Justified – Recap & Review – Bulletville

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Justified
Bulletville

Original Air Date: Jun 8, 2010

Brittany Frederick – Staff Writer
brittanyfrederick@thetwocentscorp.com

It’s my pleasure to take over for Tom in recapping the season finale of Justified. I find myself uniquely qualified since I’ve sat through two Timothy Olyphant films today, which counts for nothing but makes me feel smarter.

When last we left, Raylan’s dad was still being a complete idiot, Ava was going to spend the rest of her life clutching a shotgun, and Raylan and Winona had a completely out of character random fling. Not to mention Boyd literally blew up his dad’s meth shipment. In other words, things are awkward all around Harlan. Judging by the title of this episode, I doubt everyone is going to hug and make up.

The Marshals get word of the truck fire and draw the appropriate conclusion (“or the folks in Harlan are really, really congested,” Raylan suggests dryly), but Raylan is confused as to what Boyd is doing (“maybe he’s Batman”). This I enough to get them to call in Raylan’s dad and re-evaluate the situation, not realizing they never could trust him in the first place. I still want to smack him upside the head with a folding chair, but instead he’s supposed to go lay low somewhere. Somewhere being Raylan’s hotel room. This is going to be really awkward.

Meanwhile, the drivers of the meth truck have come running to Bo and told him all about Boyd blowing them up. Bo and his cronies drive out to Boyd’s camp to have a little argument about the meth. Bo’s too much of a pansy to hurt his own son, so he gets one of his flunkies to do it – and Boyd, following his new enlightened path, just stands there and takes it. He doesn’t want to tell his father where all the guns are hiding, but one of his associates finally caves in and squeals. Bo tells Boyd he’s going to take the guns, then sic Raylan on them and get everyone sent back in jail. The threat of shooting one of his own is enough to get Boyd to walk away from everything he’s built. At least until gunfire rings out, and he realizes that everyone has been murdered anyway – shot and strung up. It’s a grisly sight, and Boyd understandably loses it.

Raylan runs into Winona and suggests they need to talk, and that’s when he finds out she and Gary have separated – which at least vaguely puts last week’s weird fling in context, though not by much. Meanwhile, his idiot father has called Bo to come and visit at the motel. Understandably, Arlo spills everything because he has no spine whatsoever. Bo tells him the only way for everything to be square is if Arlo helps give up his own son.

Boyd has spent the entire night burying every single one of his followers, and now he’s looking to God for some sort of explanation for their deaths. For once, I kind of understand where he’s coming from. He wants to know that the sacrifice of his men meant something, but he doesn’t get the sign he’s looking for, and for once begins to doubt his faith.

Raylan finally gets back to the motel to find his dad whinging about how bored he is. Raylan is unimpressed. All I have to say is that Raylan’s mom must have been a saint, because I have yet to see good qualities in his dad at all. Raylan correctly susses out that his dad is acting a bit weird, and is unsurprised when he gets a gun aimed at him – and then pulls his own. Arlo spills that Bo’s men are waiting outside, and Raylan says he’s probably always known his father would betray him. Raylan shoots his dad instead of the other way round. Don’t tick off Tim Olyphant, people. Just don’t. The body count hits two as Raylan drops the two skinheads sent by Bo to collect him soon after.

Meanwhile, Ava and her shotgun get kidnapped by Bo’s skinhead buddies (except for the one that Bo shoots for being a mole). Any guesses as to what she’s about to be used for?

Boyd turns up at Raylan’s place wondering what just happened. Raylan would like to know why Boyd is visiting, and would like him to speak English. Their chat is interrupted by Bo telling Raylan that he has Ava. Boyd wants to help Raylan get her back, and Raylan is in no position to complain about it, so the two set out toward Bulletville. This is the strangest road trip ever as the two of them debate who started what more.

Once they arrive, Boyd sneaks off to go around the back while Bo and Raylan finally meet. A very quick struggle ensues where Raylan masterfully steals a gun off one of Bo’s thugs and manages to disarm Bo himself in like ten seconds. But Boyd’s got his own gun and decides he’ll just shoot his dad himself, which gets them both fired upon by Bo’s henchguys in the woods. This brings us to four dead people and I’m betting on a few more by the time this episode is over.

Raylan, Ava and Boyd are all holed up in the cabin waiting for the rest of the bad guys to turn up – you know, all those guys from Miami that the Crowders ticked off. Tim Olyphant’s hair finally moves. “You do seem to have a penchant for getting abducted,” Raylan tells Ava before confirming with Boyd that his father is in fact, still dead. The three of them have to come up with a game plan. Said game plan involves Ava taking cover shots at nothing so Raylan can pop the bad guys one at a time. In one of the coolest, though most graphic, shooting scenes on this show, he blows a guy’s head off from his back when the guy opens a window and blood spatters everywhere.

The two bad guys from Miami decide to just shoot the place up with semiautomatic weapons. It becomes clear someone has to stay behind to draw their attention, and Raylan tells Boyd to take Ava and bail while he sits inside and tries to have a dialogue. This, of course, does not work. He’s about to walk into his own death when Boyd steps up to take out the man who was going to kill him, and after Raylan tries to shoot at the one who gets away, he and Boyd face off for a second before Boyd takes the car and makes off on his own. The last scene of the season is a fitting one – Raylan still with his gun in his hand, shooting at nothing.

All in all, it’s a pretty great season finale, albeit hard to follow once everyone starts breaking out firepower. But we see the Bo-Boyd and Arlo-Raylan relationships pretty much resolve themselves, the Boyd-Raylan relationship develop even further and the table gets set for a whole new host of questions for next season. It makes up immensely for the shakier characterization of last week, and leaves me excited for season two.

What about you? What did you think of the first season of Justified? What would you like to see in season two? Let me know below.

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