- Raylan and Boyd separately find out why Avery Markham is buying up all the land in Harlan, as well as the consequences if you don't cooperate. Meanwhile, Katherine Hale pays an unexpected visit to Ava.
- Boyd and Ava awaken in their hotel room after a night of, if not passion, then resumed intimacy. Boyd gets a text to meet Wynn "downstairs." When he leaves, she dresses and goes to meet Raylan in the hotels stairwell. He tells her he's trying to help her to not go back to prison, and in that spirit, she reveals that Avery Markham paid her and Boyd a not-too-friendly visit the previous afternoon, and describes Markham's associate who Raylan recognizes as Ty Walker. Before they part, Ava subtlety gets Raylan to acknowledge that the two of them have a "special relationship.".
When she returns to her room, she is surprised to find a suspicious Katherine Hale awaiting her, inviting Ava to meet her for lunch in her suite. All the while, Katherine smiles sweetly, but Ava feels threatened... and with good cause.
Raylan visits Art for breakfast and a discussion about Art's recollections of the historical dealings involving Avery Markham and Grady Hale, Katherine's late husband. He shares some scuttlebutt from that time that when Grady was busted and imprisoned, it was Avery who had ratted him out. Art warns his Deputy to be extra cautious.
Raylan and Tim pay a call on the real estate broker Calhoun Schreier and have him decode his ledger of Markham's land transactions. They learn that Betty and John-O Hutchins recently died in their sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning. Tim and Raylan take special interest since those names were in the ledger with a marking that indicated that they'd refused both offers from Markham's agents to buy their farm.
Ava and Katherine are having their girls lunch in a hotel room where the widow Hale reveal she knows a lot about her guest's past, and asked the younger woman how it felt when she blew a hole in her husband's chest. She then lifts the lid off a silver salver and reveals four lines of a white powder and a short straw. Ava demurs saying even the pharmaceutical grade cocaine being offered "has never been my thing." Katherine, smiling with exaggerated sweetness, tells her "believe me you are going to need it for what I've got planned."
Wynn and Boyd are on their way to meet with one of Duffy's specialist retainers... Wynn explains that the man is an extremely annoying type and that Boyd is going to want to punch him, but to remember that "he is very, very good." The door is answered by a long-tressed dirty blonde, Bridget Mago (Rebekah Brandes), wearing Daisy Dukes and a halter top revealing a number of tattoos, and sporting a boa constrictor named "Rudy" as a neckwear fashion accessory. Boyd and Wynn's safe-cracking specialist, Lewis Mago (Jake Busey, who refers to himself as "Wiz") discuss different explosive ways of accessing Markham's Excelsior 5200. Lewis even has one they can practice on in an abandoned foundry just outside of town.
The three men ride out to the foundry and Boyd thinks the abandoned safe is suitable for their purposes. Collecting their cell' 'phones from Boyd and Wynn and leaving them in their vehicle. Lewis prepares to put on a demonstration.
Katherine takes Ava to visit an expensive jewelry shop where she knows Winston (David Brisbin), the propriety. While the two women are shopping and being chatty, using the ol' distract 'n' switch ruse, Katherine swaps out an expensive diamond tennis bracelet that Winston was showing her. The two women leave and drive off, having a hoot about what they'd just done. (Uh oh... Ava may be too high to realize it but she is now a parole-breaking accomplice to a felony.)
As the two women drive away from the jewelry store, hooting a bit about their escapade, Katherine discloses that she and Winston, for whom she has little regard, go way back to when she was married to Grady Hale.
Raylan and Tim visit the Hutchins place and while poking around and feeling something sticky on the window frames, Tim deduces how the couple were murdered and it made to look like accidental deaths, and how the Markham contingent would get title to the property.
Back at the foundry, Wynn and Boyd discuss in the abstract their plans for "after the big job" while Lewis finishes up his preparations to blow the safe. Just then a 'phone rings and an annoyed Lewis says "I told you two assholes to leave your cell' 'phones in the car." Boyd and Wynn exchance sidewise questioning looks and as the 'phone sounds again, the safe-cracker has a sudden terrifying realization. A device hanging on his chest flashes red lights and he emulsifies in an explosion. Wynn and Boyd stand motionless next to one another, covered with blood spatter and bits of viscera. Wiz, we hardly knew ya.
In a secure prison room, an orange jump-suited Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies) is wheeled in to face Raylan and Tim who offer to increase the remaining Bennett son's commissary account in return for cooperating with them "in a Federal Investigation." Dickie mocks them and acts the fool, but acknowledges that he sold the property for a tidy sum, and that the head of the purchasing entity, LM Consolidation, was a female who he had never met. Raylan figures it out and tells a stunned Dickie that he has sold his ancestral property to Loretta McCready. Dickie is incredulous. "Loretta?!?" he howls.
