Written by Ryan DeMarco
“Burned” Plot Summary:
Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) play dirty this week by flipping Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns) against Boyd (Walton Goggins) forcing him to act quicker on blowing into Markhams (Sam Elliot) vault. Meanwhile Loretta (Kaitlyn Dever) has a plan to build Harlan County into a prosperous weed industry.
And boom goes the dynamite, but did it payoff like Boyd and company envisioned?
This episode worked by supplying good memorable moments and delivering us into the end of this show. First off, I mentioned last week how I wasn’t a fan of the mystery C.I. story that the writers seemed to of been forcing down our throats. Low and behold it is Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns)! It’s a nice treat because not only did it supply the story for this episode but it granted us with some nice Raylan and Duffy dialogue which has been missing this season. Now given that Duffy was a rat in the past against Hale (Mary Steenburgen) gave Raylan the edge he needed. So now Duffy is helping out Raylan to get Boyd. Watching Wynn having to go along with Raylan’s plan was nice to watch, even nicer to see Mike, Wynn’s bodyguard, kind of stand against it.
So with Duffy helping out Raylan, they work out a deal in order for Duffy to falsely tell Boyd that Markham (Sam Elliot) is moving his money soon and the only time to crack his vault would be that day while Markham is celebrating his engagement to Katherine Hale. Convenient for Raylan and the story. This obviously threw a monkey wrench in Boyd’s plan. So working against the clock, Boyd and Zachariah (Jeff Fahey) have to blow the safe that day. And it was good to see that things didn’t go to plan. Not only did the dynamite not blow through the ground, but Zachariah finally made his move and tried to kill Boyd by chaining him up right next to the dynamite. Of course it went unsuccessfully for Zachariah as Boyd escaped.
How will this affect the rest of the season? Now that Boyd made his move, the money is still in the vault and Markham and Raylan know he tried to take it. Boyd will be going with plan B to try to get it, and everyone will be waiting for that to happen. Brilliant.
Besides the botched vault heist, some other unexpected moments happened with Loretta, who made her return this week. She upped Markham’s ante by competing for land to the fine folks of Harlan County, with the exception that Loretta won’t kick the people off the land. Instead she will simply use their land for seed to grow weed. Woo hoo what a deal! We also got the introduction of Markham’s newest goon now that Walker and Choo Choo are history and he seems to fit in. His first scene leaving the headless snake in Loretta’s room was nice touch so I look forward to Raylan shooting him in the face. Whoops, maybe that’s a spoiler, we’ll have to see.
“Burned” provided another nice episode that ultimately screwed every character on the show in one way or another. With three episodes left, Boyd has to still rob Markham/put a bullet in his ear as promised and Raylan has to get what he wants and make his way back to Winona. Will Loretta lead a Harlan weed empire? How will Ava fit in to all of this when the dust settles between Boyd and Raylan?
So many questions, so little time left.
Rating: 8.5/10
https://youtu.be/VgOySaJjTKc
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