Justified Welcomes The King Of The Deadbeat Dads

Calling In The Corpse Corps

Situation: Danny and Darryl killed all of HR's henchmen (and Boyd killed Johnny for thinking it was fucking hilarious).

What Makes It Awkward? Yoon had specifically told both Crowders they shouldn't leave any white bodies in Mexico, and then that's exactly what happened.

How is order restored? After Boyd called him immediately after everyone was killed, Ruiz shows up to assess the situation and communicates with Yoon about it. The offer is that Ruiz and his thugs will deal with the corpses; Boyd et al won't be killed, but they forfeit the money and the drugs, and they'll never do business with Yoon again. Boyd has a counter-offer: Boyd will deal with the corpses himself, keep the drugs, and leave Yoon (and Yoon Inc.) out of it. Yoon agrees. But, of course, this is only a partial solution, since the reason they needed HR's guys was that they had connections who knew how to deal with the border. Danny brings up someone he and Darryl "happen" to know, named Flores, but ugh, that won't work, because Darryl and Danny double-teamed Flores's sister or something. Boyd is just desperate enough to want to pursue an imperfect connection, though.

All Jacked Up

Hey, that uncle Kendal called actually showed up! There is one adult in Kendal's life who isn't a totally unreliable piece of shit! Things are only going to get better for Kendal from here on in!

Card Not-So-Sharp

Alert Type: Fugitive Alert.

Issue: Jack stole $35,000 from a card game; now this guy Michael, who's involved in a way we'll find out about anon, is on Jack's trail. (He tells a couple of different stories to Kendal, but the most self-serving is the first: he interrupted a rape and beat up the would-be rapist. Yeesh.)

Complicating Factors: Jack thought it would be a good idea to wait for Wendy to go to the bathroom and then basically kidnap Kendal? When Wendy gets back (alone) to Audrey's, Michael is there waiting for her/Jack; after she shoots his tires and takes off herself, he gets kind of mad at everyone.

Resolution: Wendy calls Raylan and gets him to help her track down Kendal on the promise that, once she's recovered Kendal, she'll tell him all about what Darryl and Danny are doing in Mexico.

Spoiler: Jack might be more concerned about his own safety than he is about Kendal's. Which is especially unfortunate because he's neither Kendal's uncle nor his "uncle."

There Are Some Minuses To Dating Raylan

Are there pluses? Sure. He's pleasant to look at. He's good at sex, probably. If some gross hillbilly runs you off the road, he will kick the crap out of them -- and yes, we know, violence isn't solved with more violence, but still. He'll also show up when you're on suspension, bring you a bikini, invite you to Florida, and promise to book a really fancy hotel that he will pay for with the $2000 he just won in a radio contest. But there are also downsides, like that the hillbilly sister of the guy who ran you off the road will call Raylan up to help with her abducted brotherson and he will totally go and you'll have to spend that day watching an SVU marathon while you wait to see if he remembers you exist. So...at least there's SVU.

Shouldering The Burden

Alert Type: Deadly Serious Slapstick Alert.

Issue: Ava talked a bunch of big talk about how she could take over Judith's drug trafficking operation, and now she has to follow through, so Penny's going to dislocate Ava's shoulder in order for Ava to get sent to the infirmary so she can make contact with Rowena, the prison doctor.

Complicating Factors: Rowena shuts Ava down cold, and then Ava has to get her beads read by Judith (who correctly guesses every beat of Ava's previous pretty-girl life, including that she was a cheerleader and married a football player, but misses the part where Ava eventually shot him dead). Also, Ava hasn't had any message from Boyd, her presumptive supplier, in a while.

Resolution: Rowena finds Ava alone in the shower (...unlikely, but okay) and tells her she's in, as long as Judith doesn't know Rowena's involved. Also, Ava's man on the outside will have to do something as-yet-undisclosed for Rowena.

Spoiler: Ava's skepticism about Judith's faith is not going to lead Ava anywhere good.

Close The Voting, We Have Our Father Of The Year

Okay, so Jack and Kendal stop at what looks to be a pretty nice outlet mall or something, so that he can ditch the car he drove down from North Dakota and enlist Kendal's help/tiny hands in stealing a new one. Kendal's like, okay, obviously you're in a lot of actual trouble, I know when you're lying. Jack challenges him to cite a lie, and Kendal announces, "You're my dad and Wendy's my mom." Okay, that's powerful evidence. Jack admits that the rape-interruptus story isn't actually true, and says he skimmed money from his card game and owes a guy $35,000. Kendal's not really cool with car theft, but the question is moot, because Jack sees that Michael has tracked them there, and takes off running BY HIMSELF, and before you know it, he's calling Wendy (who's just finished telling Raylan the truth about Kendal's parentage) to tell her that Kendal's been re-abducted, by Michael.

