‘Justified’ Review: “Weight”

‘Justified’ season 5 takes aim with its tenth installment of the year in "Weight,” as Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and Boyd (Walton Goggins) both attempt to track down Dewey Crowe, while Ava faces a dilemma behind bars and Wynn Duffy reaches out for help with his drug trade.

Last week’s ‘Justified’ episode “Wrong Roads” saw Raylan teaming up with a Memphis DEA agent (Eric Roberts) in pursuit of Hot Rod Dunham, while Boyd attempted to negotiate Darryl's part of their enterprise, and aid Ava in prison, so what will the tenth episode of ‘Justified’ season 5 bring? Will Boyd finally manage to set up his new business and spring Ava from prison?

Read on for your in-depth recap of everything you need to know about ‘Justified’ season 5, episode 10, “Weight!”

Late one night walking Danny’s dog Chelsea, Kendal is aghast to see Chelsea run off chasing a cat, predictably getting hit by a truck in the middle of the road. Elsewhere, Dewey Crowe attempts to release the dope-carrying car from his tow truck, but accidentally allows the car to roll down the hill before it comes to a stop, spilling dope along the way. The next morning, Danny finally returns to find Darryl looking for him and a missing Kendal, but a situation has since developed.

Raylan consults with a local officer at the scene of Dewey’s abandoned tow truck, wondering what the dimmest Crowe might do with a stolen haul of Mexican heroin. Meanwhile, Boyd pays a visit to Ava in prison to update that he has a line on the guard whose testimony landed Ava behind bars, before Ava attempts to break off their relationship for the things she must do in prison to survive, leaving Boyd heartbroken at the window.

Later that day, Darryl pays a visit to Boyd to deliver news of Dewey Crowe, before the man himself calls and attempts to extort $250,000 in exchange for the stolen heroin. Elsewhere, Mr. Picker chides Wynn Duffy about his continual reliance on Boyd Crowder, and urges him to ditch the troublesome Harlan gangsters at the first opportunity. The Crowes attempt to place together a briefcase of counterfeit money to trick cousin Dewey, though Raylan catches them in the act and borrows the briefcase. Just outside, Raylan finds Dewey’s favorite hookers packing to leave, before he tricks them with the fake money into giving up a cell phone with Dewey’s current number. Raylan attempts to coalesce Dewey into cooperating, but inadvertently gives Dewey another idea, before the man hangs up.

Alison comes home to find Kendal inside waiting for her, having run away from home to escape Danny’s wrath. After a short while, Kendal poses the two might run away together, before Wendy shows up to claim her son, having been alerted to his whereabouts by Alison. Meanwhile in prison, Ava follows Judith to the bathroom with a shiv, but finds herself interrupted by Penny, who warns of imminent bed-checks. Elsewhere at a different prison, Dewey goes to see a man whom he considers to be his sole remaining friend, Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies).

Wynn Duffy visits with his deceased mentor’s widow Katherine Hale (Mary Steenburgen) cutting through the tension by asking for her help with his current predicament. Having kept abreast of the drug trade, Katherine correctly identifies that he needs to sort out the less weighty evil, his Chinese suppliers or the Harlan hornet’s nest, and agrees to help him mediate the conflict for a hefty fee. Meanwhile, Raylan awaits Dewey Crowe to show up at a checkpoint out of Harlan, before getting a prison collect call from Dickie Bennett.

Raylan and Dickie meet behind bars, as Dickie attempts to earn either a transfer or some rehabilitation in exchange for the location of Dewey Crowe, but Raylan manages to deduce that Dickie would likely have sent Dewey to cash in the heroin score with one of Dickie’s dealers, who would then alert the Crowes, and ultimately land the heroin back in Harlan anyway. Sure enough, Dewey meets with one of Dickie’s old dealers, who covertly informs the Crowes he has what they’ve been looking for. Elsewhere, prison guard Albert (Danny Strong) finds himself enamored of Johnny’s old hooker Candy, while Boyd watches from the other end of the bar.

As Darryl and Danny gets news of Dewey’s whereabouts, Alison returns home with Kendal, who reveals to a distraught Danny that his dog Chelsea was hit by a car. Danny lunges at the boy, who in turn reveals that Danny killed Jean Baptiste, before Darryl breaks up the fight and puts them to work tracking down Dewey, also decking his brother for the lie. Meanwhile Penny relays to Ava that she knows of the order to kill Judith, providing a more effective shiv, given that Judith’s drug machinations had seen Penny suffer a number of prison abortions at Rowena’s hands. Penny even reveals that Judith has a deal with the guards to pray alone in the chapel at night, with no cameras to witness.

