Quick Take: Justified, "The Moonshine War"
“I remember your apple pie.” - Raylan
Review: Justified, "The Moonshine War"
(S0201) Is Timothy Olyphant the premier television actor of our time? I ask because his resume on the medium in undoubtedly impressive. From Justified to Deadwood to Damages to a recurring role on The Office, he's made his presence known on several extremely popular (or in some regards, cultishly popular) series. Unforunately, his movie career hasn't been quite as boisterous. Sure, he's had some fun roles in Go, The Girl Next Door, and Live Free or Die Hard, but he's yet to really find that breakthrough. (Will I Am Number Four be that breakthrough? Only time will tell.) But with a television filmography like the one he has, who really cares?
Raylan Givens is probably his most fun TV character (Seth Bullock is great and all, but kind of a drag if you get down to it) and Olyphant clearly has a fun time playing him. But most importantly, he's a powerfully strong center for Justified and what helped transform it from the strong procedural it debuted as last season to the can't-miss drama that it emerged as in the final episodes. And this makes it all the more interesting that Raylan's character is put on the backburner for most of the first episode of Season Two.
If people are going to have one complaint about "The Moonshine War," it will be that the conflict between Raylan and the vengeful Miami crime family seeking revenge for Raylan's killing of Tommy Bucks is resolved with an unnatural ease. After crime boss Gio sends his niece and her partner (I'm kind of spacing on the end of Season One: was the guy her brother or boyfriend or what?) to finally take out Raylan, Boyd and Raylan are able to take down the male hitman, but not before the female escapes. Boyd chases her down and is about to shoot her (“I wouldn’t call it an execution -- more like retribution”), but happinstance allows Raylan to catch up and keep Boyd from finishing the job. Raylan uses the woman's private jet (which apparently he can fly?) and meets with Gio in Miami. Raylan's old boss at the Miami Marshall Service comes in and (after making it known to Gio that his entire house is bugged) more or less gets Gio to stand down on his quest to off Raylan. And lo and behold, it works. Gio backs off. Though, as Raylan puts it, he's "still going to sit facing the door.”
And yes, this is all too convenient and a little annoying. But then we are quickly introduced to a new group of antagonists, the Bennett family, who are far more intriguing than anything the Miami gun thugs can offer.
The matriarch of the family is Mags Bennett, played with a motherly sinisterness by Marlo Martindale. Along with Raymond J. Barry (who plays Raylan's father, Arlo), we have now been treated to both of Dewey Cox's parents in major supporting roles on Justified. Mags runs a massive pot-growing business that is mostly ignored by the law.
It is especially ignored by the town police chief, her son Doyle (Joseph Lyle Taylor). His profession is a nice reveal after we see him thuggishly force a man to insert his foot into a bear trap for growing weed on Bennett property. He claims to Raylan that he has nothing to do with the family business, but he is lying (and it seems likely that Raylan knows it.)
We don't learn a whole about Mags' other two sons, though they seem to have a more active role in running the marijuana operation. Dickie and Coover Bennett are played by Jeremy Davies and Brad William Henke, both Lost alumni. Coover appears to be the more violent of the two, and yet Dickie seems much more sinister. And while they don't get a ton of screentime this week, we learn a lot more about their operation in the next two.
The main plot of "The Moonshine War" is put into effect when a convicted sex offender is sought after in Harlan County by the marshall service and Rachel (Erica Tazel), who is assigned to the case. Not feeling comfortable with the people of Harlan and their response to 21st century race relations, she asks Raylan to accompany her and he is all to willing to oblige because it gets him out of all of the tedious paperwork involved with the Bo Crowder (r.i.p.) investigation.
The sex offender is one Jimmy Earl Dean (“Three first names -- triple winner right off the bat.”) who has his eyes on 14-year old Loretta McCready (Kaitlyn Dever). Dean becomes aggressive but Loretta is able to get the best of him, tricking him into running face-first into a booby trap full of razor sharp fishing lures. Her father becomes concerned and calls what he assumes is an anonymous sex offender tip-line which brings Raylan, Rachel, and a state police officer a-knocking on his door. Even though he quickly sends the law away, the Bennetts catch word of this because they had employed Dean on their pot farm. And they are none too pleased.
Doyle and Dickie shoot Mr. McCready in the leg and force him to put his own ankle into the aforementioned bear trap. Nothing graphic is even shown, but the sound of the trap clamping shut is brutal. Well played, Justifed sound guys. Well played.
As Raylan is getting reacquainted with the Bennett family (like everyone else in Harlan County, they all know each other), Dean returns and kidnaps Loretta and stuffs her in his trunk. A state trooper spots Dean's car and Raylan and Rachel are able to track him to a roadside gas station. As Dean comes back out from the store to finish filling up his tank, Raylan (in the guise of a fuel thief) splashes Dean with gasoline. Dean considers shooting Raylan, but our hero reminds him that the fumes of the gasoline his clothes are soaked in will ignite as soon as he pulls the trigger. Dean eventually puts his gun down and Loretta is rescued. She aks Raylan if his line about the fumes catching fire is true and he admits he doesn't know, but it sounded good.
Some time later, with Loretta out of the house with some friends, Mags and Dickie pay Mr. McCready a visit and offer him some of Mags "Apple Pie" moonshine as a piece offering. But Mags has had enough of McCready going against the Bennett way and reaching out (even supposedly anonymously) to the police and has his glass poisoned. She watches him die and consoles him in such a soothing, motherly way that you can almost ignore the fact that she just committed murder. I'm excited to watch what Martindale does with this role all season long. She's really good.
Also really good is Dever's take on Loretta McCready. We've seen a lot of great Western-type roles played by young women over the past year (Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone, Hailee Steinfield in True Grit) and Dever certainly can be included in that grouping. And that's good news because Loretta is about to be a major character this season as Mags explains to the dying Mr. McCready that she will raise his daughter as her own.
But if you're worried that the great Walton Goggins and his Boyd Crowder character will disappear now that the Bennett's have been introduced as the main villains, you need not be concerned. After escaping from the hospital early in the episode, he isn't seen for most of the remaining 35 minutes. But then the state trooper who earlier helped Raylan and Rachel look for Dean calls Raylan to inform him that Boyd has been found. He hasn't taken his father's place as the head of the Harlan Country meth business and he hasn't returned to his preacher ways neither. No, Boyd has returned to his roots. Working in the coal mines and blowing stuff up.
A lot of information is introduced in a limited amount of time in "The Moonshine War," but once the Miami subplot is resolved, the pacing is excellent and you don't feel overwhelmed. It is a fittingly strong return for an excellent show and the next two episodes only get better and better.
Lingering thoughts about "The Moonshine War":
Totally agree that the Miami storyline was wrapped with artificial ease considering how much time was spent on it in Season One, but must admit that I'm delighted at the prospects for what will go down with this new brood of Kentucky baddies.
You know, I recognized Henke more from October Road, where he played this really good natured dude who gets cheated on (as I recall). Love the casting from top to bottom on the show, and I think everyone is waiting for more Olyphant and Goggins screentime together.