We Need to Know: What is the Crowes’ End Game on Justified? [VIDEO] 

Justified takes the night off tonight, so let’s reflect on where we are now that we’re knee deep in season five. We’ve spent a fair share of it with Dewey’s Florida contingent, who have descended on him and 1) taken over the whorehouse 2) convinced him to kill Wade Messer and 3) thrown in the Boyd after Danny’s attempts to force his hand backfired. That’s a lot, but I still don’t quite know what they want at the end of all this.

No doubt that they’re all about the cash money, and Darryl Crowe genuinely seems to want to just quietly live a life of crime, but Danny is dangerous, and I think he may end up getting them all killed with his volatile ways–running Raylan’s girlfriend off the road is one sure ticket to an ass kicking, and I sort of think Darryl might kill him himself for shooting Jean-Baptiste.

And then there’s Kendal–who wasn’t 100% averse to being thrown into foster care and now he’s witnessed Danny’s murderous shenanigans. Wendy is hilarious to me because she’s the one who really did better herself only to put her career to use helping her family’s criminal enterprises thrive. The way Darryl just manipulated her into taking control again as the family’s pseudo-matriarch was super crafty (and somebody’s sociology thesis). I thought it was interesting, too, that she had the cojones to weigh in on Alison’s relationship with Raylan.

To me, the creepiest thing of all that they’ve done was last week when they just blatantly took over a man’s house. I was with Raylan in thinking that surely the guy was dead or in pieces somewhere so I was as flummoxed as he was that the man was alive and well and just a little bewildered that he’d allowed himself to be duped.

And all of that brings us back to–what do they want? They came for the money, but then what? Do they want to stay in Harlan or take the money and go, as Darryl “promised” Dewey he would? Darryl and Danny seem to be bored, and troublesome because of it. Dewey was always just a loose cannon idiot. His family is a whole other bag of sociopaths who don’t seem to have a business plan.

We’ll soon find out, I’m guessing, now that Boyd would like to turn them into his assassination team against cousin Johnny after they spectacularly nailed their audition as a goon squad against the white supremacist who double-crossed him with Ava.

Wherever we end up, I’ll be watching. The casting of the Crowes amuses me no end. I was doing film PR back in the days when Michael Rapaport was a Miramax darling so it’s fun to see him bring Daryl to life almost 20 years later. A.J. Buckley as Danny scares the hell out of me because I never saw him as that guy (yay?). And I’ll watch Alicia Witt in anything. I love her sass as Wendy. Newcomer Jacob Lofland admirably holds his own with them as Kendal.

Justified continues season five next Tuesday at 10/9c on FX.

To tide you over, here’s a new interview with the actors behind the Crowes: