“Sometimes, when I’m stressed out, I like to punch sharks” – Travis on Cougar Town
I was reading this week about David Simon and his dislike of internet TV critics. Now, David Simon is someone I respect artistically to a great degree. So his opinion made me take pause. But then I read this extremely well-presented article from Noel Murray over at The AV Club. Like him, I think my goal of this weekly review is really to talk about television, not ruin it. I want to know if other people feel the same way I do and to engage in conversation with them. I may not like certain episodes of TV, but I do watch the shows nonetheless, religiously for the most part. So, I hope I don’t harm anyone/thing by posting my feelings here.
Also, random thought before we start. Why does Dr. Spaceman keep trying to sell me hotels and smart phones? And “when is modern science going to find a cure for a woman’s mouth?” Just wondering.
Justified
Last week, I raved about the quick pacing and streamlined plotting of “Coalition,” and the way that it made me giddy just watching it. The episode was like a puzzle, each piece dropping into place, each slot sliding into another, and the beauty of it was something to behold. All we had to do as viewers was sit back and watch. And in many ways, last week was the finale for a good portion of the show: Dickie went back to jail; Loretta got to keep her money; Wynn Duffy played his last hand by trying to kill Quarles; and Limehouse presented everything and everyone in a nice little package for the Marshalls’ office. But then there was that pesky little thing at the end.
Quarles got away.
So, this week, we got the actual finale, “Slaughterhouse” which, by the way, is an awesome episode titl). I want to come back to the chess game metaphor I’ve been using on and off for this show. If the season is a chess game, last week represented the series of moves to catch the queen. Which is all well and good because the queen, being quite powerful, represents a giant chunk of the game. However, there’s still the task of taking the king. No checkmate until the king is out of commission. And that can be a task unto itself.
Obviously, Quarles is the king I’m referring too. And for an episode that could have been just about tying up loose ends, capturing the king gave an exciting, satisfying, and also disturbing end to the show’s third season. Plot-wise, after the car blew up and Trooper Tom was shot, Quarles is on the run from the law, desperate to keep the Detroit mafia from killing him. He brokers a deal with his former boss, the wonderful Adam Arkin, so that with $500,000 cash, he can escape to start a new life. This leads him to kidnap a family just trying to go to a Christian rock festival, take Raylan hostage and seek out Limehouse so he can get some cash to be on his way with.
This season of Justified has really been a study in character with Quarles. When once he started out as a cool as f–k, city gangster, with sharkskin suits and inscrutable expressions, he devolved very quickly into an Oxy-smoking, teenager-beating, gun-wielding maniac, an angry, terrified dog likely to attack without warning at any time. It’s as if this is what the show is saying Harlan does to people. There’s a corruptive quality to the area that pervades everything it touches. And, therefore, it becomes even more impressive that Raylan has been able to stay as strong as he has for so long.
But let’s come back to this episode. Pushed to the brink, Quarles brings together the three key players of this year: Raylan, Quarles and Limehouse. Raylan just wants to bring his man in to justice. Limehouse wants to get rid of Quarles so Noble’s Holler can go back to dealing with its own problems, separate from the interfering, extremely white man. And Quarles wants his f–king money. Quarles should have known it would not end well for him, but I’m not sure he could have realized just how badly. No matter how cartoonish it is to see his arm cut clean through, it is a moment of such pure violence that I held my breath. Everyone involved, Raylan included, seems shocked that everything that’s lead to this point could end with such a decisive and unexpected move. Quarles falls, and his story is done, left to bleed on the slaughterhouse floor.
Quarles doesn’t finish his run, however, before revealing who really shot Trooper Tom. I was totally right last week in guessing it was Arlo. Arlo has always been a curious character on the show. One often wonders how this man with ambiguous morals and a cutthroat attitude toward the people around him could have fathered Raylan, a man with a strict sense of morality and empathy. But there’s no doubt that Arlo is crazy like a fox. While the whole season has suggested he has been slipping into dementia, and rightly so for the most part, Arlo knows what he’s doing when he wants to. Like taking the blame for killing Devil. (That was a plot quickly taken care of for Boyd). Or killing the man in the hat. In probably the most gutting line of the show, Raylan reveals that “He didn’t know it was a state trooper. He just saw a man in a hat, pointing a gun at Boyd.” Arlo wanted to kill his own blood to protect Boyd, his true son.
That idea brings us to what I think is the crux of the show since day one. There’s a connection between Boyd and Raylan that has shaped both of them throughout their lives. They are two sides of the same coin. One escape Harlan, became a moral man and a law-abiding man. The other stayed in Harlan, fell into moral ambiguity and crime. It’s a “there but for the grace of God” type of connection. Boyd even says in “Slaughterhouse,” “I was connected to Arlo in ways I was never given a chance to do with my own family. He’s not my crew, Raylan. He’s my family.” It’s this entanglement that drives the show forward, and as the season ends, it provides an uncertainty that is a perfect grace note for the season. Which man is better off? Raylan who soon will be a father himself but finds himself constantly alone? Or Boyd who will do anything to his own ends, but surrounds himself with people who love him? I can’t wait for next season to see how things continue to develop.
Finally, best line of the whole season: “Oh shit, it’s a piggy bank” The glee with which this was said was so perfect.
Grade: A-
Up Next: Other shows I want to discuss
Mary the TV Maven 