‘Justified’ season 4, episode 5 review: The chase for Drew Thompson

If you felt that last week’s “Justified” episode was a little bit too much of a wild-goose chase, and that it was ultimately a distraction in some ways from the show that you really wanted to see, then you were probably jumping up and down when it came to what the show presented to us Tuesday night.

From this standpoint, “Kin” was “Justified” at its finest this year: great acting, strong writing, and the sort of buildup that allows for many of these moments to be so darn important. Take for instance the surprise this week regarding Arlo possibly finding a way out of prison if he gives up Drew Thompson: this builds up this mystery to another level, and it also creates yet another layer that was already expounded upon this week by Boyd getting into the hunt.

Watching Boyd and Raylan (seen together oncreen for the first time) search through the hill people (as we shall call them) for information was a blast, especially since there were so many great characters that turned up in the process. Take Josiah, who Raylan was not particularly kind to when it came to his methods of interrogation. We also had “Chuck’s” General Beckman (Bonita Friedericy) as Cousin Mary, and the always-wonderful Mike O’Malley as a surprisingly ruthless enforcer. If you’re going to continue to ignore this show for awards consideration, can you at least give the casting directors some recognition? In between these two and Patton Oswalt, we were cheering for roughly a good ten minutes of this episode. We also found it funny that O’Malley’s “Glee” wife Romy Rosemort was also in this episode, but in an entirely different role.

We could go through every second of this episode, but what you really know at the moment is this: Raylan and Boyd are both very motivated now to find Drew Thompson, and in giving these boys a few episodes apart to let their stories development, executive producer Graham Yost has handed us a wonderful gift.

Overall, what was your take on this “Justified” episode? Be sure to share your thoughts below, and you can read some more news when it comes to the show over at the link here.

Photo: FX