FX's 'Justified' recap: Laughs, murder, and a mystery 'Hole In The Wall' part 2

More thought, recaps, and analysis of Tuesday's season-opening episode of "Justified," "Hole In The Wall."

(For part one of this article, please click here.)

Boyd, Ava, and Johnny brainstorm on why their Oxy sales are down. Johnny says he'll check out the church, and Ava goes to the bar to get Boyd a Dr. Pepper and a stranger (Ron Eldard) asks about Boyd. Johnny tells him he's never heard of Boyd Crowder, and he replies with one of those random conversational shifts only Ellmore Leonard can get away with. He knocks down Johnny and goes straight back to the office, and when they arrive they find him and Boyd laughing and hugging.

The stranger is Colton, former military policeman, and friend and jailer of Boyd.

Bob arrives to pick up Raylan, and Bob is hilariously overprepared with a "go-bag" containing rations and an AK-47. They get to the junkyard and find Raylan's car in line to be crushed, with his fugitive already freed from the trunk. Bob tells the junkyard man Raylan's a Marshal, and when he tells Raylan he doesn't have to talk to him, Raylan slugs him.

Meanwhile the teenage couple and the fugitive are in the junkyard office watching, about twenty yards away. The fugitive talks them into cutting his handcuffs but as they finish, Raylan walks in. He talks the girl out of shooting him but before he can get her gun, Bob comes in at gunpoint to the junkyard man. Raylan offers them the five hundred dollars in his wallet, then when the junkyard man checks the wallet (to find twelve bucks), Raylan elbows him in the nose. A scrum happens, and Jody ends up with the girl as a hostage. Bob, who's lying on the ground, winds up stabbing the girl in the foot, and Raylan recaptures the fugitive. Then he asks the teenage couple why they broke into Arlo's house for the bag, because that's the only reason they could have had for doing it.

At Arlo's, Bob tells Raylan he knows why he called him. He couldn't call anyone else because he was taking the side job of tracking down the fugitive, and Raylan admits he did it because he has a kid on the way and he needs the money.

Raylan: But hey! You stepped up.
Bob: Stepped up...I stabbed a teenage girl in the foot.
Raylan: But because of that I'm alive. And you're alive. And we live to see another day.

Drinking on the bridge, Boyd and Colt trade stories. Boyd tells him he needs some outside help.

Boyd: I want to see how you might feel about crossing the line.
Colt: That depends where the line is. You kill people?
Boyd: ...People have been killed.

Boyd decides to take Colt along with him to collect from Hiram.

Raylan goes to prison to talk to Arlo, and takes him the bag. Arlo doesn't react to the bag or the drivers license.

Arlo: My advice? Just put that bag back in the wall and forget about it.
Raylan: I didn't say it was in the wall.

Arlo hangs up the phone and calls for the guard to take him back to his cell. As Raylan storms off, one of the other prisoners seems to take notice.

At Hiram's house, Boyd and Colt have him duct-taped to a chair with a stick of dynamite between his legs, and a long fuse already lit. Hiram caves in, and Boyd quotes him from Isaac Asimov and John Maynard Keynes. Boyd is a very well-read hillbilly criminal. He tells Colt to take care of Hiram, and Colt promptly shoots him in the head.

Boyd: What in the Hell did you do that for?
Colt: You said to take care of him.
Boyd: I meant cut him loose.
Colt: Oh...s***.
Boyd: Well, I guess I have to be more careful with my words.

Boyd takes the money back and hides it in the rafters of his bar.

At the tent revival, Preacher Billy is preaching up a faith-healing, snake-handling storm, and we see Ellie May as one of his flock.

In prison, the trustee comes to Arlo and tells him he recognized the bag Raylan was carrying, and it's worth a lot of money. Arlo tells him they'll work together, then slashes his throat.

Good strong episode to start season four, which rather than featuring a central bad guy, will center around Raylan solving a mystery. Apparently that mystery fell out of the sky in 1983 and has lived in Arlo's wall ever since.

Rating: Eight out of a possible ten siren-equipped Gremlins.

-- Reid Kerr was pleasantly surprised to hear a"Big Lebowski" reference. Follow Reid on Twitter and yell at him there.