Justified Starts Mapping Out The Path To The Finale

We open with Katherine screaming down her phone at Wynn about Boyd's (failed) attempt to rob Avery's vault and demanding to know who even gave Boyd the impression that Avery was planning to move the money! "I did!" chirps Wynn. "Your reaction to [Avery's] wedding proposal made me worried you were about to pull the rug out." At this point, Katherine's probably like, whoooooops!, but what she says is "You really are a bastard, you know that?" As Wynn tells her he needs her to find out whether Avery still plans to move the money, the camera turns so we can see that Wynn (and Mikey) are in the RV, accompanied by some Marshals, uh duh! Katherine hasn't been able to get hold of Avery for hours, she says, but she'll be in touch as soon as she hears from him: "Wynn, I want that money as much as you do!" Yeah, Wynn, which one of you has been trying to solve this problem with her genitals?! When Wynn hangs up, Raylan comments that it must set Wynn's mind at ease to know that Katherine hasn't had a chance to talk to Boyd about this situation yet, but Wynn's already a step ahead, saying that now he's primed Katherine to give Boyd whatever information she gets from Avery directly, with no further need for Wynn as a go-between! No such luck: Tim says Wynn needs to report back to the Marshals on Boyd's plan! "We're giving you a chance to atone for tonight's screw-up," Raylan adds. They don't know that Wynn didn't tell Boyd to make the attempted heist LOOK bad so that the Marshals would have nothing to bust him on! Wynn objects to the idea that he's so tight with Boyd he'd protect him like that, but when Raylan says he thinks it's MORE likely that Wynn could be trying to preserve his chance at the cash, Wynn chokes, "Well, in that case, gentlemen, let me thank you for once again allowing me to prove my loyalty to the United States [shudder] Marshal Service!" Insincere but beautifully said, Tanzo!

Ava and Boyd are crabbily drinking in Boyd's bar when in comes Limehouse! "I wasn't sure you'd show," says Boyd quietly. Ava sarcastically says Limehouse made his fortune "being the man folks can count on in times of trouble," to which Limehouse bitterly grins that of all the women he's given sanctuary over the years, there's only one he's regretted helping!

OH SHIT GURL HE MEANS YOU! Boyd holds Ava back from scratching Limehouse's eyes out, and takes Limehouse to a back room...

...where Boyd offers Limehouse $50,000 cash to disappear himself and Ava! Limehouse is like, nice try, but I listen to the radio and I know how much cash you have, and Boyd's like, YOU GOT ME! I hope the $100,000 getaway package at least comes with a car that's not American! Limehouse agrees, but only on the condition that Boyd never returns to Harlan! "You ain't got to ask me twice," says Boyd, and from what I've seen of Harlan, I feel like that's an easy promise to keep!

Left alone in the bar, Ava's just idly killing time when she happens to come across...DEAD DEWEY'S DEAD NECKLACE OF DEATH!

Charlotte's Web

Who called the meeting? Wynn.

What's it about? Where Avery's money is supposedly going.

How'd it go? Seems to go great: Wynn explains that Avery assumes BOYD would assume that he's going to move the money to Lexington, so instead, he's going to zag and take it to Charlotte instead. Boyd says he used to do liquor runs on this route all the time and knows exactly where to hit the truck: right before the Virginia state line. He could do it with his eyes closed! "You never give up before the miracle happens!" Boyd sure went along with this idea readily! Good job, Wynn!

You're Probably Trucked

While Raylan and Tim keep eyes on the staged loading of Avery's money into an armoured truck...Raylan's not so sure about any of this.

So even though I assumed in the last episode that Boyd and Zachariah both came out of their clash alive, I guess it is true that we haven't seen Zachariah since then, and Ava wants to find out from Carl whether there's really no way he could have gotten out of the mine! Carl, with all the confidence of a guy who thought he could fire a gun in a mine, declares that a rock fall would have cut him off from the entrance, and that he ran the wrong way anyway: Carl thinks he probably just got turned around in the dark! Sure, that sounds like something that might happen to this sure-footed expert who's been working in mines his entire life, good call, Carl!