Boyd Gets Bested By Cops, Yet Again, WINK

The trek to the border seemed to have been going pretty well, with Darryl in the cab telling Boyd how he wanted the Crowders and the Crowes to be family someday (apparently undeterred from the fact that, as Boyd noted, he just murdered his last living blood relative), until a scuffle broke out in the bag, all the thugs fell out (punching each other), and Boyd finally decided that it wasn't nice to make them ride in the stiflingly hot, dark back of the truck with a load of corpses and agreed to the acquisition of a car for the living guys to ride in (perhaps one that's air conditioned, as Dewey had requested). And it's in this new configuration -- Darryl and Boyd in the truck, henchmen following in the car -- that they get pulled over by Mexican police. The cops pretend to believe Boyd's story -- that they're missionaries and the truck is full of Bibles -- and then extort them in exchange for the right to continue on their journey. Boyd hands over the cash readily enough...but then the lead cop says they'll also take the truck. Boyd demurs, but not for long; the cop drives off in the truck, taking their problems with him.

Illicit Dead Body Removal = $2000

Everyone vs. Everyone Else

So Raylan, Wendy, and Jack pull into a parking lot, where they meet up with Michael and Kendal. Raylan does his best to keep everyone cool and starts by handing Michael what's left of the money Jack skimmed, pointedly saying, "You'll never hear the word 'kidnapping' from me!" He tells Kendal to get out of the car, and Michael doesn't protest as Kendal joins his sister-mom. But Michael doesn't want the money: he wants to "break this asshole in two," and here's where we learn that Jack put Michael's son in a coma. Kendal's like, "The rapist?" and Jack's like, "Guh?" Michael exposits that Jack and Michael's son were partners in this Williston card game, and when the son found out Jack had been skimming, Jack caved in the guy's head with a brick and ran. Raylan's trying to get everything organized in such a way that justice is served when Michael runs at Jack, and then Raylan has to put him down. Kendal is duly disgusted.

Winner: Raylan.

Wendy decides that the aftermath of his abduction is the right time to confirm Kendal's suspicions that she's his mother, and admits that she hasn't been a great one. "Pretty messed up, huh?" Wendy says, about nothing in particular, or all of it. Kendal: "Compared to what?" Wendy: "Good point." She tries to buck him up by noting that at least he only has half Crowe DNA, and Kendal's like, the rest of the mix is not so hot either.

Later, Raylan checks in on the sullen Kendal, telling him, "It gets better." Kendal spits that he's not gay, and Raylan says the same principle applies. He suggests that Kendal hang on until he's eighteen and then go join the Navy, or bum around France, neither of which is that appealing to Kendal, apparently. Raylan then goes on to say he knows a bit about what Kendal's life has been like due to his shitty childhood with Arlo, "the asshole king of them all." Kendal sniffs that Raylan's growing up to be come "a cop" is not much of a victory, and that he knows Raylan's just trying to scare him straight, so Raylan gives him the envelope full of his radio contest winnings -- $2000. Kendal is still shitty about it, asking if Raylan's a pervert, and saying instead of saving it, he'd rather buy "an ATV or a gun." Kendal, you're a real ray of sunshine!

Then Raylan goes to Wendy to ask her what Danny and Darryl are doing in Mexico, and Wendy's like, psych, I don't actually know!

Hey, speaking of Crowes in Mexico, Danny and Darryl's connection Flores shows up. Darryl offers to pay him for his troubles with a brick of heroin, and Flores is like, cool, and also the car. As a test balloon, Boyd brings up the incident with the sister, and Flores goes, "If I went after every white boy got with my sister, I'd have blisters on my gun hand." So everything's great! Except that Jimmy (who speaks Spanish) overhears two of Flores's guys talking, but Boyd's already figured out that this has been Darryl's endgame the whole time! But Boyd doesn't have another play right now, so he's just got to roll with it!

And finally, Raylan goes over to Allison's to say that Wendy will talk to her boss and end her suspension, and also that they won't be able to stay in a very nice Florida hotel now but that they're still totally going, and Allison's like, we're not, and Raylan says she sounds very sure, and she says she is, and he figures out that she's breaking up with him, which is such a weirdly subdued way for the episode to end -- a very fillery episode, but still -- that I feel like we're going to find out what happened during this day to make Allison decide to chuck him other than that he spent it with Wendy Crowe?????