Justified 3X06 When the guns come out
Another great episode from my favourite current show!
Big Deadwood vibes from the episode, not only because of the Trixie blonde girl (whom we hardly saw but whose name was voiced several times!), but first and foremost because Raylan was almost in Bullock mode!
There was a lot of abuse going on, from Quarles' session with the mysterious man, to Delroy the pimp beating the prostitute to Ava recalling her own past of a abused-wife when she gave advice to Elle Mae, to Raylan hitting Delroy...
BTW I find it interesting, although slightly disturbing, that a "white hat" like Raylan(even if he was hatless during the episode!), who's basically one of the good guys, took it on the pimp the way he did. Yes Raylan's lines were cool (his "shit I dind't bring a knife") and the man was a lowlife who has just beaten up a woman until his knuckles bled, but it was obvious that the pimp took it for the bad day Raylan was having, receiving all the rage that had been boiling inside of Raylan since the beginning of the episode. He had tried to keep his temper for most of the episode when dealing with others, especially Arlo and Boyd (loved his line about "the subsequent dance" they woud have if Boyd carried on involving the Givens in his buisness)but finally lost it. The shades of Bullock were there!
So Raylan's behaviour was echoing Quarles' way of getting release. Of course, Raylan doesn't keep a man gagged and tied to a bed in a room so he can let steam off whenever he needs it, but there was an obvious parallel between all those men of violence.
And there's Arlo...who might be becoming senile (or is it just his bipolar condition showing up?) but reminded us that he used to scare his son out.
And now we've got Wynn Duffy who ran away from Quarles' house, obviously creeped out by his new "boss". But as funny as it is to see carzy Duffy being creeped out by someone even crazier than he is, Quarles is still over-the-top, cartoonish even, much too one-dimensional for my taste.
As villains go, Limehouse looks much more human and, therefore, more interesting.
That said, i was interested in the way Quarles seems to be turning in house into...a clinic! There was medical furniture, and that paramedic guy who entered while Duffy was approaching him on the porch. Or is the organs business subplot coming back?
I love it when an episode writing provides parallels and counterpoints and this one didn't disappoint. I enjoyed the fact that Boyd, who is smart, took the time to investigate, in a way being in a lawman's shoes.
Also there was the fact that several characters jumped to wrong conclusions: Johnny about Quarles being behind the Oxy clinic mess, Elle Mae about the reason Raylan and Ava were there (although she might have hoped for some sex with Mashall Givens!), Quarles about Raylan being dirty, Raylan about Winona taking the money from the evidence room.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I liked the final pied-de-nez about Charlie, a minor character who used to be the evidence room guard and actually stole the money, running off to Mexico. His theft pointed out that there are always more morally-challenged people (like Quarles being worst than Duffy)since Winona and Raylan actually returned the money instead of running away with it; it allowed Art and Raylan to kinda address the elephant in the room, and agree upon a lie (to use a famous Deadwood title!); it covered everybody-that-matters's ass, letting Winona and Raylan off the hook, and it allowed the show wrap things up and bury a widely-hated subplot in an ironical way. It was a great denouement, a good twist with nothing being phoned, and everybody, including the audience was surprised, so Charlie's laughing in the end was perfect.
Maybe Limehouse, who knows everything, knew what Charlie had been up to all along, but we didn't, we weren't privy to some information, which echoed the characters' general lack of clues about some stuff. The ending suited Limehouse' lesson and literally put us in the characters' shoes! Or rather we were like Boyd who knew nothing of the black guys in the holler.
Information is the key. It has been a lesson from the first episode of this season, when Raylan didn't read the file concerning the Ice Pick killer. Quarles didn't know about Arlo Givens so he hasn't done his homework very well either. I hope that Raylan read the file this time. BTW Tim was so right to put him in his place!
On a meta level the Charlie twist is a good way to remind us that there are many potential storylines that may happen off-screen and even other alternate shows that could occur in there, but the writers chose to follow one path, and in this case, to tell a story from the perspective of Rayan Givens and his little world. I am not hoping for a Charlie spin-off but it's the kind of labyrinthic point of view that I love.
Also, and perhaps I'm seeing too much in the scene, that character, whom nobody would have suspected until then, reminded me of another guy who suddenly broke bad, under the nose of a DDA agent...and the actor playing Charlie even had a certain Bryan Cranston look to him when he was in his red car in the end!
What can I say?! I like to connect stuff and I love to connect my favourite shows.
Big Deadwood vibes from the episode, not only because of the Trixie blonde girl (whom we hardly saw but whose name was voiced several times!), but first and foremost because Raylan was almost in Bullock mode!
There was a lot of abuse going on, from Quarles' session with the mysterious man, to Delroy the pimp beating the prostitute to Ava recalling her own past of a abused-wife when she gave advice to Elle Mae, to Raylan hitting Delroy...
BTW I find it interesting, although slightly disturbing, that a "white hat" like Raylan(even if he was hatless during the episode!), who's basically one of the good guys, took it on the pimp the way he did. Yes Raylan's lines were cool (his "shit I dind't bring a knife") and the man was a lowlife who has just beaten up a woman until his knuckles bled, but it was obvious that the pimp took it for the bad day Raylan was having, receiving all the rage that had been boiling inside of Raylan since the beginning of the episode. He had tried to keep his temper for most of the episode when dealing with others, especially Arlo and Boyd (loved his line about "the subsequent dance" they woud have if Boyd carried on involving the Givens in his buisness)but finally lost it. The shades of Bullock were there!
So Raylan's behaviour was echoing Quarles' way of getting release. Of course, Raylan doesn't keep a man gagged and tied to a bed in a room so he can let steam off whenever he needs it, but there was an obvious parallel between all those men of violence.
And there's Arlo...who might be becoming senile (or is it just his bipolar condition showing up?) but reminded us that he used to scare his son out.
And now we've got Wynn Duffy who ran away from Quarles' house, obviously creeped out by his new "boss". But as funny as it is to see carzy Duffy being creeped out by someone even crazier than he is, Quarles is still over-the-top, cartoonish even, much too one-dimensional for my taste.
As villains go, Limehouse looks much more human and, therefore, more interesting.
That said, i was interested in the way Quarles seems to be turning in house into...a clinic! There was medical furniture, and that paramedic guy who entered while Duffy was approaching him on the porch. Or is the organs business subplot coming back?
I love it when an episode writing provides parallels and counterpoints and this one didn't disappoint. I enjoyed the fact that Boyd, who is smart, took the time to investigate, in a way being in a lawman's shoes.
Also there was the fact that several characters jumped to wrong conclusions: Johnny about Quarles being behind the Oxy clinic mess, Elle Mae about the reason Raylan and Ava were there (although she might have hoped for some sex with Mashall Givens!), Quarles about Raylan being dirty, Raylan about Winona taking the money from the evidence room.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I liked the final pied-de-nez about Charlie, a minor character who used to be the evidence room guard and actually stole the money, running off to Mexico. His theft pointed out that there are always more morally-challenged people (like Quarles being worst than Duffy)since Winona and Raylan actually returned the money instead of running away with it; it allowed Art and Raylan to kinda address the elephant in the room, and agree upon a lie (to use a famous Deadwood title!); it covered everybody-that-matters's ass, letting Winona and Raylan off the hook, and it allowed the show wrap things up and bury a widely-hated subplot in an ironical way. It was a great denouement, a good twist with nothing being phoned, and everybody, including the audience was surprised, so Charlie's laughing in the end was perfect.
Maybe Limehouse, who knows everything, knew what Charlie had been up to all along, but we didn't, we weren't privy to some information, which echoed the characters' general lack of clues about some stuff. The ending suited Limehouse' lesson and literally put us in the characters' shoes! Or rather we were like Boyd who knew nothing of the black guys in the holler.
Information is the key. It has been a lesson from the first episode of this season, when Raylan didn't read the file concerning the Ice Pick killer. Quarles didn't know about Arlo Givens so he hasn't done his homework very well either. I hope that Raylan read the file this time. BTW Tim was so right to put him in his place!
On a meta level the Charlie twist is a good way to remind us that there are many potential storylines that may happen off-screen and even other alternate shows that could occur in there, but the writers chose to follow one path, and in this case, to tell a story from the perspective of Rayan Givens and his little world. I am not hoping for a Charlie spin-off but it's the kind of labyrinthic point of view that I love.
Also, and perhaps I'm seeing too much in the scene, that character, whom nobody would have suspected until then, reminded me of another guy who suddenly broke bad, under the nose of a DDA agent...and the actor playing Charlie even had a certain Bryan Cranston look to him when he was in his red car in the end!
What can I say?! I like to connect stuff and I love to connect my favourite shows.