In last week’s season 5 premiere of Justified, we saw Raylan talking via a Skype-like service with both his ex-wife and his daughter.

This week, his “other” daughter returns.

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Loretta is Back

We find Raylan at the beginning of this week’s episode at Xander Berkeley’s house — if we ever got Xander’s character name, I can’t honestly recall it. He’s a wanna-be Confederate and he’s very, very rich — Raylan winds up taking his Mercedes so he can go answer a friend phoning for help. (I believe he’s connected to the mob.)

That phone call is from Loretta, who we haven’t seen in more than two seasons. She’s in a jail cell and Raylan tells her, “I remember my first time in a cell.”

Loretta was busted for selling drugs to a cop’s son and Raylan refuses to help her. After leaving the jail, he meets Allison, Loretta’s social worker who is played by Amy Smart.

She sees through his BS right away and tells him that trying to scare Loretta straight won’t work. So instead, Raylan goes to confront the drug dealers that were involved with Loretta, as well as her boyfriend, who Raylan suggests break up with her.

Loretta comes to confront Raylan later when Derek, her boyfriend, is missing. He’s off digging a hole, which we’re probably meant to think is for his soon-to-be-dead body.

But Raylan shows up and confronts the guys who are threatening Derek. He tells them, “Don’t make me do the paperwork.” A Duck Dynasty-looking drug dealer shows up to confront Raylan later, warning him he used to work with Arlo, Raylan’s father. But Raylan scares him off.

Raylan accuses Loretta of playing him — if I’m reading the intention correctly, it’s that Loretta wanted Raylan to scare them off since they may or may not have been her competition.

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Boyd Dodges Suspicion and Angry Distributors

If there’s one thing Boyd doesn’t keep from Ava, it’s anything having to do with his criminal misdeeds. Rather than hide his “overreaction” near-murder of Paxton from her, he tells her straight out. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t try and lie about it since he’s almost arrested right away for it.

But when the cops come to confront Boyd at the bar with Mara, who identified Boyd as Paxton’s assailant, she changes her mind and says Boyd didn’t do it.

Boyd is desperate to know later why she didn’t rat him out. He uses one of his associates to lure her to a secluded part of the hospital where she’s watching over Paxton so he can ask her. She says she wants Boyd’s help since her husband will never be the same. Guess she figures Boyd is of better use to her on the outside than if he is arrested and detained for murder.

Mara says she wants $300,000, but I can’t be the only one to detect quite a bit of chemistry between the two. With Ava locked away in prison … could Boyd possibly stray?

When he’s not dealing with the fallout from his near-murder of Paxton, Boyd and Wynn are dealing with angry distributors that heroin is not getting through.

Just when Boyd and Wynn think they’ve got everything under control, the episode ends with Boyd’s shipment getting hit.

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Other Musing and Final Thoughts

– Iguana meat is apparently very tender. If you’ve ever eaten any and can substantiate that, please leave feedback in the comments.

– I accidentally wrote that Art finds out Raylan was meeting with Sammy Tonin right before the death of Nicky Augustine in last week’s episode. That happened in this episode. Sorry for the confusion.

– Dewey’s cousin Darryl arrives in town near the end of the episode. I’ll assume the “truce” between him and Raylan formed in last week’s episode is not going to last very long. 

Justified airs Tuesdays at 10pm on FX.

(Image courtesy of FX)

Alan Danzis

Contributing Writer, BuddyTV