This week’s episode of Justified began on a positive note: with Raylan ruining the best day of Art’s career by revealing his potential involvement in the murder of Nicky Augustine, and Art punching Raylan in the face. Classic.

But this show is all about things not going well for people. It’s always been about that. Time was the bad things happening were much more concentrated and focused. Bad things would happen to Raylan, and bad things would happen to Boyd, and they would each do bad things to other people, but now things have gotten so complicated. We’ve got the Crowes, who are consistently bad news. There’s Danny Crowe, who just recently murdered Jean-Baptiste, Daryl Crowe’s Haitian advisor, and is trying to cover that up, whilst keeping his younger brother Kendal from snitching. Everything’s more complicated with Alison, Kendal’s social worker, thrown in the mix, and Wendy Crowe making a serious effort not to let her family fall to pieces.

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Such a happy family.

Danny continues his profession of belligerent idiocy when he threatens Alison, and then rams her off the road with his truck. He goes a step further by then presenting himself to her, barking like a dog, and essentially say, “Hey, look, I assaulted a government employee!”

Unsurprisingly, Raylan is a tad perturbed by this recent development, so he and Rachel head over to the Crowe place to hopefully beat some humility into Danny. Oh wait, but this is problematic because Dewey and Danny just kidnapped Carl (Justin Welborn), one of Boyd’s employees, in an effort to squeeze some ransom cash out of their criminal competitor. Employing her lawyerly skills, Wendy talks Raylan and Rachel into vacating the premises. Still unsatisfied at his lack of violence, Raylan decides to visit the man currently renting the house to the Crowes.

Much to… no one’s surprise, they find Daryl with a buzz saw hanging around this poor old man. Everything seems okay, but Raylan’s suspicious, and thinks the Crowes might be up to something. The old man reveals a previously unknown hunting cabin as part of the renting agreement. So, Raylan and Rachel mosey on over to this hunting cabin and what do they find? Why, Carl tied to a chair and Danny fixin’ to hurt some folk. Carl insists that he is there of his own volition, for a consensual sex thing, and the Marshals agree to let him go, probably so he and Boyd can exact some non-legal revenge.

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Which is a shame, because I like the legal revenge.

On the drive home, Rachel asks Raylan why he has a black eye and Art has a bruised fist. Raylan withholds commentary.

With a host of new problem on his plate, Boyd kicks things off by trying to acquire some security assurance for Ava, who’s now in the state penitentiary, offering a considerable sum of money to a former protégé with a sister on the inside. Ultimately, this plan fails and the woman Boyd paid to protect Ava instead jumps her, inflicting minimal physical damage, but establishing herself as an unpleasant nuisance, and potential foe.

Boyd is displeased.

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Which history has shown us is not always a good thing.

He’s even less happy when he hears about what happened to Carl. So, with Carl and Jimmy in tow, he heads over to the Crowe residence, guns blazing with the sole objective to… can anyone guess? Kill Everyone? Why no, offer an alliance, of course. Crowes and Crowders living happily together as one vast criminal enterprise, they go together to exact some sweet, sweet vengeance on the man who double-crossed Boyd and Ava. Sweet, sweet vengeance is exacted.

Later, Boyd reaches Hotrod Dunham concerning the exchange of Johnny Crowder. Of course, Johnny’s recently taken over Hotrod’s outfit and has set up an ambush for Boyd. Hotrod manages to tip Boyd off to this, and Boyd realizes that his newfound alliance may be of some use, and asks Daryl if he’d be interested in facilitating the murder of Johnny.

Overall, this week’s was a typically strong episode. As per norm, bad things continued to happen. The new team-up of Crowe and Crowder was an unexpected, interesting development. I doubt it will last long or end well, but I look forward to seeing it unravel. Unlike last week’s episode, no one died in this one, so that’s something. Boyd and Raylan are still not interacting, so I’m still a little sad. I keep my fingers crossed every week that that’ll change.