THIS WEEK ON Justified: Thick as Mud

Justified kicks off this week with Limehouse coming back from his deal with Dickie.   Turns out, Limehouse isn’t as honest as we though he was.   He’s hiding a large amount of money from Dickie and tried to sneak one by him.   From what I gather about this scene, it looks like there might be issues in Limehouse’s crew.   It will be interesting to see how he deals with it.

Speaking of dealing with dissention, Boyd and Arlo bury Devil in the woods.   That kind of sentence should involve a fiddle made of gold.   Boyd takes Devil’s phone in hopes of setting up whomever sent Devil on his path.

Raylan sneaks back into his house … is it his house?   Whatever, he comes home to a pregnant and somewhat agreeable Winnona.   She is awful understanding for someone who is normally controlling.   I guess it’s the Givens’ seed that is causing her to mellow.

Things are not looking good for Dewey, but then, things never look good for Dewey.   He wakes up in a bloody bathtub and told that his kidneys have been extracted.   Lance tells him the gruesome agony of dying of kidney failure.   As someone who has studied the human body and its many functions, I knew most of this spiel was full of shit, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say Dewey doesn’t have the education I do.

So here we have it, Dewey is told he needs to come up with $20,000 in 6 hours to buy back his kidneys.   Now, I’ve never been one to care for Dewey Crowe, but now I kinda feel for the guy.   This situation sucks for him, but its good television for us.   He hops out of the motel and car jacks the first person he sees and then the race is on.

Raylan and Rachel arrive on the scene quickly.   They find the motel room and of course find it empty.   The only clue is a bloody bath tub.   So much for cherry flavored mint juleps.

Dewey quickly makes his way to the Maytag repairman’s shop and robs him at gun point.   I love that the register is pretty much devoid of cash, displaying out credit card lifestyle.   Raylan and Rachel once again show up after he’s cleared out.   They still don’t grasp the full nature of what they are dealing with.

Dewey shows some insight when robbing a strip club looking for cash.   However, as one of the ladies points out, not too many people are making it rain at 10 o’clock in the morning.   The break in the case comes when one of the “dancers” tells Raylan that she noticed what the scars on his stomach were.   Raylan head over to the hospital to talk to Ash.   Ask said things were going to get weird, this indeed qualifies.

We make a quick jump over to the Crowder bar to see how Boyd and Ava spend their down time.   Seems they like to compare chest wounds and lament about fallen colleagues.   Boyd knows he has a problem coming.   He understands that Devil was just the tip of a might big iceberg and things may get worse before they get better.

Raylan stops in on a busted up Ash.   Raylan wants to know more of what’s going on.   After a brief and painful interrogation, Ash spills the (kidney) beans that Lance is the one selling organs.   Their little get together is interrupted by a nurse wonderfully portrayed by Psych’s own Maggie Lawson (Another of the Dude’s favorite shows).   Raylan is looking for the doctor who may be the one doing the surgeries and Nurse Layla points to a Doctor Bosineau.

Boyd meets with a doctor he knows to be working with Quarles.   Boyd intimidates the Doctor into betraying the Dixie mafia and giving Boyd the proceeds of the drugs he’s been selling.   Boyd’s pitch was brilliant.   Suggesting that he know where the doctor’s mother is and then in detail describing her home … woo, scary shit.   Poor doc, I wonder how long he’ll be hanging around.

We rejoin the wacky adventure of kindeyless Dewey Crowe.   He’s asking a helpful old man how to get to the address that Lance provided.   This old man however does not take kindly to blasphemers.   As someone who has spent serious time in the Bible belt, these people exist.   They are nice, friendly and helpful.   Its downright unnerving.   I’m more comfortable being herded like cattle into areas where there is too little room and we treat each other like shit.   Well Dewey pulls his gun on the wrong old man. The dude has a shotgun under the counter and clips Dewey.   He manages to barricade himself in a storage closet.   Looks like Dewey might not make his meeting.

Raylan shows up with the place surrounded.   He talks Dewey down and finally get the totally story of what’s going down.   Turns out Dewey’s kidneys never left his side.   Before Raylan can miss a beat, he’s informed of the untimely passing of Ash Murphy.

Boyd is off to see the man who sent Devil after him.   He used Devil’s phone to pinpoint Tanner.   He politely informs Tanner that this is his turf and he does not tolerate outsiders encroaching on it.

Something stinks.   And it not just my writing style and grammatical errors.   Something about Layla doesn’t make sense to Raylan, so he drops in on her house.   He asks her help to make heads or tails of the situation.   He finds it odd that she started working at the hospital just as Ash was checked in.   Before he can get any answers, Lance pops out and drugs Raylan.   I can understand the desire to harvest Raylan’s organs, word is one drop of his blood is 10x more potent than Viagra, and dining on his flesh will give one superpowers.   However, its looking like Ken and Barbie are fucked.

As Lance loads Raylan in the bathtub, Layla shoots Lance in the chest.   Raylan takes this opportunity to grab his piece out from Lance’s pants and get a two for one special.   He shoots through Lance’s corpse and give the Holy Alliance of the Chest Wound club another member.   I like how the scene played out, and I’m going to credit Raylan’s shooting here as amazing luck.   I know how bullets work, I know how hard it is to hit a target when you aim at it, so to hip fire through a body and hit your mark, even from 5 feet is very difficult.   The fact that they call back to the improbability of this shot also set my inner science nerd rage at ease.

Fighting out of the red corner, hailing from Detroit Michigan, we have Robert “Silver Tongue” Quarles.   And in the blue corner, or Champion, you know him, you love him, please put your hands together for Boyd “The Messiah” Crowder!   I feel like these two getting into a scene for the first time must have been like Ali fighting Frazier.   Like Hogan vs Macho man.   Like Cloud vs Sephiroth.   Like 10 super bowls … all at once.   Quarles was not entirely thrilled with how things ended up, but he’s ever the opportunist.   He knows that Boyd is going to be a problem for him, so what is the best way to deal with a problem?   Make him a friend.   Quarles tells Boyd he’s forgiven for roughing up Tanner, and surprise, he knew about the doctor stealing the drug money.

Quarles talks fast, but Boyd is ready for him.   They swap some philosophy and history lessons.   Ultimately, Quarles leaves empty handed.   Its clear he underestimated Boyd, I doubt he’ll make the same mistake twice.

We jump back to Limehouse, who gives kind of a heavy handed explanation of what just went on.   I disliked most of the dialogue in the scene, but I know it was necessary to set up future events.   Basically, Limehouse has a spy keeping tabs on the dealings of Tanner, and thus, Quarles.   The best part about this scene was it was short.   It’s like the writers knew “We have to get this information into the story, and this is the best we can do with the window we’ve got.   Just throw it in there and bookend it with two much better scenes.”

We leave off this episode with Art driving Raylan back home.   I was really waiting for Raylan to say “I’m too old for this shit.”   Raylan comes home to find an empty house.   Presumable the letter was left by Winnona, but we’re going to have to wait until next week to find out for sure.