SERIES FINALE

The Promise

Start to finish, I think Justified is one of the best TV shows ever made. Not a single bad season with the finale  capping it all off in unexpected and beautiful ways. I’m going to be really vague about what happens because I think everyone who watches this should go into it with their own thoughts of how it’s going to end and watch how it plays out.

As you can already tell, I loved it. The obvious was to have a stand-off, shoot ’em all, everyone is dead finale. Writers Graham Yost, Fred Golan, Dave Andron and Benjamin Cavell took the road less traveled and delivered on making a finale that all others should look to for inspiration. There’s quite a few major confrontations and yes, there are shoot outs. All are fantastic scenes, but those are just a tiny portion of this incredible ride. I can’t get over how well thought out and executed this finale was.

There are a lot of call backs to the beginning of the show which bolster phenomenal character growth. Good and bad things happen. Everything doesn’t go to hell, but a lot doesn’t work out too well either. The relationship of Ava, Boyd and Raylan comes to a fantastic conclusion. I hope I can write something in my lifetime that lives up to it. The main story arc of the season finishes with a good 15 minutes of run time left. I wasn’t expecting such an extensive epilogue, but in typical Justified fashion, it was done perfectly.

The finale had it all. The villains got to strut their stuff (Boon! So good), the anti-heroes got to make us question ourselves and the heroes did their damnedest to maintain some kind of order in the chaos. Great action, amazing dialog, fantastic direction and a satisfying ending that’s true to its main characters.

I think I’ve gushed about this every week, but I’ll say it one last time with the utmost confidence: Justified has some of the best writers in any medium. There is just no denying it. Anyone who says otherwise cannot be trusted. Every scene with Raylan and Boyd together is just downright brilliant. I feel like a broken record at this point, but there is no way around it. I’m really sad I have no more dialog of them going at it to look forward to anymore. The last scene completely nails the series.

I cannot say enough good things about Justified. It’s available to watch on Blu-ray/digital now (final season comes out in June on BRD) so please, if you haven’t watched this show, now is a great time. If you have, tell others about it. Spread the word, share this amazing body of work with everyone. Justified never let me down, I’ll come back to it for years to come and use it as the bar to judge all other shows. To everyone involved in the production, cast and crew, thank you so much.

Collateral 

The chase is on to get to Ava first. Everyone knows she dropped Boyd and left him for dead for the cash. She’s appropriately panicked all episode as she’s more or less trapped in the mountains with Zachariah. He wants to take a “hold up and kill” while she thinks that’s just a suicide plan. When she finds out Boyd is alive and out over the police scanner, she did my idea and took off with as much money as she could carry. A lot of people get mixed up inadvertently as Raylan runs rogue to stop this once and for all.

Raylan runs into Cope, a rather rustic man we haven’t seen in quite some time. With his help (and more evidence that Raylan is desperate to end this and get out) Raylan finds the cabin Zachariah and Ava are hiding in. Zachariah has also had enough and let’s Raylan know what he thinks of him after all these years, but Raylan could care less as he wants to find Ava before anyone else.

With Avery down to just himself and Boon now, he swings by to terrorize Loretta himself this time. Her ex gets dropped in cold blood, but she managed to talk herself into a rather good proposition with Avery. Always the shrewd business woman.

Constable Bob to the rescue! He had a string of good luck there, but collateral damage fits him too I’m afraid.

A plan to simply run is not much of a plan as Ava found out. She’s in some serious peril now, should make for a hell of a climax next week.

It goes without saying that Boyd and Rayland’s scene is the best. I can’t describe how good these scenes are, they have to be watched to be appreciated. The prowling around in the woods back and forth is so fitting and well done.

Zachariah and  Boyd meet for the last time! They both have an ax to grind and try to get the drop on each other again. Zachariah’s seething hate and contingency plan make for great TV!

Series Finale next week! All the pieces are about to come crashing together, it’s going to be a doozy.

Love Songs (In the Key of Gallagher)

Here we are, the end of Season 5. My general thoughts are that it was a really good season. A lot of independent stories that broke the Gallagher’s into groups, but it all kept them together in the end.

The theme was love and loss, with equal part sex and heartbreak. Some major changes in all the relationships of this season.

Lip comes to a bit of a crossroads with his Mrs. Robinson love arrangement. He’s put in a rather uncomfortable position in his adult relationship and goes along with it. This drives the final wedge between him and Amanda as she finally comes to the conclusion that they aren’t in a real relationship. Great public breakup, just enough awkwardness to make Lip feel like the tool he really is. Lip goes home.

