8) Decoy (Season 4, Episode 11)
It would be nine episodes before Justified answered the big question driving its fourth season: who is Drew Thompson? Though many were able to put the puzzle pieces together well before the full reveal (you don’t bring Jim Beaver onto your show for no reason), the twisting road leading to the truth about Sheriff Shelby Parlow gave Justified an excuse to bring longstanding side plots to the foreground. Episode 10 ended on one of the show’s best cliffhangers, with Drew in marshal custody, Boyd and the Detroit mafia out to kill him, and Raylan asserting that all he needed to do was “figure out how to get out of Harlan alive.”
“Decoy” more than lives up to such high expectations, delivering one of the single-most action-packed hours of Justified’s run. A drawn-out sniping/pissing contest between Tim and Colton is filled with delicious smarminess, and Constable Bob’s interrogation by the henchman Yolo ends on one of the show’s great upsets. The final standoff between Boyd and Raylan in the halls of their old high school ends an hour of wall-to-wall excitement on yet another promise of greater things to come.
Best Scene: Even considering all the explosions and gunfire, “Decoy” never crackles more effectively than when Tim gets Colton to script doctor a fake screenplay on what to do when your convoy is pinned down between a sniper and an IED.
Memorable Line: Among the list of fake names Bob gives up under interrogation, none is as indelible as “Drew-Bacca.”