For two seasons, Art Mullen has served as reluctant keeper to Raylan, serving as a by-the-books lawman burdened with keeping a modern-day gunslinger in line. He describes it as “penance” for a former life to Bill Nichols, an official in charge of overseeing the Witness Protection Program, though both muse about the days of saloon doors and Wyatt Earp, when a different code applied. Yet as much as Raylan has frustrated Art over their time together—a relationship that frayed perhaps to the breaking point last season, when Raylan was covering up Winona’s evidence tampering—we got a sense in tonight’s solid episode of how Art was able to indulge his underling’s excesses for so long. Because out in the field, we discover, some darker improvisation is sometimes required.
Art’s old-school interrogation (read: beating) of a protected witness who had followed Nichols (and eventually killed him) in an attempt to sell other witnesses’ addresses was the most surprising element of “Cut Ties.” We’ve seen Art leave desk duty before, most memorably in last season’s “Blaze Of Glory,” where he engaged in a slow-speed foot chase on an air strip. But the circumstances here are more life-or-death: First he pays a visit to the witness, Mr. Poe, to ask questions about Nichols’ whereabouts, then later comes to the conclusion, thanks to a GPS navigator history, that Poe had been following Nichols around. Concluding that the names and addresses of other witnesses had already been compromised, Art slips into the role of torturer quite easily, like an old habit. No need for phone books when a fist to the face will do. And when he threatens to kill Poe if he doesn’t get the information he needs—detailing to Poe precisely how he’s going to arrange the scene to make it look like self-defense—Poe believes he’d go through with it, and so do we. This is a side of Art we haven’t quite seen before, someone who’s willing, like Wyatt Earp or Raylan Givens, to get his hands a little dirty.
By contrast, Raylan goes about his business more subtly, by thinking a step or two ahead and quietly attempting to defuse a potentially ugly situation. The logic is clear: If Boyd was so intent on killing Dickie for shooting Ava that he’d be willing to risk jail-time by assaulting a federal officer in a federal office, then he’d surely go after Dickie if they were under the same prison roof. Raylan’s arrangement for Boyd to get out of jail—arguing, convincingly, that this was more a dust-up between friends—anticipates trouble, but Boyd, slippery character that he is, arranges a stint for himself in solitary confinement to get to Dickie anyway. Though Raylan’s intervention doesn’t ultimately pay off—Boyd gets to Dickie, albeit to leverage his advantage in a different way—it’s another example of him using his instincts and trying to affect outcomes that don’t involve his gun leaving its holster.
Much like last week’s episode, “Cut Ties” does some more table-setting for a season full of new characters to fill the chasm left by Margo Martindale’s departure. To that end—and to the delight of Karen Sisco cultists—Carla Gugino makes an appearance as Assistant Director Karen Goodall, a marshal service muckety-muck who has something of a past with Raylan and who comes on board to deal with the witness protection crisis. It’s not the splashiest turn, but Gugino’s character returns to the Elmore Leonard fold with a savvy/sexy performance that suggests some trouble for Raylan at work and at home. I suspect that Karen Sisco fans got significantly more out of her appearance than the many who missed that show in its brief run on ABC, but Gugino continues to fill out Justified’s ever-growing stable of veteran character actors.