Justified rewatch: 3x01

[gwyn]

3.1 The Gunfighter
Original Air Date: January 17, 2012
Written by: Graham Yost & Fred Golan
Directed by: Michael Dinner



The arrival of a dangerous new player in Lexington puts Raylan on a collision course with a sadistic Dixie Mafia hitman.

Please share your thoughts and reactions in comments.

Comments

[mackiemesser]

Ah, Neal McDonough! He was very scary in this, as he usually is when he's a bad guy.

A lot of things for the season getting set up in this episode. And very much a lot of how people can be ruthless, menacing and stupid all at once. And Nix was an excellent one-shot villain: the elevator scene was wonderfully suspenseful and the motel scene at the end where he'd thought to get the drop on Raylan was excellent - and also gave us a nice reminder of how badass Raylan can be when he's got his head on straight.

[hafital]

Honestly I live for Art and Raylan's quippy exchanges. "Only thing that saved you is all that body fat you got going on there." "I'm starting to feel uncomfortable." "Why? We're alone." <3


"Boyd, I've been to Mexico. I don't think you'd like it."
"How so?"
"There's a lot of Mexicans."

Love this scene between Raylan and Boyd from start to finish, especially since it's mostly Boyd acting out to get himself arrested so he could threaten Dickie.

I gotta hand it to who ever picked the name Quarles. Excellent. If I remember correctly, the Dixie Mafia has an inexhaustible supply of bad guys, and Quarles is just the start. But I've always enjoyed watching Neal McDonough, happy to have him join the rest of the Band of Brothers reunion. I kinda want to put a bowler hat on him though.

Poor Raylan, I believe he was honestly trying with Winona.

Any scene with Tim and Raylan is solid gold. "Come on, man." :D :D :D Look at Tim's smile in the background when Duffy brings up the "next conversation isn't going to be a conversation" thing. haha I love him. Actually, Tim watching Raylan and Duffy spar like a ping pong match is strangely cute all around.

This episode has all these small gems, like the way Tim looks questionably at Raylan when Raylan figures out who Nix is.

"I could be the guy on the radio, telling people what to do."
"That's my job, asshole." :D ilu Art.

And the specter of Tommy Bucks comes back again. Thank goodness for that table cloth.

[gwyn]

I'd kind of forgotten how disturbing I found this entire season. Like, they all involve criminals and violence, but the characters in this season are *horrible* to a fault. Leading the pack would be Quarles, a sadist and psychopath. And in this first episode, we get Nix, who's his own brand of horrifying.

I was gratified to see Art and Raylan bantering, although you can tell there's still an element of mistrust underneath it all. But we get to see Tim a little more than usual, which makes up for any other issues.

Glad to see Chekhov's tablecloth used to great effect. And I was really happy that they didn't start into the new timeline, they let us see the aftermath of the season 2 finale and what it did to Raylan. I read that they'd initially scripted it to open on him at the firing range, and it's so much better when we can get the reminder of what had happened as well as see the effect it had on other people. Good job all around.