Justified: The Trash and the Snake – Review

With the final season in progress, Justified is finding a great way to mix new characters with returning favorites while bringing in new stories. The latest episode, “The Trash and the Snake” combines these different characters to create one of the best episodes so far. “The Trash and the Snake” follows multiple storylines, but the sheer amount of plot points doesn’t get confusing.

First off, Ava spends an eventful day with the frightening Katherine Hale, leading to rampant drug use and petty theft. However, Ava’s time with Hale is a lot worse than it appears to be on the surface because Hale is quite the violent and cunning villain. Hale uses her time with Ava to test her loyalty and dedication to Boyd, but it’s not entirely clear whether or not Hale actually knows the true depth of Ava’s secrets. Unfortunately, this scenario with the two characters lasts a little too long at times.

While Ava and Hale are causing havoc, Boyd is reuniting with Wynn Duffy (one of the best characters on Justified) in order to find a new method for cracking a safe. While trying to achieve this goal, Boyd and Duffy are introduced to a safe cracker named The Wiz (played by Jake Busey). The Wiz is a slightly insane safe cracker, and Busey plays him to perfection. Honestly, The Wiz is the best character in this episode of Justified, and his time on screen is all too entertaining, albeit brief.

Finally, the third part of Justified actually revolves around Raylan’s continuing investigation of the mysterious security group that includes Ty Walker and Choo Choo. Raylan is starting to get close to this group, but he’s also discovering that random citizens of Harlan County are starting to disappear in very mysterious ways. This discovery increases the intenseness of the investigation, but Raylan and Tim Gutterson still find a way to make their time together entertaining.

What you aren’t hearing is a subtle insult toward Raylan.

These three storylines are all essential to the final season of Justified, and they were all quite interesting in their own right. Ava and Hale make a unique pair, but their time together is more chilling than fun. Duffy and Boyd, on the other hand, have the history from working together during three different seasons, so their time together is filled with random conversations and pure fun. More importantly, you get to see a new side of Wynn Duffy during this episode that is very unexpected.

Of course, it’s still hard to beat the dynamic duo of Raylan and Tim Gutterson. Their investigation is more serious, but the dry humor and random comments make their scenes endlessly entertaining. Additionally, this investigation includes the reappearance of Loretta McCready, who hadn’t been used since season two. Apparently, Loretta holds the final piece of Ty Walker’s land puzzle, which causes multiple issues between Loretta, Walker, Raylan, and Avery Markham. These issues led to the tensed showdown between Raylan and Markham, which was both very intense yet fantastic. Both Raylan and Markham are a little crazy, so their conversations are intense in a different way. This showdown even included multiple references to seasons one and two for some nice fan service.

“The Trash and The Snake” definitely met and exceeded the expectations set by the previous episodes in season six. The mixture of new and old characters was great, but the references and entertaining moments made the episode even better. Justified’s creators are on a roll, and I’m loving every second of it.