Ian gets to know Monica a bit better on their hitchhiking trip to her boyfriends trailer. While he felt alienated and uncomfortable at home, there’s simply no place for him with his mother and meth cooking boyfriend who looks to be just a few older than himself. This run, just like the kidnapping one, comes to a halt. Ian goes home and to the shock of everyone, breaks up with Mickey. I see Ian in purgatory, stuck between hating how the medication makes him feel and how dangerous he can be without it. Without meds he’s himself, a person he feels that doesn’t need to be fixed. That feels normal to him, but how will he manage? Out of everyone, Ian is in the worst space of the Gallagher’s at the end of the season. Mickey sent out to drift is not good either.

Fiona is just terrible at relationships and it gets told right to her face. She clipped Jimmy out but is still running back and forth between Gus and Sean. Both of which are nebulous relationships. I guess Ian isn’t the only one in purgatory. She betrayed Gus so he’s really wary of her. Sean has his own intense issues and really can’t tolerate her wishy-washy personality. With things looking on the outs, she hops over to Sean right away with a smile on her face only to get shut down (at one point even getting denied being called a friend). Sean really knows who she is. Fiona just isn’t going to get what she wants out of either of them.  I think Gus will be gone next year, she might still try with Sean. All of this has kept her out of the family drama which leads to Debbie….

…who is just a ball of anger right now. She resents Fiona pretty much entirely now. She uses Fiona’s choices as bases for her own and when Fiona objects, Debbie shuts her down with her hypocrisy. It’d be a good trick if Debbie wasn’t a stupid kid making horrible decisions time and time again. Everything Debbie thinks she understands always blows up in her face because she knows nothing. I wanted to see Fiona really dig in and call her out, but she’s so out of the loop she really can’t. All it took for Debbie to believe her “kid with Derek” plan is a good idea was for him to say “I love you” back. It convinced her of this adult plan when she has no idea what she’s doing. If she is pregnant (which I think she is), it’s going to blindside Derek and she’s going to run crying back to Fiona. She’s got Derek pegged all wrong (she really needs to pay attention to all the times he shows he’s terrified of breaking his dad’s rules). This is going to be major next year.

Frank’s love story with Bianca comes to a close. A person he truly cared for and wanted to help. I’m not sure how he’s going to process this loss. He’s skipped on so many relationships before with little thought, but Bianca was a much different story to anything he’s been through. She was terminal reckless while he always skirts the edge. Her death is him being abandoned. I really liked Bianca, one of the most memorable characters and plot lines of the show. Frank returns home and he can’t talk to anyone about it. He’s really depressed and no one has any clue what he’s been doing for the past few weeks. The dichotomy of his interaction with his sons when he gets back (the screen grab at the top of this post) was really striking. He’s truly bummed out, expresses his feelings rather poetically to Ian and Lip. They laugh (and bond a bit) over Frank being frank with them, but have no context about what he was on about. To them it was just their dad reappearing after weeks of not giving a shit.

I really loved the end. More or less a reunion at the Gallagher home with a final shot of insanity. Having Sammi show up like the Terminator just as Ian and Mickey are breaking up was a stroke of genius. It was such a Shameless moment, perfect way to end it.

Everyone is looking for happiness and it looks like Kev and V’s reconciliation was the only silver lining. Fiona probably has no husband or boyfriend. Ian breaks up Mickey, Lip breaks a girls heart but has blossoming (?) cuckolding relationship to turn to. Frank has been crushed and Debbie may or man not be ruining her life (she will be ruining her relationship with Derek though). Actually, the one bright side is that Chuckie and Carl seem to be doing the most with their detention time.

With this, Shameless is completely primed for another great season. I can’t wait for next year.

Fugitive Number One

That #1 would be Lady Ava Crowder. Her shoot and run last episode put her mug shot on the top of the list and a whole lotta people mad at her. Vasquez is furious that she turned as in convinced that Raylan had been scheming with her the whole time. He’s putting the squeeze on everyone to get Raylan back under heel, but Raylan managed to stay out. He’s got a lot riding on this one and is really the only one who can catch her.

Avery continued to try and make things work and just about all of it came crashing down on him. Boon runs off to harass Loretta again, I find it hard to believe he (and Avery) think they are going to make any headway with her at all.  Avery also made up with Hale (maybe a truce) and tells her he’s going to handle all their problems. He goes after Carl and Earl, Boyd’s crew in lockup, to force them to get info about where Ava is and then kill him. Pays of some crooked cops to help him. As history has already proven, Avery is great at picking terrible people to work do his dirty work.

Much of this episode showed off a lot of misdirection. A lot of people thought they knew what was going on and no one actually did. Just about every decision made things worse.

