This week’s episode focused on the hijacking of an ‘Oxy-bus’, a tactic used for smuggling the popular Rx across state lines under the guise of being transported by a church bus. It’s creative at least. But drug dealers kind of have a reputation for ripping each other off. Such was the case for in “The I of the Storm”. Dewey Crow (Damon Herriman) who essentially played Boyd’s right hand man in season one, returns here aboard the bus. During the hijack, his friend Bobby Lawton (Tyler Brooks) is killed, and Dewey is anxious to recoup his $200 payday that has now been lost. I forgot how good Herriman is in this role, channeling such a pitiful earnestness. I’d hate to see Dewey bite the dust; he’s that great a character.
Raylan and Wenona continue their affair, with Wenona adamant about keeping it discreet—for now. Raylan lets it slip to Art, who in true Art-fashion chastises him for it. Knowing Art, he’ll continue to playfully torment Raylan throughout the season. Raylan suspects Boyd was involved in the robbery and tracks him down confronting both him and Ava at different times. Dewey meanwhile has his own confrontation with Boyd also suspecting him, but Boyd advises him not to go after Elrod and Cutter, members of the Dixie Mafia, responsible for the robbery and murder of Lawton. Dewey ignores this and goes after them anyway, succeeding while impersonating Raylan himself. This course of action eventually catches up with Dewey in the form of a shootout involving Raylan, Elrod and Cutter. Raylan is helped by an unlikely source: Mags’ eldest Doyle Bennett (Joseph Lyle Taylor) the local law enforcement. But Doyle—a mama’s boy at heart—has his own intentions for doing so, as the robbery has direct ties to his brothers Dickie and Coover, who have insulated their actions from Mags.
FX really has themselves a gem with Walton Goggins (who played Shane Vendrell on The Shield) and gives Boyd a real wild card nature. Here he supplies intel to Raylan admitting “I never thought I’d make a phone call like this” whilst doing so. And the way he effortlessly slips out his dialogue with deliberate pause one minute and drags a man from his truck the next in an alcohol-fueled rage; Boyd is TNT and you never know what words or actions will light his fuse. Raylan needs a good yang to his ying and Justified wouldn’t work without the turmoil and pathos of Boyd. Then again casting-wise, in the 15 episodes that have aired I’ve yet to notice a chink in the armor. And thank you for not going the cameos-galore route, it was nice to focus on just a handful of characters this episode.
Final Grade: A
TRR TV Revue by Jacob Aquino