A visiting Ty Walker is sitting across the kitchen table from young-but-wise-beyond-her-years Loretta (Kaitlyn Dever), trying to negotiate a purchase agreement... she is disinterested, even when he doubles the initial offer. He presses with great charm, but she stalls him off, saying, "I like to drink when I think. Care to join?" He agrees, and while while making the drinks she adds conversationally, "I got this from a friend. She called it 'apple pie.'" "Not too sweet, I hope," he tells her. "Too sweet gives me a headache." She rejoins, "Not sweet... but it might still give you a headache." Walker sniffs the jelly jar and seems about to take a sip when there is a knock on the door.
Loretta answers to find the two Deputy U.S. Federal Marshals on her porch. "What is this sh-t?" she demands, displeased. "Good evening to you, too, Loretta," Raylan replies with a smile. "Can we talk?" Before she can reply, a hard-eyed Walker appears in the kitchen doorway and informs the newcomers, "She's right in the middle of something. "Well, that doesn't bother us," Tim fires back, "Actually, we're done," Loretta says without turning to look at Ty. "But that don't mean I feel like talking." A suddenly alarmed Walker says, "Done? No, we're not done. Don't be silly." Loretta turns and walks back to toward Markham's emissary. "O, we're done. I was about to show you out." "So you're rejecting our offer?" Walker says incredulously. The girl replies, "I am." Walker was clearly unprepared for this turn. "Bu... we didn't even negotiate." From the front door way, Raylan buts in: "No means no!" Now we've gone in a split second from conversation to confrontation. "Hey, I wasn't talking to you," Walker says. For his part, Raylan addresses their hostess. "Loretta," he says softly, "do me a favor and take a big ol' step to the right." As she does so, Raylan draws back his jacket a bit and directs Walker to get out. The man slowly draws back his own jacket to reveal a holstered pistol as he slips his hand into his trousers pocket and withdraws a cell' 'phone. Flipping it open and hitting a speed dial button, he turns and walks back into the kitchen. "Mr. Markham...."
Shortly thereafter, Tim opens the door to Avery Markham who is escorted into the kitchen by Walker. All sides, meeting for the first time, know who everyone else is, and Markham sits down without invitation. "What have we here?" Avery says conversationally, and reaches for Ty's untouched drink on the table. He savors the bouquet pleasantly. "Mnn... that takes me back." He asks Walker if he minds, and when the henchman says no, Markham turns his attention to Loretta, extending the glass in her direction. "Go ahead, darlin', stick your little pinkie in there and have a lick." She does so, and Avery says, "Well now," and finishes the jar. Raylan smiles appreciatively: "I'll give you this, you've done your homework." Avery smacks his lips and rejoins: "Homework hell! I'm a corn cracker through and through," explaining that he knows his local history, knew Loretta's parents and the Bennett clan as well, finishing, "'S how I knew to check that glass, darlin'." Looking at Raylan, he continues, "I knew a Crowder or two, but no one by the name of Givens." When Loretta asks what's going on there, Raylan and Avery dance around each other, but it's very clear they know a great deal about one another, and when the Deputy U.S. Marshal finally orders Markham out, they lock eyes for a stare down, Avery smiling the entire time. He finally says, "I think I'll burn one on the way out... helps me think," and pulls out a joint, asking if Raylan is going to bust him. Raylan says "No, not for weed." Avery arises, toking on his joint, and with a huge smile says, "Okay, I'll be seeing ya." He and Walker decamp.
Ava and Katherine are unwinding back in the latter's hotel suite. Katherine tells an amusing apocryphal tale with a decidedly feminist theme about Hillary and Bill Clinton, and says that was very much like her and her late husband. "He was the face, and I got it done." She goes on to explain that she'd taken Avery as a lover as a way of balancing the scales, and that he was still the best lover she's ever had, even though she knows he was the one who ratted out Grady and got him killed. The big reason she's setting to rob Avery? "A man as much as kills your husband, you got to do something about it." Having let down her hair as much as she has with Ava, she sends the younger woman off because she has a massage appointment. Ava, still a bit unsteady on her feet, thanks her hostess for "an interesting day." Just as she reaches the door, Katherine stops her with a "Hey!" Ava turns and Katherine, any sarcasm heavily disguised with extra sweetness, notes how lucky she was that the jail guard who had falsely accused Ava of stabbing him (""), had a crisis of conscience and came clean. Katherine even knows his name, Albert Fekus. Ava is terrified, but manages to keep smiling as she exits.
Raylan is having a paternal talk with Loretta about not being in the weed business... Loretta is ignoring him... when he gets an urgent 'phone call. He answers to find a panicky Ava on the line. "She knows, Raylan, she knows!" Raylan tries to calm her down while Ava continues packing her bags in their hotel room. Raylan tries to talk her through her crisis and wants her to meet in a nearby diner, but she hears a key in the door and rings off.
It's Boyd, surprised to find her packing. Ava covers her panic as best she can, pleading that she's homesick and wants to return that night to Harlan. But Boyd is too jacked up with his latest grand scheme of pot growing and paints a rosy future for their rolling in the dough and bringing all of Harlan County out of poverty. She just barely controls her nascent hysteria and Boyd tells her if she wants to leave that night, he'll oblige. It's clear that Ave is at her outer limits.
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