. He lost $100,000 to a man he hates and, whether he knows it or not, Raylan is now using his vault as bait to flush Boyd out.

I enjoyed these brief superhero team ups. Markham and Raylan exchanging barbs, while not as great as Raylan and Boyd, is highly entertaining. And everything with Ty and Boyd, Ava and Earl was great, particularly Ty almost shooting Earl as a reflex while Ava was stitching him up (and his amused reaction to it almost happening) and Boyd clocking Ty in the face as soon as he put down the gun.

While all of this was going on, we also had a subplot involving Raylan having his parents’ bodies moved, burning all of Arlo’s stuff and going to Arlo’s secret hideout to find it empty. A lot of the episode had characters reflecting on their past. Avery says that the past is a shadow that always follows you. And Ava tells Raylan that “the past and the future are in a fight to the death.”

Raylan comes up empty on his final chance to find the missing piece that will explain his father’s life to him. It’s a reminder that even if Raylan does catch Boyd and Avery – and every other bad guy that crosses his path – he’ll never be satisfied because his real battle is with Arlo. Arlo’s criminal actions are what made Raylan a lawman. All of this is about him escaping his father and the life of crime Arlo hoped to hand over to him. But, like the secret hideout, Raylan will never get satisfaction. Even as he burns Arlo’s things and has his remains sent off to a pauper’s graveyard, he still has no closure.

It was a very sad note to end the episode on. I wonder if the show ultimately will find a happier ending for Raylan or this is foreshadowing for more tragedy to come.

And another thing …

• Every moment Raylan and Boyd shared together was magical. Like Raylan, I’m really going to miss it when it’s over. I particularly loved Boyd asking Raylan if he was going to lean in for a kiss and both of them doing a synchronized head tilt to get a look inside the vault.

• I also really enjoyed the Jurrasic Park shot of the water glass shaking as the dynamite went off underneath the vault.

• I really need a Wynn Duffy/Mikey spinoff. Wynn spilling guac on his shirt at 9:30 in the morning and Mikey trying – and failing – to talk his way into playing tennis with Catherine were both wonderful.

• Tim was full of great one-liners this week, including telling Raylan his “24 hours on the fainting couch are over” and asking why no one in Harlan is ever named Steve or Justin.

Written by Joel Murphy. If you enjoy his recaps, he also writes a weekly pop culture column called Murphy’s Law, which you can find here. Follow Joel on Twitter @FreeMisterClark or email him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.