Justified 2x10, "Debts and Accounts"

The episode opened with the two maternal titans of the show's universe sitting down across from one another in a homey family-style cafe. Cash money was on the table within seconds, and Helen Givens began the delicate political process of appealing to history, grief, love, and strength to keep the peace in her corner of Kentucky. By episode's end, the wheels were in motion by the spurned son, Dickie, to create another clusterfuck. It's like a sort of gender-reversed "King Lear."

I found it interesting how quickly Mags dissolved her connection with Dickie, almost as though her affection--such as it was--for Coover was what kept Dickie within the fold. Whether Mags blames Dickie for Coover's demise or whether it is truly a decision borne out of months of thought, as Brother Corrupt Sheriff implies, is murky. Either way, the dissolution of the Bennett family connection was brutal and carried with it immediate, predictable fallout.

Boyd using stupid people to his own means generally doesn't work out well for the stupid person.

The Raylan and Loretta reunion was unexpected, and I thought it really spoke to both characters well: Raylan did not do the regular-adult thing and correct Loretta when she expressed relief at Coover's death and her empty apathy regarding her father's passing, and he did not sell her fairy tales about her life in foster care. And Loretta's facade barely cracked but showed the many conflicting and strong emotions she was feeling, even as an Art-dubbed "tough cookie."

While that pseudo-family transaction went well, the other opening scene between Art and Raylan...wasn't so super-dupe. Art's amused-irritated paternal patience seems to have run out, and his blunt hand-waving dismissal of Raylan as a person and a professional seemed to have very little impact on Raylan, other than inspiring him to his usual petulant-12-year-old deliquent face. It's not a mentor-mentee relationship, per se, but it's had elements of a different kind of personal and professional foster care--the good-hearted Christian sarcasm generator case worker and his perpetually-in-trouble killing machine of a ward--and to see it so seemingly irreparable is pretty heartbreaking, at least to me.

I liked the way the ep showed Raylan and Boyd, Winona and Ava all at a sort of parallel crossroads with their hearts, and it was cool how the show implied that all four continue to walk that very thin line between domestic and wild, criminal and lawman(or woman): while Raylan and Winona were chased through an office building and shot at, Winona discovering that "running away together" had more implications than she realized at the beginning, though Raylan's heart seemed to remain true; meanwhile, in a quieter, no less heavy scene, after returning to his empire-building, Boyd took station outside Ava's house, wistfully watching and pining for her, as she had been doing for him earlier in the ep... only to find that she was not in the house, but out wandering the moors "looking at the stars."

And then, and pardon me while I abandon all pretentions to treat this show with the dignity and respect it clearly deserves as a well-written and powerful show about the bonds and dangers of family and history, the differences between loyalty and criminality, BOYD AND AVA KISSED OMG OMG OMG OMG.

It was pretty awesome, and I'll spare us all embarrassment by not describing the vapors induced by seeing the subtle flicker of tongue during the kiss before Boyd and Ava melted into a hug. (Oh, my gosh, and the previews for next episode where they turn towards the camera in an implication of breaking a heated embrace like they are auditioning for the opening credits of General Hospital or something? Awesome.)

In conclusion: Mags Bennett. Titans. Um. Other...smart stuff.

ETA: Never mind...