Boyd comes out from the back and tells Carl to get a move on! Carl seems dismayed that he and Boyd aren't riding to the heist together, but he goes!

After Carl's gone, Boyd tells Ava he needs her to go to her house and get all the stuff Limehouse has arranged for them to get off the grid after they get the cash, because duh, of course Boyd knows this whole Charlotte plan is baloney! Ava's offended that Boyd's serving up Earl and Carl! Boyd seems to think Carl should know that getting sold out comes with the territory, and tells Ava "he" is too smart to put the money in the truck! Ava thinks he means Avery, but he screams, "RAYLAN!!!" Of course Raylan's too smart to put real money in the obvious truck, out on the street in broad daylight! When Ava presses him even more, Boyd finally screams at her to quit asking so many questions and takes off!

Oooooh, Boyd! I know you're in a hurry and your adrenaline's at an 11, but don't scream at your fiancée like that when she has a direct line to your nemesis!

Bitch Trials

Vasquez has just finished telling Tim and Raylan (and Rachel) that he's all done letting Ava skate on her own charges in exchange for this spotty intel on Boyd -- and, surprise, once he hangs up, Raylan lets us all know he and Vasquez are not quite in agreement about what's going to happen with this case.

Aunt Farm

R.I.P. Great-Aunt Something

Well, we all want things we can't have. Bye, Auntie.

Et Tu, Miké?

Wynn and Mike are enjoying some sandwiches in the RV when Mikey -- who already told Wynn earlier that he was done with all his "code" business -- conversationally mentions that he heard Wynn say he was done helping the Marshals "this time," implying that there had been another time. Wynn sarcastically compliments Mikey for figuring out all on his own that Wynn was the snitch who took down Grady, and after laughing in celebration of his genius like an unhinged weirdo...

...Mikey slams Wynn's head into the table, cuffs him to the leg, disarms him while he groans impotently, and then calls Katherine to leave her a message about having something she may want. This gets a thumbs down from me not just because, despite everything, I'm still more on Wynn's side than Katherine's, but also because...like, this is more acting than Jonathan Kowalsky's ever had to do before, and now we can see why. (As an actor, he's a great bodybuilder.)

"Quick, Get Marl On The Phone To Come Bail Us Out!"

As Tim watches Carl and Earl getting arrested by the bait truck, he tells Rachel on the phone that Boyd was, in fact, nowhere near the scene. "Raylan was right," Rachel tells Vasquez. "She was telling the truth." So maybe then Vasquez will back off all his tough talk from earlier in the episode about invalidating Ava's plea deal? Maybe...?

Getaway Bride

Who called the meeting? Raylan.

What's it about? How Ava's screwed.

How'd it go? Mostly uncomfortable for everyone involved. After Ava ruefully shows off her and Boyd's new passports -- "Mr. and Mrs. Ofay; gotta hand it to Limehouse, he does have a sense of humour" -- Raylan has to tell her that Vasquez is pulling the plug on Ava's CI gig; he wants to try to find something to bust Boyd on that won't require Ava's co-operation. Ava, aghast, seems to think this is impossible: Boyd just called telling her to bring him all the stuff Limehouse lined up for them to start their new lives as fugitives, but Raylan says it's not enough: "I'm sorry." "Are you?!" Ava snaps. But then she gets an idea: "What if we got him for murder?" Raylan wants to know whose, and she pulls out Dewey's necklace. Raylan: "What's that?" "Meet a lot of guys with gator-tooth necklaces, do you?" snips Ava. "I used to work in Florida," Raylan replies, hee! When Ava tells him it is, or was, Dewey's, Raylan doesn't see how that helps them get Boyd the way a witness or a body would; even the fact that it has blood on it doesn't mean anything since it could have been from Dewey cutting himself shaving. "So after everything, that's how this is going to end?" "It appears that way," says Raylan remorsefully.

But THEN, Ava gets BUILDS on her idea: "What if I get him to confess?" Raylan:

I guess that would work!

