Justified: "Cut Ties" Review

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

The dialogue has improved a lot since Justified began. Winona Hawkins (Natalie Zea) and Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) have a natural, seamless way of conversing that distracts from whatever they're actually saying. Her snarkiness matches his. It's been subtle, but well done. While the scenes in the past two episodes haven't been anything serious and the arc from last season seemed like a fish out of water way to get them back together, we've gotten a pretty good idea of why they got married. He protects and helps her, though she's strong on her own; she can handle his ruthlessness and gun-first ways (and even murdering someone in front of her). They both use their senses of humor to protect themselves. They're both smarter than the average bear, but can do some not-so-smart things. That's what we got in the intro to this one.

Raylan outsmarted Boyd early in this one after figuring out Boyd only wanted to get into prison to hurt Dickie Bennett. Another close call barely saves Dickie's life, but the later scene where Boyd threatened Dickie with a sharp object to get information from him calls this one into question. What was Boyd going to do with that shiv in the early scene?

Regardless, Raylan stopped Boyd in the nick of time and told a few stories of back in the waterhole days to stall Boyd long enough to get Dickie into isolation. Boyd still found a way around it and used his power to bribe a guard into Dickie's solitary confinement, wherein he found out where Mags' money went.

The main arc of the episode was solid. A former Boston Mafioso, named Terry, killed a witness protection agent in order to get himself back in with the Boston mob. The agent is one of Karen Goodall's and she arrived on the scene of Lexington to help out.

Some of you may not remember Karen Sisco, but in case you don't, she's another Elmore Leonard character, a Miami-based U.S. Marshal, that got a TV show in 2003 – after Jennifer Lopez played the character in Out of Sight – which lasted one season. Carla Gugino played her in the TV series and reprised the role in this episode. Well, they can't call her Karen Sisco on Justified for legal reasons, but Carla Cugino as a Miami-based U.S. Marshal named Karen? Yep, it's obviously supposed to be her, which is represented in a winking manner – as Raylan questions her new last name, Goodall, while the last name he knew her by previously is never actually said out loud.

Justified Creator Comments on Karen Sisco -- or is it?
Karen provided some ass-beating in capturing a couple of Boston mafia members in town to meet Terry. She and Raylan got them to talk. The acting between Gugino and Olyphant lent a friendship that didn't quite border on affair, but something of mutual respect. It was pleasant.

Oh yeah, and Art caught Terry and beat him half to death and threatened him with a gun. It was kind of dark and a side of Art we don't see usually. It gives credence to why he's so lenient on Raylan, though.

Our introduction to the secondary bad guy this year, Elston Limehouse (Michaelti Mychael Mykelti Williamson), was brief but captivating. Limehouse is a drug trafficker, known in Harlan County—err, well, now that he's been invented, anyway. The creators of Justified have the whole "threatening in a non-threatening way" down pat. Limehouse spoke to one of his guards, a young kid fresh out of high school. The kid apparently missed something while watching guard the night before. Winehouse noted to the boy that this was a teaching moment (what a good motivator!) and he has the choice of getting his hand burned off in lye or accepting that he made a mistake and never do it again for fear of being murdered. The boy hopefully has learned his lesson, though this is what we call foreshadowing.

Williamson does a good drawl, not overly done, and speaks at the same level of volume whether or not he's threatening to burn someone's hand off with lye. His opening scene reminded me a little too much of Fight Club's "hand with lye" scene and it bothered me, but watching Williamson deliver his lines with the patience of a southern man carving up meat was delightful.

"Cut Ties" wasn't a profound episode, but we're still early in the season and exposition is expected. We also found out that Art and Raylan both know what Quarles did last week (apparently the carpet has been changed and the ground beneath it bleached :stare: ) and that should provide some fun down the line.

There's a lot of balls in the air here, but it seems like the writers are good enough to catch 'em all.

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