What I’m Watching: Justified

Justified: Season 1, Episode 6 “The Collection” (B+)

I love the way the way Raylan reacts to authority. His tone talking to his boss was hilarious, and I love how Art responds to him. All of their bantering back and forth is terrific, and really enhances the show in its less serious moments. I got a kick out of “I think I’d rather stick my dick in a blender” / “that might solve a few problems.” It’s great to see Boyd again, especially because of how he seems to rile Raylan up, regardless of how the marshal remains generally stoic when speaeking to him. The storylines on this show are just genuinely interesting plotlines, with cool, often elaborate crimes being committed and a wealth of excellent subplots, not to mention stellar guest stars. In this case, Robert Picardo (“Star Trek: Voyager”), Brett Cullen (“Lost,” “The West Wing”) and Tony Hale (“Chuck,” “Arrested Development”) were all in top form. The faked suicide was a nice way to kick things off, and the ending was even better with the gallery owner revealing that he bought all of Hitler’s paintings in order to burn them. I was truly impressed by Raylan’s ability to talk down Greg, and even more surprised by the speed with which he flipped and became an informant. The agent played by Rick Gomez ("Cupid") who’s investigating Raylan is definitely interesting also, and I’m curious to see where that goes. By far the best part of the episode, however, was the appearance of Natalie Zea as Winona. Her answering all of his questions quickly and then him asking her to run the order of the responses by him again was fantastic. I really hope she shows up a whole lot more in the near future.