Boyd, seriously wounded and in custody manages to get out of the hospital thanks to Avery. He’s after Ava along with just about every cop in a three state radius. Raylan is hot on the trail, after getting info from Boyd about Ava possibly running with her uncle Zachariah. That idea turned out to be true as he’s the only one she could turn to and needs help just physically moving that amount of cash. Their best bet is to traverse the mountain trails, completely off the grid, but the plan hits a brick wall when they find their guide dead in his cabin. He died alone, quite some time ago. The walls are closing in on Ava, she’s running out of options.

Two major highlights this week. The Hale and Duffy encounter that happened due to Mike turned out to be absolutely bonkers. I didn’t see it coming and I’ll leave it at that.

The second highlight was the Boon and Raylan encounter in front of Avery. Raylan is in a rush to bring this insanity to a close and Boon is all over him like a puppy. Boon is just raring to go, it’s hilarious. And then that little news bomb that Hale disobeyed his orders…

We’re getting down to the wire, it’s going to be interesting to see who makes it to the end. It’s all about Ava now and she is screwed. She can’t get caught by anyone, it’ll be death or a fate worse than death for her. I figure her best bet is to leave most of the money behind. It’s just slowing her down too much. She could probably carry a few hundred thousand comfortably and that’s more than enough to get by. When your back is to the wall like hers is, you gotta cut the greed nonsense and make some real choices to get away. I have no idea how she thinks she can even spend $10 million in cash anyway. It’s pretty silly the police choppers don’t have infrared cameras on them, so they would have been found on that fly by. I’ll ignore it for the sake of good TV though.

Season 5 turned out to be a really solid 16 episodes. Things started off with a bang with the escape from Terminus and they managed to keep every episode important regardless of action and death content.

This show walks on a very precarious line every week. The gore hounds want carnage all the time, so a “slower” episode often gets derided as being boring or that “nothing happened.” Something always happens though, you have to pay attention. There’s great character insight and change. Going from a death trap to the brutal environment of wandering the land took it’s toll on everyone. There were major reveals, major internal strife in the group and some very big character losses.

Alexandria itself was like adding a new character. Reintegration into a fledgling, normal society is not easy. PTSD skews everything into darkness.  There’ s a lot there to be wary of, but a lot of that was from the baggage the group brought in with it. “Being out there too long” was the best way to put it. Big Bad Rick made serious waves and although his explosion was extreme, it was needed. I think Carol stole this season, she went through it all this year. Rambo Carol at the start, to my favorite, Incognito Carol at the end. Loved seeing Morgan! He’s like this old thread weaved into the show that may finally get his time. He’s changed a lot and might be the ground that Rick needs.

Through the madness, humanity was (mostly) held down in the end. Both Sasha and Glenn held it together when pushed. Gabriel, a ghost of a man, admitted his trauma and defeat out loud. Rick was proved right.

Major set ups for next season are well established and look to offer up some serious juice. The power at Alexandria is likely to shift, I’m looking forward to see how Morgan is used too. The Wolves are going to bring back the external group threat to the show. The later half of this season was really internal “We are the walking dead,” but this group should bring some serious external terror back. Nothing quite like really good antagonists to stir up the pot.

Drugs Actually

The season is coming in for a landing and some plot lines are coming to a conclusion, a lot of stuff happened that I didn’t foresee, really fun episode from start to finish. Some fantastic acting too.

First, I’ll talk about The Snitch as it was the biggest mindblower for me last week. I thought the revenge plot would kick things off, but it was a much slower burn. Everyone is mad as hell, but Sammi stuffed the first encounter easily. Guns can do that. Deb seemed to really relish in coming up with a revenge plan, but Mickey jumped ahead of her a bit. Pretty disturbing to see Mickey react so casually to killing someone, but he’s not exactly a good person. I think this was the first major event for Mickey and Deb to handle together, they usually don’t get much screen time together. Putting her in her moving stuff seems like a rather cross your fingers plan, but good news for Sammi as she woke up mid move. Will she rear up next week or just take it as the final shot from her half-family?

V and Kev duked it out for most of the episode, but it looks like our favorite neighbors are going to hold it together. It was great to see them happy together at the end for the first time in awhile.

Sean and Fiona have such on screen chemistry, it’s amazing. Their diner scene was great to see play out. It’s hard to believe Fiona and Gus have any future together as they just don’t match up any more. Sean and Fiona may be a bad together from having the exact same serious flaws, but that might be what actually keeps them together in the end. There’s no break in period for broken  people, it’s more like common ground. Are they strong enough to keep bailing out all the water that keeps filling their boat? Much like seeing V and Kev happy, it was nice to see Fiona smile and be happy with someone.

