It takes a special kind of badass to leave Boyd Crowder speechless. In Justified’s season five finale last night, Deputy U.S. Marshal Rachel Brooks confirmed what the hit FX series’ fans have long known, but haven’t been given many chances to reiterate: Raylan Givens’ petite, no-bullshit-taken colleague is a serious badass. One who doesn't play. Not for a second.
The moment comes after Rachel (played by Erica Tazel) and Marshal Gutterson (Jacob Pitts) save the charming criminal mastermind Boyd’s (Walton Goggins) ass from an almost certain death at the hands of the Mexican gangsters. With his hands cuffed behind his back, inside his ex-flame Ava’s house, Boyd is in dire straits, but the text he’d sent earlier to Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) leads to Rachel and Gutterson’s arrival and a shootout that leaves Boyd’s enemies dead on Ava’s front porch.
Inside the house, Rachel lets Boyd know that she doesn’t appreciate how he basically led she and Gutterson straight into an ambush to rescue him. And then comes the ether. “You’re gonna walk away from all this, and we’re gonna have to live with that,” says Rachel, after removing Boyd’s cuffs. “But I’m gonna go back to Lexington, take that file Raylan has on you, and make it my sole purpose on this Earth to ensure you receive every ounce of punishment you have coming your way…and then some.” And, in closing, “Have a nice day, Boyd.”
The usually quick-witted and eloquent Boyd just stands there, either unexpectedly intimidated or spinning those internal wheels to figure out how to get Rachel first. It’s probably a little bit of both. But, at least for now, Rachel has the upper hand.
For Tazel, the scene was a long time coming—five seasons, to be exact. “That’s the scene I’m most excited about in the finale,” says Tazel, “because that’s the first time Walton and I have gotten to play like that. It’s an actor’s dream, when you see someone else—in this case, Walton—have so much fun all the time, playing such a dynamic character. You’re like, ‘What does that feel like on set?’ We’ve sort of passed each other in scenes in past seasons. There was one during the Drew Thompson season where I told him to shut up, but it was nice to have a real one-on-one interaction with him. Finally, Rachel versus Boyd—on camera!”
As Justified’s fans know, much to their chagrin, next year’s sixth season will be the show’s final one. In regards to Rachel, she’s currently the Harlan County Sheriff Department’s de facto Chief Deputy, now that Art (Nick Searcy) is bed-ridden in the hospital recovering from nearly fatal gunshot wounds. So will Rachel Brooks be Justified’s Queen Bee during its last go-round?
“I honestly don’t know how that’s going to play out at this point, because, keep in mind, Art isn’t dead,” says Tazel. “The chief is still there. So it’s a question of, where in time will season six start? It seems that, the way this season finale ends, the current story thread will keep going, but I don’t know what that means for the actor, Nick, and the character, Art. He’s obviously seriously injured, and it’s not something he’s going to bounce back from quickly and head right back into the office. I’m not sure how the writers will navigate and negotiate that, and Rachel certainly didn’t see this as the way she would get a promotion. It’s a mixed bag, and I think there are a lot of great opportunities in there, to play with that messiness of the situation.”
Whether Rachel maintains her sudden position of power or not won’t change the fact that she’s an important figure in Justified hero Raylan’s tumultuous world. Unlike most people in Harlan County, she isn’t easily impressed by Raylan’s icy-cool confidence. “She’s all business, and she can see through bullshit,” says Tazel. “She doesn’t always handle it well, though she’s doing better with that, in terms of the finesse. That’s something that she’s picked up from Raylan: his charm, his finesse. He’s not bulldozing people unless it’s a life-or-death situation. I love the fact that she thought he was initially there to steal her thunder, and now they’ve forged this wonderful relationship.”
Their camaraderie was best exemplified earlier in season five when Raylan and Rachel were given the chance to have a nice heart-to-heart. “I love that the writers gave that scene to us,” says Tazel. “Rachel had the opportunity to tell Raylan, ‘Look, you’re not alone. You have a team here.’ It speaks to the larger issues that are happening to Raylan, as a character. No pun intended, he’s kind of the lone ranger. His sense of being detached and nomadic—Rachel, in her way, and as much as he will allow, sort of grounds him in a reality.”
Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)
