Last week was the big reveal of the central mystery that had consumed Justified’s fourth season so far. Now that we know that Sheriff Shelby is actually Drew Thompson, the fugitive drug runner that’s eluded the authorities since the early 1980s, the real fun is likely going to begin. Of course, Drew/Shelby has Ellen May with him.
SPOILERS BELOW
To the best of my recollection, here are the people hunting Drew down:
– Raylan and the US Marshall Service are hunting him, because Drew is a fugitive and that’s what the Marshalls do. Snagging Drew would be great for Raylan’s career.
– Boyd is hunting Drew for Detroit Mafioso Theo Tonin and a shot at enough money to go straight.
– Wynn Duffy is also hunting Drew for the aforementioned Mr. Tonin.
– Boyd’s cousin Johnny is hunting Drew for the aforementioned Mr. Duffy, so Johnny can usurp Boyd as kingpin of Harlan County’s hillbilly mafia.
– Colton is hunting down Ellen May, even though at this point Boyd knows Colton botched the hit on her.
I think that about covers it.
To the delight of the show’s fans, Elston Limehouse returned tonight as Ellen May decided (wrongly) that Nobles Holler would be a safe place for her and Shelby to lay low. For a show that has such a ridiculously rich group of supporting characters, Limehouse is a particularly good one, and it was great to see him and whichever large, bloody carving tool he happens to be carrying.
By show’s end, Drew was in the Marshalls’ custody, but there are still three episodes to go, and it would appear getting him out of Harlan county is going to prove a difficult task.
As has been mentioned before, Justified likes to throw out its own formula from season to season. After having Mags Bennett, one of the truly great Big Bads in TV history (and I say that as a Buffy fan) in season two and the murderers row of villains in season three, it made sense to have a central mystery involving characters we already know. Now that the lines are drawn and the chess pieces have all been moved around the board, I think the race to the finish line is going to be a lot of fun.
