Two or three weeks ago I received a letter from Elections Canada telling me I was being dropped from the registration list. Two days ago I received my voting package for the forthcoming election. Mixed message? Do I dare vote?
Interesting developments on Survivor. They let us think that Matt was in trouble, with his cut foot and all, and he seemed shaky at first (and Sarita looked rock steady) but in the end Redemption Island was bested by Matt—briefly. I hope he didn’t dismantle anything he set up during his previous stay!
Lots of politicking after the merge, with Matt as the swing vote. With everyone courting him, it seemed the most logical thing to do was cut off the head of the beast, which Rob did with aplomb. And still, no one knows he has an idol. And Ralph proved that whatever success he’s had in the game so far is 100% good fortune by tossing out his immunity idol on behalf of someone who didn’t receive a single vote. Well played, sir, well played. Even David was impressed by Rob’s gambit, calling it “genius.” If David was really smart, he’d be thinking about maybe aligning himself with others. And LOL at Rob for coming up with a name for the tribe that meant something to him and Amber but nothing to the rest of the world. Murlonio indeed.
I have to confess that even if I was famished I’d be concerned about eating chicken “later today” that was sitting out in the heat, unless that container was refrigerated somehow. The biggest surprise of the episode was the fact that Redemption Island was back in play. I wonder when the ultimate victor will get rotated back into Murlonio. If it’s late enough in the game, that person might have an edge, especially if it’s Matt.
All manner of interesting developments on Justified this week. We find out that Carol can handle herself in a tussle, Mags can sing (sort of—and wasn’t that an ironic song choice?) and Boyd can dance, for instance, and that Coover knows what it’s like to smoke a dead person. Mags, it seems, has always wanted a little girl instead of the big lummoxes she was saddled with, and Loretta quite fits the bill. By the end of the episode, though, she’s down one lummox instead of up a daughter.
The coal mine deal, it turns out, isn’t about coal, at least not from the Bennett perspective—it’s about access to the coal, and smart old Boyd figured that out and convinced Arlo to sign over his rights, which puts Boyd on Mags’s side in the subsequent negotiations instead of with Carol. Loved Boyd’s sideways smile when Mags told Carol to “sit down while there’s still pieces of you big enough to find.” Mags gets her deal, plus a piece of the action, enough to set her up for life. She’s so happy with the outcome, she “gives” Boyd the county to do with as he pleases—except, of course for the family business, which is weed.
“Save all your love for your dog?” Carol asks Raylan when he tells her the very noirish way he intends to spend the evening. “I used to have a dog,” Raylan says wistfully when she comes up with a better way to spend the hour or two before she heads to the airport. He resists her charms, even though he’s having trouble connecting with Winona and feeling stalkerish in the process.
Speaking of weed, Loretta has learned a few tricks in her time with the Bennetts, coming up with a sophisticated plan to incapacitate Coover while searching for her father’s watch, which she saw him wearing at the “whoop-dee-do.” Little did she know that Dickie was passed out drunk in the next room, not that he posed much of a threat. Once roused, Dickie managed to get Coover all calmed down and then he went just a bit to far and got him riled up again by teasing him about being jealous of Loretta. Was almost the last thing Dickie ever did. Chasing after Loretta, as it turned out, was the last thing Coover ever did. Raylan ends up tussling with Coover one more time, but he gets the upper hand when Loretta produces a gun from somewhere.
Isn’t it the ultimate irony that Coover should end up in the same spot as Loretta’s father? I don’t think you could write it any other way. Mags was more upset to learn that she had lost her surrogate daughter, I think. I loved the way she went from teary-eyed to cold when Raylan told her there was no way she would ever get to see Loretta. “Let’s go.”
So, things are gonna get interesting fast, methinks. The open question of the season is whether or not Raylan stays in Kentucky when everything gets settled, or if he’ll be moving on. I can’t see them getting rid of such a great batch of secondary characters. All of them would have to go, pretty much: Art, Tim, Arlo, Eva…everyone. My bet is on him staying.
