I think I was wrong. I'm still not sure where Raylan will be employed next year, or if he'll be employed at all, but it won't be on the wrong side of the law. Helen gave him the chance to escape that life, and he could not betray her by killing Dickie. That whole scene was great, and I honestly wasn't sure where it was going to end. There was a lot of good acting in this episode, but that was the best.
Mags change of direction at the end just came off as sudden to me. It does fit the theme of everyone getting pulled back to the life they tried to escape*, and there plenty of reminders of what she traded away (her store and her power over the town, both destroyed), but I don't know that we ever saw the resolve to take control back, just the after effects of it. That must've been in the conversation with Arlo, but fell in the background to every thing else going on. Maybe it'd show up on a rewatch, but this time thru, it felt like an artificial twist to get Dickie loose for the big explosions to come.
* - only now have I put together that Raylan is trying to do for Loretta what Helen did for him. Foster Mom's unwavering smile towards her new daughter ex-occupation was great, but obviously Loretta isn't going trust a new mother figure who's saying all the same things her last one did.
I get the feeling there's some stuff from this episode that's not really going to make sense until next episode. For example, who was it that convinced Dickie's accomplice to take back his testimony? Should I have known who that was? Because I didn't recognize her, and we weren't told what she said to him. I'm also wondering who's not making it out of the finale alive. I really don't like Winona's odds, because something's got to convince Raylan that he's not going anywhere, and that's pretty stock storytelling.
You'd kinda need a flowchart to see where everyone is heading into the finale, but I have a feeling things will explode big time next week--between Mags, Boyd, and Arlo, and the apparently never-ending Bennet/Givens feud, I can't see how it doesn't.
That said, this was a great episode. I quite liked finding out that it was Helen who pushed Raylan to get the hell out of Harlan so we wouldn't end up stuck in this mess--given the signs this season that he wants to leave, she had a point.
Only thing I wasn't 100% clear on--in the scene with Mags and Doyle in lawyer's office (or wherever) right before Dickie got sprung, did she back out of the Black Pike deal or not? It sounded like she was turning her back on it when they came and got Dickie.
-LS "ahhh...vague, mandatory knee-jerk cynicism. God Bless Internet Forums.."
Originally posted by Enojado VientoOnly thing I wasn't 100% clear on--in the scene with Mags and Doyle in lawyer's office (or wherever) right before Dickie got sprung, did she back out of the Black Pike deal or not? It sounded like she was turning her back on it when they came and got Dickie.
It seemed to me that she closed the deal & basically said she was setting up Doyle's family's future, but it was too late for her to change her ways & sit on a porch in suburbia too.
I liked the parallel between what Helen did for Raylan & what Mags is trying to do for Doyle's kids. Good bit of storytelling.
It was also nice how they played Raylan through the episode. Stoic & investigating, not showing emotion regarding Helen's death to Arlo, yet saving it for his confrontation with Dickie & fully explaining his decision not seek vengeance but rather act in the way Helen would have wanted. Excellent storytelling.
Originally posted by Tenken347I'm also wondering who's not making it out of the finale alive. I really don't like Winona's odds.
I think Winona is gone, but not killed. They seemed to foreshadow her thought process when she glanced at Raylan's grave-in-waiting at Helen's funeral. She's always been hesitant to stick with Raylan because of the risks of his job, and her being reminded of that at the funeral seems to be way to close the arc of their almost permanently reuniting through the season.
Best show on television. Season 3 can't come soon enough.
I will very much grant you that the season's still young, so this could ultimately be the result. I don't think anything could create more teenage strife than this scenario, so I'm going to guess that you're going to be right on the money here.