Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 36 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Man's Best Friend
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 10 | Aired on 03.18.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.First things first: With Picker trying to convince Wynn he might want to start thinking of Boyd as a liability to be cut loose, Wynn calls an old associate, played by MARY STEENBURGEN, who seems to be his crime mentor; in any case, he asks her, with Detroit and Harlan coming into sharp conflict, with which side he should throw his lot in. She offers to make an in-person "assessment" for a cool fifty grand, while Boyd pays (presumably) Teri to seduce Albert, and the next thing you know, Albert is bound and sniveling in Boyd's office about how he loves Ava and didn't have the power to make her his. He's so pathetic that Boyd lets him go, which is surprising but lets us know how bummed out Boyd's life is making him.
Dewey collects all the horse from the car and calls Boyd to demand a quarter million, after which Darryl can have the whorehouse and Dewey will never be heard from again. For his part, Darryl is packing up some mostly fake cash to take to Dewey – not with any intention of letting him live to realize the deception – when Raylan walks into Audrey's. He quickly smacks Darryl in the face with the case and opens it without benefit of warrant; he then confiscates it and chats with a couple of the ladies who are loyal to Dewey in order to secure his phone number. There's then a bunch of stuff with Dickie Bennett, which is enjoyable but comes to nothing, so we can wait for the full version, I think.
Boyd comes to prison with the news that he's tracked down Albert and intends to make him recant the statement that put Ava in State, but Ava tells him, essentially, that it's too late for that – there are things she has to do to survive that he can't be a part of. Later, Ava has Judith alone on the toilet with a blade in her hand, but Penny happens by to kill the moment. Later still, however, Penny tells her she saw Ava's shiv – and she wants Ava to kill Judith too. You see, Penny got knocked up from all those guard relations she had at Judith's behest and had to get rid of the pregnancy (ies?), and as such she thinks she doesn't mean anything to Judith. She supplies Ava with a better weapon with which to do the deed, and Ava catches her alone in the chapel. Judith, having a brain in her head, is hardly surprised, but Ava tells her she doesn't like Rowena's game and would rather work with Judith. Judith, however, doesn't trust this change of heart and attacks – and soon she's lying bloody and dead on the floor.
Allison comes home to find Kendal waiting for her -- but she calls Wendy on the sly, and when Wendy takes Kendal back to Audrey's, he tells Danny about Chelsea's fate – and then, when Danny threatens to kill him, he lets everyone know about Danny offing Jean-Baptiste. Darryl is insanely pissed, but he has to hold it together long enough to send Danny after Dewey, as Boyd has heard back from the dealer about Dewey trying to unload all that weight. Danny turns up, and the dealer allows Dewey to leave empty-handed but alive, taking three bricks commission and giving the rest to Danny. However, when Danny's back outside Audrey's grieving for Chelsea, Raylan catches him and offers to leave his kin out of any arrests he might make if Danny will own up to the drugs in his bag with a minimum of fuss. Danny, however, sees fit to try out the twenty-one-foot rule, and he charges Raylan – before falling into the grave he's dug for Chelsea and impaling himself on his own knife. Raylan worries that the rest of the Crowes might take out their frustration at Danny's death on Allison, so he prevails on an exasperated Art to arrange protection for her. For her part, Wendy tells Darryl that now they need to leave more than ever, and they end up getting into it physically, which leaves Wendy writhing on the floor in pain and a desperate Darryl going to Kendal and making a blood pact with him and telling him he's now a man. I think that's not good for anyone, least of all Kendal.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!On the Audrey's grounds, Kendal is impatiently waiting for Chelsea to do her dirty business when Chelsea hears a cat and takes off; Kendal runs after her, but as she bounds into the road, a pick-up hits her. I mean, we don't actually see the impact, but just for story reasons alone, it's high time that dog went to the Great Big Bone Yard in the Sky, no? Also, the truck barely slows down before taking off, if that matters to you.
It's now morning, and as Dewey unchains the drug car from the tow truck, he crows into the phone about his "grand design" and how he was biding his time "like a predator drone" and whatever -- without realizing that the car as a necessity for being towed is in neutral, so the upshot is that after Dewey gets a bag out of the truck he turns to see the thing rolling down the road. As a vehicle passes the other way, Dewey chases "his" car as fast as his predatory drone feet will carry him, but it's only after running over a large rock that the car eventually hits an incline and halts. In addition to the stone having dislodging some of the bricks of heroin, it's taken out the muffler, so it's possible Dewey won't be the noisiest thing in his car from here on out. With the call still connected, Dewey collects the rest of the drugs as he yammers about the "golden times" coming for him, and I'm not sure who he's talking to but the list of people who wouldn't have hung up on him by now has to be pretty short.
Darryl and Wendy are sniping at each other about Kendal having disappeared in "the Chevette" when Danny enters and breathes that they have "a serious situation," and of course the short version is going to be "no drugs," so let's just skip back to the locale we left, where Raylan and a statie are surveying the scene. Raylan tells him the truck is the one driven by the two people involved in putting Miller in the hospital with a broken pelvis, while the statie replies that he got waved down by a couple campers who saw "some fool out here tryin' to unhitch a car. Said he didn't look right." Hee. I mean, Raylan probably arrived at the correct conclusion after "some fool," but I still appreciate the rest. The statie goes on that they're not dealing with a genius, but Raylan, looking at the muffler, wonders what his "Einstein" is going to do with a carload of Mexican brown. Ah, but his unpredictability is part of his "genius"!
By her bunk, Ava is looking worriedly at Judith when a guard enters, calls the former's name and says she has a visitor. Ava walks out, stealing more glances at Judith along the way, before we cut to Boyd telling her he thinks he finally has a line on Albert, even though he has not been easy to find. It's true; you have to train your eyes to look downward. Boyd promises Ava that when Albert recants -- and he will -- all this will be over, but Ava urgently tells him that she's been thinking about it -- Boyd's tried everything to bring an end to her situation, "but there ain't no end to bring about." Boyd asks her to clarify, so she tells him that there are things on the inside she's going to have to do to stay alive, "and the less you got to do with them, the better." I'd wonder if Ava isn't making a mistake not waiting for Boyd to try this Albert play, but given that her instincts are proven right, I suppose I shouldn't bother. As Boyd stares at her in disbelief, she goes on that she's saying goodbye, but Boyd addresses her as "woman" and petulantly asks if she knows what he's done for her? Thinking of the murder he had Jimmy commit last episode, she says she does, but he won't accept that, so she puts the phone down and says -- so he can barely hear her -- that she loves him. If she cut him off because she figured he'd argue until the cows come home, I'll be much more willing to back her instincts here. She adds that she'll always love him before getting up and calling for the guard, and although Boyd knocks on the glass and shouts her name, she doesn't stop walking resolutely away. Sure, Boyd, it seems frivolous, but did you notice the episode count for Ava being in prison is now ten? Credits.