Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 2 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT What A Tangled Web
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 5 | Aired on 02.06.2013
hile down the mountain, Colton arrives on the scene. Tim has his gun ready, but when Colton steps out of his car, Tim compliments his boots and asks where he served. Colton grins at the potential for camaraderie......while back in the cell, two people who like each other rather less are trying to work together, as Raylan calls to their captors that he has a photograph that might fix the situation and that makes me hope that Tim's speculation about Raylan doing exotic dancing might actually have been the case. One of the chromosomally-challenged captors tells him he has to wait for "Cope," but Raylan continues that the picture is of his mother with one of the hill people, a "Cousin Mary." The name seems to register with the idiots, but they still are unmoved and when Raylan keeps talking, they fire a shot through the door, open it, and then drag Boyd out by the leg as he shouts that he doesn't much like Raylan's plan. Heh. Raylan starts to work his hands free as the two morons stare beating on Boyd, but the less challenged one gets cocky in taking a big swing at Boyd with the butt of his rifle, and Boyd takes advantage of the opening by kicking his legs out from under him and getting him in a headlock from behind as the dumber of the two captors (whose physique makes me think Bob might not have been wrong about his diet) yells bloody murder. Raylan gets his hands free, extricates himself from the box and disarms the moron, but just then, three men who seem to mean a lot more business, the leader of whom is the aforementioned Cope, enter and train their weapons on our boys. Raylan and Boyd try to explain that they're looking for Thompson, but Cope says that's not what Cairn told him when he called. After a bit more talk, Cope has Daniel the dumber moron cover his ears and sing some hymn, whereupon Cope tells our boys that a rock fell on Daniel when he was a kid, and although he still loves him, he'd never give him a working weapon. Since Raylan is holding Daniel's gun, this is not great news for him or Boyd and the latter collapses in frustration. You have to concede the day has kind of gone south for him.
Outside, things are looking grim, but Raylan's story about Mary comes out, so Cope asks him some questions to see if he can prove his claim of kinship. Unfortunately, Raylan doesn't know any of the answers, which makes me think he should have spent have an hour on ancestry.com before heading up the hill. Cope therefore decrees that he and Boyd will be dropped down a mine shaft to their death. Well, I'm sure they'll both appreciate the irony, even if they're not amused by it. As they walk, Boyd tries to babble his way out of trouble, but it's Daniel -- of all people -- who looked as thoughtful as he gets when Raylan was claiming kinship, who comes to their rescue, as he appears with Mary, who as I mentioned in the recap is played by Bonita Friedericy, General Beckman on Chuck. Daniel passed along the picture and Mary confirms that she sees Raylan's mother "Frances" in him. She decrees that they won't kill Raylan, "my cousin's boy," but Boyd is fair game; Raylan, however, appeals to Mary and says that as a marshal, he'll be compelled to report any crime that happens up there, and Mary sees the wisdom of letting them both go...
...whereupon we cut to Mary walking with Raylan and Boyd and telling them Thompson isn't there -- the part where he came to them to heal is true, but he left them one day. However, she saw him ten years ago at the Bluegrass Festival rubbing shoulders with the Mayor, the Judge Executive and all "those rich Clover Hill folks." You know, I didn't mention it at the time, but that client Ellen May shot -- the furry -- was the Judge Executive, according to Ava. I wonder if his crazy drugs came from Thompson? Either way, Mary tells Raylan that if he's looking for Thompson, he's on the wrong hill...
...and speaking of hills, we then cut to the boys walking with Mary having left them, and Boyd saying he never knew Raylan had hills in his blood. "I'd whistle the theme song to Deliverance if I thought you had a better sense of humor." Hee. Raylan explains that his mother was never embarrassed by her roots, but Arlo didn't like her talking about it. After a bit more talk about their fathers, Boyd suggests this is the time where they declare that the best man wins and holds out his hand -- whereupon Raylan grabs it and handcuffs his arms around a tree and given what they were talking about, I hope no one's around to tell Boyd he has a purty mouth. Raylan says he does in fact have a sense of humor -- "I know I'm laughin'" -- and takes off. Boyd calls that he doesn't like Raylan and Raylan tells him the feeling is mutual, which I feel like might be poking fun at the TCAs, at which Tim Olyphant has said that Raylan doesn't like Boyd (i.e., all of them).
Colton and Tim are bonding about wartime experiences and drawing comparisons between the places in which they fought and Harlan, and then Colton asks Tim's advice on finding someone who doesn't want to be found. In response, Tim tries to recruit Colton for the Marshal Service, but we don't get to find out how serious he is, as Raylan appears and happily tells him to put on the kibosh Arlo's deal, as they have a line on Thompson and he's in Harlan. He then tells Colton that Boyd is up the trail about a mile or so. "You're gonna need a saw." We don't see Colton's face, but with the day he's had, he can't be thrilled to hear that.
Whether by saw or not, Colton apparently managed to free Boyd with a minimum of fuss, if Boyd's bright mood as he reports to Wynn that he expects to find Thompson within a week is any indication. Wynn compliments the "impressive" work, although I wonder what he'd say if he knew Raylan was starting out from the same place, but Boyd seizes on that word choice as a prelude to asking for half the heroin business in the state of Kentucky. Wynn gives the verbal equivalent of an eyebrow-raise, but does concede that Boyd is tenacious. "I hate that in a person." Hee. Wynn agrees to the terms -- only once the call is done, he tells Johnny -- who just so happens to be with him -- that he can promise Boyd "a rocket ship and a goddamn unicorn" for now, but once Boyd delivers Thompson, Johnny will be free to kill him. Of course, if Johnny's smart, Wynn's casual betrayal of Boyd will make him question whether Wynn will play straight with him, but we may have to go elsewhere for thorough understandings of tangled agendas...
...and look, here we are back with Shelby. He opens up his home front door for Colton, who's now desperate as he obviously knows that the longer Ellen May is on the loose, the greater the chance it's going to get back to Boyd that he failed his mission and then lied about it. Shelby tells Colton that he's checked into it and one of his deputies was indeed there and he saw a girl who fit Ellen May's description get waved over to an eighteen-wheeler; since she seemed to recognize the driver and climbed right in, there was no reason to investigate. Colton gets more and more freaked out and eventually tells Shelby not to "bother" Boyd with any of this before leaving. But now, we learn that Shelby's joined the ranks of those playing a deep game, as when he enters his living room, he asks if Ellen May believes him now and she emerges from under the table. In her line of work, she at least has probably been in that position before. But I have to say, I'm impressed -- Shelby didn't make my list of people who might have picked Ellen May up, even though he was obviously present for the same conversation I thought had tipped Cassie off. I had been misdirected by the fact that Shelby been stuck in Boyd's pocket for so long that it didn't occur to me he'd take the opportunity to stab his way out. Excellent development and a prime example of the way the show manages t