It’s a trip to see Frank uncomfortable about the debauchery that keeps him going. He really loves Bianca and didn’t see what was going between them. She’s been racing to the end of a bridge where he’s been mindful of when to jump out of the car to just get scraped up. He’s been near death before but always had the spark to fight back. Bianca being terminal, has been using Frank’s corruption as a farewell party. His conscious actually kicked in for once (crack is bad for the immune system). I thought for sure she was going to leave him in the dust, but you can’t keep a charmer down for long. It’s been a blast to see them interact and now I’m wondering if Frank will literally help her to the end. Could she convince him to help her commit suicide? I’m having a hard time read her, she’s so adamant not to get any treatment, but will she even wait until she feels really sick? She’s been living like there is no tomorrow. Hmmm…

As much encourgement Lip has gotten (and needs) to elevate his life by applying himself and “getting out,” he really got a glimpse of the other side of the fence. The relationship with Helene is weird enough as it is (the reaction from her husband about the tie was a real red flag. Oh and Norbert too if I’m reading that one right). Those roots to royalty are really being put to the test has he was in the thick of the gentrification. He punched back at it, but I don’t know how he’s going to react going forward. It’s going to get really weird.

That leaves us with Ian. That meeting at the Army base was brutal. He’s sitting at the head of the table while his brother and sisters are trying to help get him cleared of wrong doing by basically an insanity plea. He must have felt like he was being eaten alive. I felt so bad for him. Shocked to see Monica let alone the news that they’ve been talking. Who else could he talk to though? Like he said, she understands. Amazing scene with them talking through the glass. Chloe Webb is an incredible actress, just amazing stuff bringing that intense writing to life. It’s this kind of touchy and on the fringe material being done so well that elevates Shameless above all other shows.

Next week is the season finale, I’m both looking forward to and dreading it.

Trust

A great game of cat and mouse this week, Raylan just waiting to spring his trap on Boyd. Ever the clever rat, Boyd can smell a trap set that specific cat.

Boyd made his decisions on who to trust. He shakes off the betrayal of Zachariah (I’m still waiting for him to show up, Ava thinks he’s still alive too) and makes his final moves to get the $10 million. All in with Ava! He pays off Limehouse for the necessary getaway materials and goes on the offensive. He sends his only two soldiers to go after the bank truck knowing it’s a decoy. By completely screwing them, he gets the distraction he wanted to go pick up Hale by gunpoint so he can ransom her to Avery. A plan that finally worked! He buzzes down the dirt road in a crappy pick up truck to meet up with Ava who is waiting with the getaway car and fake ID’s. He drops a dime on Hale hiring him for the heist too. His cackle was the greatest as he got into the truck. I thought Avery was pissed when Loretta dumped on him at his party, but this is some next level stuff. He can’t trust anyone now as Raylan tipped him off to her betrayal earlier too.

ADA David Vasquez has decided to make things difficult for Ava though. He’s adamant that she’s contributed nothing as a CI, so her deal is null and void. When they snag Boyd, she’s going back to jail. This really bothers Raylan (and me) and tells her what’s going down. She’s given the latest details on Boyd so the feds can get him with the money too! Annoyed beyond any measure of human cognizance, she then tries to think of other ways to save herself. What if she gets Boyd to confess to killing Dewey? That’s something.

Hold on to your hats folks, because Ava says forget all this nonsense and pops Boyd at the meeting place! The sound Boyd made when he got shot was just classic. I’m not sure if it was more shock than pain. She waves Raylan goodbye knowing that the chase is on. Ava has to get to Canada or Mexico as fast as humanly possible. I must say I didn’t see this happening. Getting her deal pulled out from under her feet was the dumbest thing the ADA could have done. Total game changer for Ava, someone who’s had a boot to their head for that long is bound to snap back in a bad way.

The side notes this week were Duffy and Boon. Mike puts things together about Duffy being the snitch and made a move to give him up to Hale. His timing was a bit off though as she was in Boyd’s custody at the time he called her. This should pan out in a big way next week. Hale’s got to tread carefully on this one, since she’s in deep water with Avery already. She can’t let Duffy talk to Avery, that whole “she’s all about killing you too” thing would not fly well.

Boon is a model employee. Does what you tell him to. Fantastic dialog with Raylan in the diner and he really got to show off his Professional Creep abilities in his final scene. All for a hat too…a man obsessed with Raylan just completed his look. Only question now is, how long until their final confrontation?

The show has jumped off into a new tragectory and I love it. Anything could happen now, really exciting stuff.