'Justified' recap: Goin' Home

Lindsey and Randall had already had their meeting and were celebrating by having her distract a poor convenience store clerk/amateur photographer named Alvin while Randall stole some champagne. They went parking, and Lindsey got turned on hearing Randall talk about the "Bruce Lee of chickens" and they started to get it on. Only Randall couldn't erase the thought of her having enjoyed talking about "tasteful boudoir shots" with Alvin, so he turned the car around. We didn't have to watch him pound on the guy later, we just heard it as we watched Lindsey use a payphone to call someone. She told paranoid Randall that it was 911, so Alvin wouldn't die, but she'd pressed a lot more numbers. We knew it was Raylan.

Meanwhile, Shelby was in his office, waiting for Cassie to be brought in when a note about Drew Thompson not being dead after all came on his computer screen. Let's file that away for later. For now, Shelby's purpose was to pretend he wanted to know if Cassie knew anything actionable about Boyd -- since his part in her brother's death isn't. He told her if Boyd felt threatened by what she knows, he'd have no problem killing her. She said Boyd was right to be scared. She does know things, only it's what Shelby already knows and chooses to ignore -- the whores, the drugs, the threats, and bribes. So she'll have to wait for Boyd to get his judgment day with the lord. Cassie left, and we saw that Shelby had Boyd and Ava on speakerphone -- very clever. Boyd tried to comment on the way that Shelby had run down his character to Cassie, and Shelby just hung up on him. Ha! Ava was satisfied, but she still thinks Ellen May's too unpredictable -- firing guns at clients, doing Oxy. Boyd had another idea: They could send her to his cousin Lonny in Alabama who owns a no-tell motel and has a ministry outback. Lonny had found god after he lost his leg in a drunk-driving accident, so he'd see Ellen May's "crazy bullshit" as a challenge. And if she didn't like the job or what he was preaching, there are other churches and whorehouses there.

When we next saw Raylan, he and Rachel were visiting the guy who sells gamecocks. He liked seeing if he could get Rachel to blink by waving one of the sharp metal talons the chickens wear near her face, and she eventually took out her baton and whacked him. He's lucky Raylan got a call tracing the number Lindsey had called him from. They went to see Alvin, and again, Raylan commiserated with the man Lindsey had duped. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear that blond girl set me up to take a beatin'," Alvin said. "I know what you mean," Raylan concurred. Alvin said he probably should have known it was too good to be true. He doesn't meet to many people with a common interest. "I just thought... I don't know," he said, his voice gently trailing off. You gotta love that: Here's a man with a bandage on his bloody head and one stuffed up his bloody nose, and it's the fact that the woman he thought might like him didn't that hurts that most. This is the closest we'll get to a Bachelor reject limo sobfest on Justified. Alvin told them Lindsey had said she was looking at film so she could take some photos at a horse farm.

Back to Ellen May, she was not as receptive to the idea of leaving Harlan as I thought she'd be, considering all she's seen. But Harlan is her home. She always thought she'd meet a boy and buy a little house. Ava tried to tell her she's been looking for a way out, and this is it. It's a chance to start over. She gave Ellen May $1,000 in cash and told her to make something out of herself that she could be proud of: "Tell it all to Whoopi Goldberg one day on The View. Your rise from humble beginnings." This is incredibly decent of Ava and Boyd -- better job placement than most colleges probably have these days. Ellen May said she feels like she's being sent away, and she's not sure why. Ava just told her to look at it as freedom. "The next time you give a blow job, it's because you want to. If you even want to. No more being afraid, or getting kicked around. It ain't never gonna be that way around here for you," Ava said. I could've watched them talk for another five moments. Partly because I love Ava's accent and her hair (such volume), but mostly because it's disarming when she speaks the truth. Joelle Carter and Walton Goggins both have a way of slowly luring you in -- it feels like you're being lulled, and yet, there's an energy to the moment, a fullness. Ava told Ellen May that Colt would take her to the bus station when she's ready.

NEXT: Raylan uses non-lethal force; so does Lindsey

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