Justified Season 3, Episode 5

Season 3, Episode 5

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  • Courtesy of FX
  • O KIDNEYS, WHERE ART THOU? Damon Herriman as Dewey Crowe

It’s probably a coincidence that the latest “Justified” episode, “Thick as Mud,” aired on Valentine’s Day. The scene with Boyd and Ava bonding over the matching bullet wounds in their chests made me think of a gun-toting Cupid who swapped his bow and arrow for a high-caliber handgun of some kind. Rather than push them apart, or inspire them to leave their lives of crime, their injuries seem to have brought them closer together. Ironically, Raylan’s the one who’s reevaluating his career by the episode’s end.

At any rate, “Justified’s” Valentine’s Day episode turns out to be about kidneys rather than hearts. After Lance sedated him last week, Dewey Crowe awakens undressed in a bloody bathtub, which is almost never a good way to wake up. Lance explains that, while most organs don’t keep very long after being removed from their bodies, kidneys have staying and he’s taken the liberty of removing Dewey’s. If Dewey wants them back where he belongs, he has a few hours to raise thousands of dollars to buy them back from Lance. Dewey staggers through the street in a disturbing, arrestingly-photographed sequence with jumpy edits, shaky POV shots and oversaturated colors.