that when Art asks Raylan if Boyd is any different, Raylan implies that other than his
Boyd’s neo-Nazist attitude, he has not changed. Whereas Boyd embraces his criminal
heredity, Raylan has attempted to distance himself from his past, so much so that he
has become a lawman rather than following in his father’s footsteps and taking on the
role of criminal. Chamberlain documents Patrick Lloyd Garrett’s transformation from
criminal to lawman (53-60). Even though Garrett once was a member of Billy the Kid’s
gang and continued to be Billy’s friend until his death, he eventually tracked Billy down
and killed him (Chamberlain 59-60).
Unfortunately for Raylan, the chaos in and from Harlan Country draws him back
to his former home. For example, in between Raylan’s conversation with Art appears a
scene in which Boyd takes a rocket launcher and blows up an African American church
run by a drug dealer. Boyd then proceeds to murder another member of the Patriot
movement, Jerod Hale, thinking he is an undercover police officer. As previously noted,
Raylan and Justified encompass aspects of the Myth of the Frontier, however, an
updated version of the Myth. Slotkin writes, “Conflict with the Indians defined one
boundary of American identity: though we were people of ‘the wilderness,’ we were not
savages” (11). In Justified, the Native American presence is non-existent, however, that
of the Harlan Country resident is central to the plot and the subsequent conflict. In
reference to Owen Wister’s quintessential early twentieth-century Western The
Virginian, Etutain reveals that while Native Americans appear as the principal
antagonists in late nineteenth-century popular culture, after the turn of the century this
fact alters and they are eventually removed from this position and, in some cases, from
the texts entirely (Telling 71). Harlan County is the contemporary representation of the
frontier and its inhabitants the “savages”, the villains of the series (Slotkin 11).
The majority of the characters from Justified are criminals involved in drug
distribution (“hillbilly heroin”, methamphetamine, and marijuana) and murder. While
Raylan is in Lexington watching his ex-wife, Winonna, working as a court reporter, he
receives a call. This call, presumably from Art, brings Raylan to the bridge into Harlan
County, the bridge upon which Boyd has committed his first murder of the series.
Symbolically, this is the bridge—the in-between space—that joins contemporary society
to that which is wild. While Raylan acts as part of the marshal service while on the
bridge, he is slowly but surely getting dragged back to his past, hence “regression”
(Slotkin 12). As Raylan drives through the tunnel to arrive in the bridge he gives a small
smile suggesting his pleasure as this “regression” to a former state of being (Slotkin 12).
As Art and Raylan talk about the murder and Boyd’s connection to it, Art informs Raylan
that a cap from a rocket launcher has been found in the car, and that a church has been
blown up using that weapon the previous night. Notably, the church is located in
Lexington, showing that the criminal element has migrated from Harlan and invaded the
contemporary space. When Boyd blows up the church for impeding on the marijuana
business he shouts, “Fire in the hole”, a reference to an expression that he used in their
mining days (“Fire in the Hole”). As the episode continues, the violent incidences
increase until Raylan must return to Harlan County. During the mounting investigations,
it is discovered that Ava Crowder, Raylan’s soon-to-be-lover, has shot and killed
Bowman, Boyd’s brother, for repeated physical assaults.
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