TV Club

Truth and consequences: Lindsey admits she’s a thief, but Raylan still gets robbed.

Is Raylan always so dumb when it comes to pretty girls?

Lindsey and Randall.
What will happen when Raylan catches up to Lindsey and Randall?

PRASHANT GUPTA/FX.

As fans of Justified well know, Raylan Givens has a weak spot for pretty girls in trouble—and those pretty girls tend to cause him trouble. So it wasn’t surprising in “Truth and Consequences” when it turned out that Lindsey (Jenn Lyon) had an ex-con ex-husband and that she’d been an integral part of his scam, getting close to well-off men to find out what Randall (Robert Baker) could steal from them.

The story unfolds like so: Lindsey fesses up about her past and apparently tells Raylan that Randall wants her to get close to the sleazy fight promoter we met in Episode 2. Raylan visits Randall at his gym and tells him to get his parole-violating ass out of town. Which Randall appears to do. And at the end of the episode, Raylan heads back to the bar, asks about Lindsey and is told that she went up to Raylan’s apartment two hours before. Finally suspicious, Raylan finds his apartment tossed and his money gone.

It seems like a straight-up case of Raylan being duped by a pretty girl. Or does it? The more I think about it, the more questions that come up. Like:

  • Why would Lindsey choose a federal marshal as a mark? Did she have a thing for Raylan anyhow and only made him a target once she saw that he was socking away money from side jobs?
  • Why wouldn’t Raylan be on guard after she told him exactly what her scheme was? Shouldn’t he have wondered whether he could be next?
  • How much money did Raylan have in that sock drawer of his, anyhow? We saw him bring back what looked like, at most, a few thousand dollars for turning in bail-jumper Jody Adair. He either had more than we knew, which means he was being a little too dumb to trust Lindsey, or Lindsey and Randall made a huge mess of Raylan’s apartment for a small payday.

All of which makes me wonder if there isn’t more to the story. Did Randall actually kidnap Lindsey and take the money to make it look like she robbed him? Because it took Raylan about 30 seconds, if that, to figure out that Barnes was a dirty FBI agent early in the episode. Could he be that dumb about Lindsey?

The previews for Episode 4 show that Raylan wastes no time catching up to Bonnie and Clyde, but it’s hard to say how things will end. And I’m guessing they will end, somehow. It’s time for the big storyline, with Drew Thompson and Arlo and that still-mysterious diplomatic pouch, to take over. Raylan doesn’t have time to be distracted, even by a pretty girl.

But if there are any mysteries left, we have a very special guest next week to help us solve them: Lindsey herself! Check back next Tuesday to see what Jenn Lyon has to say about Episode 4.