‘Longmire’ season 3, episode 2 review: A missing person, a return to the familiar

Last week, the “Longmire” season 3 premiere suggested almost to us that we were going to get into a season that was more like the later season of “Burn Notice,” combining a little bit of the procedural elements of the show with a story that lasted for several weeks.

While there was a little bit of that inside Monday night’s new episode, the show drifted much more into a story-of-the-week format that while performed well, did not exactly bring a whole lot new to the table. As a matter of fact, this whole “re-home” storyline was played out pretty heavily on this past season of “Criminal Minds.”

The reason why we prefer “Longmire” when it tells more of a longer tale is just because it has the capacity to do so. Many network shows are stuck with the procedural model because of long episode orders, and because with schedule interruptions, this helps to ensure that almost no one is ever left completely in the dust.

As critical as we were through most of the episode about this story, the performances and the chase at the end of it elevated the story from “okay” to “pretty good.” There’s still only so far a murder case resolved in a single episode can go, but the writers at least did a good job tying things up.

The story that was much more interesting, and we consequently wish had a whole lot more time in the spotlight, was Henry in prison trying to find the right public defender. They were problems finding one, but only until a certain someone managed to take the action into their own hands.

In the end, this was a slightly-above-average episode, but we hope that we do get back to some events from the premiere soon. Grade: B-.

What did you think about this episode? Share some of your thoughts with a comment below.