THE PLOT THUS FAR
Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens will start to pick at the thread of a cold case of 30 years in the making, unraveling a riddle that echoes all the way back to his boyhood and his criminal father’s bad dealings. Meanwhile, Boyd Crowder finds his grip on Harlan loosening due to a Pentecostal preacher with a penchant for theatrics and a knack for manipulation to rival his own.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
Old-school U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens comes back to his childhood home in the poor, rural coal-mining towns in Eastern Kentucky. While battling out his past with Boyd Crowder and his other associates. At the beginning of the start of the show you catch Raylan in a situation where he has illegally shot a known suspect in Miami Beach, as the Marshal Service try to justify this incident,they end up reassigning him to Kentucky. The fourth season expanded upon the Elmore Leonard origins by starting to world build, plus we got to see Patton Oswalt show up.
Some might describe the characters as caricatures or stereotypes, but they’re really not – while they may portray ‘simple country folk’, their characterizations and motivations are, for the most part, quite complex. Boyd Crowder specifically is a great TV character. While violent, sociopathic behavior is second nature to him, he’s also quite erudite, and perhaps the most knowledgeable character on the show, if not the best educated. Walton Goggins deserves an Emmy, without a doubt. What made this season work so much is that Goggins got to show Crowder starting to unravel under pressure. It’s easy to play a kingpin, it’s harder to play someone struggling to hold together their empire.
The Blu-Ray comes with a Digital Copy, ten commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes, featurettes and Blu-Ray exclusives looks at script development and Boyd’s character. The A/V Quality is sharp with a clean 1080p transfer and DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track. It’s on par with past seasons. However, I feel that this year got more of a workout with the same theatrics. In the end, I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: 12/17/2013