What I’m Watching: Justified

Justified: Season 2, Episode 3 “The I of the Storm” (B+)

I think this show is just fantastic. It has created two, at the very least, immensely memorable characters that are just as difficult to predict sometimes as they are easy to predict others. Raylan’s quick job of realizing that someone pretended to be him was marvelously impressive, as was his casual tossing aside of his hat when he realized that it was just the thing that was getting him into so much trouble. Boyd’s transformation is especially gripping, and I love how Ava is tied into the whole thing and how she expresses such disdain for Raylan now. I couldn’t put my finger on who Boyd’s ill-fated bar mate and unconventional passenger was, and upon further research, I’ve discovered that it’s Michael Mosley, who played Drew on the final season of “Scrubs.” That final scene with Boyd was terrific, and I was convinced he was going to back up and run him over. I think that the exposition regarding the Bennett family is being extraordinarily well-handled and appropriately relegated to the backdrop, and it’s fascinating to see the plotlines come to a screeching intersection when Doyle shot the two villains and then reported in immediately to his brothers. Raylan’s relationship with Winona is getting to be mighty complicated, and my favorite moment of the episode was his accidental confession to Art of their having been seen together, and the fact that Art took such delight in guessing just who it was who Raylan didn’t want to be seen with out in public.