- Drew Thompson is now in custody of the marshals, but can Raylan get him out of Harlan before Theo Tonin and Boyd's men can get their hands on them?
- With the Detroit mobsters' helicopter circling ominously overhead, Raylan, Art, Rachel and Tim hunker down with Drew at Arlo's house to figure how to get Drew safely out of Harlan County. Art gets a call from Lexington "air ops," and as he goes indoors to take it, tells Tim if the helicopter "gets any closer, shoot it!"
At Johnny' bar, Boyd takes considerable physical punishment at the hands of a very unhappy Nicky Augustine who wants to know how Drew slipped out of their collective grasp. Boyd takes two quick, hard punches to the face from Tonin thug Yolo (Bobby Campo), knocking out one of the outlaw's prominent teeth in the process. "If you want Drew Thompson, you'll need Raylan Givens and, if you want Raylan Givens, you still need me," Boyd says, "and if you want me, I'm still gonna need $500,000." Nicky himself punches Boyd in the face one more time, telling him, "You're so glad you didn't ask for two million."
At Arlo's, Drew and Raylan and discuss the bag in the wall, as the former sheriff explains how he originally gave the bag containing Waldo Truth's ID to Arlo to burn. Raylan and Art talk about how they'll survive the 45 minutes to an hour before Lexington PD arrives. KSP Officer LaPlante (Chet Grissom) enters to report that his department has six units in-bound to escort the marshals and their prisoner out of Harlan and to Lexington in two hours travel time.
At the bar, Boyd strategizes over a map of Harlan and points to the best place for an ambush. Boyd realizes that Raylan will most likely attempt to drive Drew out of Harlan himself rather than wait for a KSP helicopter for the extraction. He tasks a clear-eyed Colton and one of the Detroit gunman, Mort (David Landry), to intercept the convoy at a specific, strategic spot on the back road out of town. "Here we go," Ava says. Boyd kisses her and whispers in her ear "At least I ain't gonna die today."
Later, Tim and Art roll along a deserted highway leading the caravan, but Tim comes to a sudden halt at the sight of three abandoned cars nearby. His Middle East battlefield training tells him that Colton has used his own knowledge from fighting in Iraq to set up a string of IEDs within the vehicles along their route.
Back at Arlo's, Drew relates how he first met Raylan's dad outside a whorehouse in Saigon where Arlo, on LSD at the time, was reading a Louis L'Amour book. Raylan gets a phone call from Art telling them to decamp and make their way to a predetermined alternate safe location.
Colton watches through binoculars along with Mort behind a sniper's rifle. Mort studies the stopped convoy through his rifle scope and spots "the cowboy in the follow car, marshal driving the SUV, looks like a statie driving the truck. But no sign of Drew.
Art and Tim remain on the isolated road, stuck between a sniper's perch and the IEDs with Colton and Mort with a rifle watching from a distant tree line. Tim has the idea to simply call Colton, cell'-to-cell' to see how much of he can glean while framing their conversation as if he's writing a screenplay for a movie and he wants to pick Colton's mind. (When Tim says he'll change on of the character's names to "Lieutenant Colt," Colton say that he wants a young Gérard Depardieu to play him in the movie version.) The pair, surprisingly cordial with one another, discuss their situation in hypothetical terms based on their common military experiences. But it quickly devolves into bluffing and brinksmanship as they trade not-quite good-natured barbs about the stand-off they've found themselves in. Colton insists that Tim's group will die from being too scared to move.
After they hang up, Colton instructs Mort to start shooting out "the rear windows and sides" of the marshals' vehicles, but "do not shoot the drivers or the tires." Before Mort can get off his first shot, Tim quickly deploys all the lawmen and their vehicles out of sight behind a tow truck to harden them against sniper fire, the jumps out and brings his own sniper rifle to bear on the tree line from where he surmises that Colton would be set up on over-watch.
Colton, watching this defensive maneuver through his field glasses, is impressed, exclaiming, "Ho-ly sh-t! They circled the wagons."
Meanwhile, Raylan, Rachel and Drew set up in Raylan's old Evarts High School, now in disuse due to consolidation. Drew continues to bemoan his predicament. Rachel wants to know how Drew killed his old associate Waldo Truth, who plummeted to his death with Drew's identity. "I took no pleasure in what I did," Drew says quietly.
Raylan takes a call from Constable Bob who has picked up motion detector signals at both Arlo's place and the high school. Bob notices Yolo's truck approaching Arlo's and asks Raylan if it's one of his. "Bob, hide!" Raylan says.
