Episode 8 was good. The church meeting scene was really great. Raylan, Boyd and Mags all got great speeches. WTF @ the creature in the bag. It sounded scary, and it looked like Coover and Dickie were going to stick Boyd's head in there. Seriously, one of the most cringe inducing scenes of the series. Thank goodness Ava came to the rescue.
Episode 9: The Bennett whoop-dee-doo was great. From the tense meeting of Mags, Boyd and Carol, to the gleeful dance of Boyd and Ava. Everything was great. Thank goodness they didn't save the phone call thing for the finale. Coover is crazy and I thought he killed Dickie at first. Too bad he didn't. The whole scene where Raylan is struggling with Coover over the mine shaft was really well done. It was a relief when Raylan shot him.
Episode 10: What a great opening scene between Art and Raylan. Followed by a great scene between Mags and Helen. Johnny returns, yes! The shootout at the end was pretty cool, too bad Winona wasn't killed.
Episode 11: Poor Rachel, had to stay with Gary and Winona overnight. And it turns out Gary put a hit on Winona in order to collect the insurance money? Whatever dude. They really belong together. Belong off the show, that is. The scene between Ava and Helen was great. There was a certain finality to it somehow...Holy shit. No. They killed off Aunt Helen.
Episode 12: Incredible opening sequence with the slow mo and muted audio. The funeral was so sad. Goodness. The scene where Raylan is seemingly going to execute Dickie in the moonlit forest was great. His slobbering plea was really sad, and you almost wanted Raylan to spare him. I'm not particularly a fan of Jeremy Davies, but he really did a good job here.
Episode 13: The parley (parsley? parsnip?) scene with Mags and Boyd was really great. I totally guessed Johnny's house blowing up, though not when it did. I thought it would blow up when he was first going inside. Ava doesn't seem to have much of a problem with Boyd's criminal activity, aside from hookers. It's no surprise, given that she never mentioned having problems (or did she?) with her dead husband's dealings. Her getting shot blows, and I hope she isn't dead, but sooner or later, with the way she carried around that shotgun, I figured she would take a bullet.
Winona is pregnant. Great. So the scene in episode 2, where Raylan is rubbing her stomach was a bit of foreshadowing on the writers part. Not sure how I feel about that, other than wanting Winona to die in childbirth. Hopefully they don't throw some stupid twist in, like it being Gary's baby. The scene where she begs Raylan not to go back to Harlan was good.
I didn't ever expect Dickie to become the destructive force he became. Shooting Ava, killing his two recruits, killing Helen, etc. I didn't really think he was capable of those things. The baseball/pinata scene with Raylan was great. And that was the final scene of the season for Boyd. Interesting. Raylan showing up at the Bennett's house, which is surrounded by guys, with only Dickie to use as a shield, was ballsy. A bunch of machine guns fired right there at Raylan and he's only slightly wounded? lol And somehow after all of that, Dickie is still alive!
Doyle got what was coming to him: a sniper bullet to the apricot, courtesy of Tim. Art and the rest of the marshals rushing in to save the day at the end was a bit cliche, and it didn't make a whole lot of sense given Art's insistence that Raylan was on his own. Considering that the last scene with Art, before that, was the one with Winona, I'm assuming she told him all about the stolen money; that it was all her fault and that she got Raylan involved.
Those final scenes. Holy shit. Incredible. I struggle to articulate my thoughts on those final scenes.
Loretta pointing the gun at Mags:
Raylan: What would your daddy want you to do?
Loretta: I want him here to tell me!
Oh. My. God. I'm getting a little choked up just typing that out. lol What an incredible scene. Then Mags and Raylan drinking the apple pie....I knew someone would get poisoned, but I honestly didn't even consider that Mags would poison herself. I thought the season would end with Raylan getting poisoned, and since there was an ambulance already there, I figured he would be saved just in time. But when I realized she was poisoning herself and talking herself through it, just like in the first episode, my mind was blown. She played that scene out so well.
Other thoughts:
Glad Carol is gone; hopefully she's off the show for good.
It's great that Rachel got a backstory and more screen time, as well as Art, but Tim was still sort of left out in the cold. I figure they'll give him an episode next season.
The girl who played Loretta is a great actress, which is unusual for a child. She should get some sort of award or something. Speaking of awards, someone give Margo Martindale one as well. What an unforgettable performance.