Dewey is surprised to find Danny arriving at the dealer’s residence, as all three men pull guns on one another, and the dealer demands three bricks of heroin for his trouble, turning over Dewey thereafter. Later that night, Danny brings flowers to the covered body of his dog, but finds his grieving interrupted by Raylan. The marshal poses that Danny can avoid the other Crowes being sent to jail if he admits to the heroin in his duffel bag, before the man grows aggressive, and begins talking up his 21 foot rule again. Raylan advises against it, but when Danny charges, he trips and falls into the grave prepared for Chelsea, impaling himself on his own knife through the bottom of his head.

Raylan describes the astonishing events to a bitter Art, also relaying that they had nothing to hold Darryl and Wendy, potentially placing Alison as a target of their revenge, to which Art agrees to take care of the matter personally. Meanwhile, Ava confronts Judith in the chapel during her nightly prayer, but despite Judith’s anticipation of the attempt, Ava confesses she’d rather work together to take down Rowena. Judith attacks regardless, nearly choking Ava to death before Ava kills her with the shiv. Ava is then forced to ditch her bloody clothes.

Boyd attempts to menace a captive Albert into recanting his testimony against Ava, despite his insistence he can’t fix the situation. Boyd displays a knife, likening the pain to how Albert had earlier stabbed himself in framing Ava, but Albert insists he’d only done what he did out of his love for Ava, knowing that he could never truly make her his. Boyd cuts the man loose, and urges Albert to flee before he changes his mind. Meanwhile, a grieving Darryl and Wendy take their family frustrations out on one another, before coming to blows, a battle Daryl easily wins. With Wendy recoiling on the floor, Darryl finds Kendal in his trailer and asks him to choose his family allegiance, slicing both their hands to form a blood bond on the Crowe side.

OUR REVIEW:

It’s been a rough going for ‘Justified’ season 5, not only because the early exit of actor Edi Gathegi necessitated a slapped-together Crowe-centric installment with “Whistle Past the Graveyard,” but also owing to the divided narrative of the Crowes themselves, and the difficulty wrapping together all the various threads. In one way, the Crowes hearken back to stronger ‘Justified’ villains like the Bennetts, with a well-spoken leader hypocritically touting the virtue of family and heritage, a bruiser brother who meets an ignominious end, a more litigious, but less physically imposing sibling, and a youth caught in the middle, yet season 5 has reached a bit far beyond the Harlan limits to tell a similarly effective story.

Last week at least got things going with a plethora of quick-witted guest stars to showboat while the writers tied together that majority of main characters, while “Weight” feels almost like a direct continuation. Not only does Dewey Crowe’s joyride link the two stories, but we’re given to the same kind of Crowe desperation that ultimately unravels the family bond, and places Raylan square in the middle of various feuds he'd only partially courted. This time around, “Weight” lacks a more effective punch with its guest stars, somewhat meaninglessly returning Dickie Bennett to prominence, though it at least caught our attention with Mary Steenburgen’s introduction as Wynn Duffy’s new friend.

Of course, also worth noting is that Dewey’s joyride finally ends with the dim-witted criminal back in the custody of his cousins (it isn’t quite clear what happens between the showdown at the dealers, and Danny’s solo arrival to Chelsea’s grave), though “Weight” certainly moved things along with regard to the Crowe family at least, with Danny finding said ignominious end at the bottom of a ditch to his own “21-foot rule.” It isn’t entirely surprising for the narrative to supplant Danny with Darryl as the more unstable Crowe, now compounded by his attack on Wendy and blood bond with Kendal, though it remains somewhat unclear where the story intends to go with its villains.

And try as he might, Boyd just can’t seem to catch a break, as confrontation with Ava’s would-be rapist fails to yield her freedom, while her apparent breakup only serves to sever any lingering ties between Ava’s prison woes and the rest of the story. For a moment, we had to wonder if Ava’s potential death at Judith’s hands could somehow send Boyd on the warpath against Raylan, but for now at least, it remains to be seen what the fallout of her attack on Judith will be, or how season 5 will…ahem, justify its inclusion.

Still no Rachel or Tim this week, though we have to imagine Art’s insistence on getting involved with the protection detail for Alison will yield dire consequences. It’s an effective and exciting hour overall, though not one that promises to redeem the straggling season that preceded it in only three episodes.

Well, what say you? Did you feel that ‘Justified’ hit the mark with its fifth season’s tenth installment? Will the Crowes seek revenge on Rayaln, or will Boyd beat them to it? Give us your reactions in the comments, and join us again next Tuesday for another all-new ‘Justified’ recap of season 5, episode 11, “The Toll” on FX!