Boon vs. Diner Counterdude

Boon having gotten a wild (turkey) hair across his ass about this counterman's hat when he and Avery and Raylan were all at this diner earlier, he's come back to try to be a big man about it in a scene that exists to show us all he is an intimidating psychopath as though we didn't get it when he murdered an old lady? The counterdude -- reasonably -- doesn't really get ruffled when Boon teases him about the hat, and then whips out cash to try to buy it, but when Boon pours his coffee all over the floor, the counterdude starts to get the idea that maybe he should just give up this dumb porkpie before Boon murders everyone in the place for literally no reason.

Winner: Boon. Though if this were a fight between Bob the slightly scumbaggy Berkeley City Council candidate on Parenthood and Gareth the cannibal on The Walking Dead, it would PROBABLY go the other way?

Avery and his SUV full of $10 million pull up to the clearing Boyd's directed him to, where he finds Boyd holding a gun to Katherine's head! Avery: "Are you okay?" "Ask me later," shivers Katherine. Avery pulls up his jacket and slowly turns in a circle to show Boyd he's not armed, and on Boyd's okay, he gets the first gym bag out -- struggling with it, because apparently $5 million in cash is quite heavy, as I would love to discover for myself someday! -- and drops it in the bed of Boyd's truck, zipping it open to show Boyd its contents! When she gets a look at the cash, Katherine lets out a tiny, involuntary whimper, which is oddly heartbreaking! Avery goes to get the next one, and Boyd recommends that they now all ride off into their respective sunsets! He releases Katherine, but not his native paranoia, and when he catches her making a move toward the money, he has to point his gun at her again! I mean, maybe if she hadn't done that, he might not have done this?

But we'll never know!

In the cab, Boyd whoops to himself, and calls Ava to share his joy, as any of us would if we were driving around with $10 million in cash, toward a forged passport and a whole new life!!!

Left alone, Avery asks Katherine whether she really thinks he had Grady killed! She says she did, but she doesn't anymore! So...what happens now?

I know exactly what that look says: we still haven't decided whether to have cake at the wedding reception, because maybe the two of us are the kind of couple who should have a fun donut tower!

Boyd Howdy!

In another clearing -- this one where Boyd first put Ava's ring on her finger -- Ava waits, grinning when he pulls up. Boyd, of course, is still giddy...

...and Steve Holts as he gets out before wrapping her up in a hug. The first thing she says is "I'm sorry, Boyd." Boyd shrugs off her apology: "Oh baby, let's have that conversation when we're sitting on the beach with the sand between our toes!" Before he lets her go, she takes the gun out of the back of his pants and shoots him twice, at close range, in the chest.

So like...maybe he wouldn't be so quick to get past her apology if he knew what it was actually for.

Also HOLY SHIT!!! I live out in the country and when this happened I screamed "WHAAAAAAT?!" so loudly that all the dogs in the houses around us started yelping like they do when an ambulance drives by on the highway.

Raylan comes out from behind the tree where he was hiding in order to hear the confession Ava was toooooooootally going to get out of Boyd.

Ava breathlessly tells Raylan essentially what he's been saying all afternoon and night: that Boyd was never going to confess. She still has her gun trained on him, so he tells her to put it down: "You ain't gonna shoot me." "I shot Boyd!" Good point! "Put it down and step away," says Raylan, snapping into Marshal mode. If she doesn't, she asks, will he shoot her? "Let's not find out," he murmurs, hand hovering over his gun. "I gave you what you always wanted, Raylan," she says. "Boyd Crowder bleeding at your feet." Hilariously, his eyes flick down, like, "Story checks out." As she creeps backward toward Boyd's truck, Ava says she can't go back to prison; if Raylan wants to stop her, he'll have to shoot her. "Last time you ran -- remember how that went?" he squints. That time she didn't have fake ID and a shitload of money, she notes. "I'm going to come after you," says Raylan ruefully. "I know," she says...and then gets in the truck and drives off, TOTALLY UN-SHOT BY RAYLAN, WHICH FIRST OF ALL, WHAAAAAAT? AND SECOND, IS BOYD ACTUALLY DEAD OR WHAT?????!!!???!? WILL HE LIVE TO LEARN HIS LESSON??!