In ‘Justified’ Season 1 Episode 10 ‘The Hammer’, Raylan Givens is trying to clean up the Boyd Crowder mess that he created by sleeping with Ava. He finds Boyd preaching the Gospel of Boyd to a group of backwoods folk.
Raylan is not amused. Spoilers follow.
Raylan has some more troubles. It seems that Judge Michael “The Hammer” Reardon is the object of a murder by snake attempt. He is called “The Hammer” for that instrument that he likes to drop on people convicted in his court. As he explains to Raylan he had cut a convicted felon in his court a break once and he had returned the favor by killing a little boy. Never again.
Judge Reardon is also a little eccentric in other ways. For example, he wears nothing but his underwear and a gun underneath his robes while dispensing justice. As someone once said in another movie, there is law and there is order.
In any event, Raylan is now on guard detail for Judge Hammer, which involves following him around to places like a cowboy bar the judge likes to hang out in. When it transpires that someone had altered the judge’s car to pump carbon monoxide into the driver’s compartment, Raylan realizes that he has a serious task on his hands trying to find the attempted murderer. And with Judge Reardon it could be anyone who has been before him.
While Raylan is doing that, he is trying to find evidence that will put Boyd back behind bars. This involves him shaking down the marijuana preacher whose church Boyd had blown up. At first, Pastor Fandy is somewhat reluctant.
Meanwhile Boyd is up to his old tricks. It seems that his church, like the white supremacy group before he went to jail, is a front for his nefarious activities. But first he has to take care of some of the potential competition, which involves shutting down a meth operation being conducted by some red necks. At first, Boyd asks politely. Then he gets very firm and firebombs the meth lab, with one of the folks inside.
Raylan is feeling good, having found the man who is trying to kill Judge Reardon and stopping him. His joy is short lived when he is told about how Boyd had blown up the meth lab and killed, as it turns out, a CI who had been feeding law enforcement intelligence. Raylan threatens Pastor Fandy again, pointing out that a search warrant would find pot being dried in his basement. Fandy will testify against Boyd or else.
Finally, Raylan tells Ava that he has gotten Judge Reardon to arrange for her probation to be altered to that she can flee the Crowders to some other state, or perhaps country. Ava is very irritated, since she likes being with Rayland, who makes her feel safe and, well, content. But Raylan knows the affair has to end. It has brought little but trouble.
Source: Justified, The Hammer, TV.Com