Boyd assures Nicky that he can figure out where Raylan plans to land the helicopter to evacuate Drew. Boyd reminds Ava and Johnny of "the coolest thing that ever happened at high school," recalling how they once saw an astronaut land a helicopter on their high school baseball diamond. Boyd takes Nicky's man Picker (John Kapelos) to the school to reconnoiter. Colton spots a faux Raylan when the man, a deputy sheriff, picks up his dropped cowboy hat. He calls Boyd to tell him that the stalled convoy is a decoy. Nicky sends Yolo (short for "You Only Live Once") to double-check Arlo's house.
Moments later, Yolo, holding a noticeably battered Bob hostage, calls Nicky. "I just checked his cell' 'phone and he called Givens five minutes ago," he says.
Back at Arlo's Yolo viciously and repeatedly beats Bob, who refuses to break or divulge Drew's location, instead stringing together a number of puns on the name Drew in painful defiance. After a particularly brutal assault, Bob gets a momentary drop on Yolo by repeating his feint from "Hole in the Wall (2013)" and slashes the thug in the leg... it's a femoral artery strike, by Gawd and a short-bladed knife. Blood gushes everywhere as the two men desperately wrestle to gain control of Yolo's dropped handgun.
By the time Raylan arrives and, having heard a gunshot, enters, weapon drawn, finds that Bob has already killed Yolo and is barely conscious.
At the roadblock impasse, Tim starts shooting at the fuel tank of one of the suspected IED cars, causing gasoline to spill out onto the highway.
As Raylan and Bob return to Drew and Rachel in the high school, a train passes blowing its whistle. Drew notes that you can always tell time in Harlan without looking at your watch. "That's the 5:30 coal train," he tells her. "O my God," Rachel says when she sees the bloody constable, "What happened?" "What happened is Bob is a tough son of a bitch," Raylan tells them. They realize that the sounds of an approaching chopper are too soon for police forces. Drew offers to help defend their position. "I can be the man I became, not just the man I was," he says. Raylan entertains his suggestions a little longer before telling Drew "There's something you need to understand. You are a criminal. You're on that side. Rachel, Bob and I, we're are on this side! Now I like arguing with you but I'm not handing you a Goddamned gun!"
Back at the clustered convoy, Art tosses a Molotov cocktail of Tim's design to ignite one of the nearby cars. Art is impressed: "I haven't seen one of those since that Guns N' Roses concert in 1989."
With limited resources, Raylan places Bob in the principal's office and heads off to confront Boyd and Picker in an empty stairwell. "You two come any closer and you're going to have a bad afternoon," the marshal warns, refusing to hand Drew over. Raylan urges Boyd and Picker to return with more men, before informing Bob they have about five minutes before reinforcements arrive.
Behind the tree line Colton watches as the Molotov cocktail finally causes the IED to detonate, creating enough smoke to cover the marshals' escape. Colton decides that he and Mort should leave as well, then fakes that he sees Drew in order to secure Mort's sniper rifle to take the shot that Mort can't see. "Nope, it's not him," Colton says after a quick scan of the marshals' position through the scope, then promptly turns the rifle on Mort and kills him.
Back at the bar, Ava attempts to make conversation with a stone-faced Nicky Augustine, though Nicky quickly turns the conversation on her, taunting that she must have fellated her way to the top of the Harlan whore chain. Johnny first tells Nicky to back off, then to keep his mouth shut, but Nicky blithely "let's slip" that Johnny attempted to have Wynn Duffy kill Boyd, another "pathetic way" people try to get to the top. Ava keeps smiling as she plays the flirtatious card on Nicky, then quickly douses his face with brandy, flicks her lighter and relieves him of his pistol. Johnny trains his gun on Ava and urges her not to do anything stupid. He falters for a moment then tells her he loves her. "Ain't that sweet!" Ava practically spits at him as she makes her exit from the bar. "Well, okay," Nicky quips. "I see what you like about her."
Boyd, Picker and the Tonin reinforcements make their way through the school and up to the principal's office to find Raylan and Bob. Picker pushes Boyd, who knows Raylan will shoot anyone who comes through the door, to be the first one to enter. Boyd pleads that Drew must not be in there. Picker starts counting down for Boyd to enter but Raylan aborts the countdown and opens the door himself. Indeed Drew is gone, along with Rachel. It's just Raylan and a grim-faced Bob, with pistol trained on the doorway. "Who's he?" Picker asks. "He's the man who killed Yoo Hoo," Raylan says. "Yolo!" Boyd snaps. "Him?" Picker says incredulously. "People underestimate Bob at their own peril," Raylan notes. Rather than having the scene devolve into another standoff, Raylan urges the men to listen to the approaching sirens, and leave before they all wind up dead. On their way out, Boyd promises Raylan they'll have another confrontation soon.
The other marshals and the KSP force arrive to meet Raylan helping the injured Bob down the stairs. Raylan reveals that it was Bob who had the inspiration of how to get Drew out of Harlan.
Elsewhere, Rachel and her captive Drew ride the coal train to safety away from the Tonin crew.
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