Continuing directly on from the second season, Boyd (Walton Goggins) continues his campaign to control all crime in Harlan; but a new player is in town, sadistic city emissary Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough), who steals the season with increasingly-deranged elegance.
There is perhaps a little too much sensationalism -- organ theft, imprisonment and torture of rent-boys -- and, worse, too many characters to do any of them justice. Events that should be emotionally revealing or traumatic are given short shrift (such as events with Arlo late in the season); the characters who make the show worth watching are barely glimpsed amidst a blur of plot.
A truly great series if only it would slow down a little.
Seasons One and Two
The first episode opens with Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a federal marshal, shooting a Floridian drug-dealer in cold blood. It's justifiable and arguably justified, but enough to get him sent back home to Kentucky: Harlan County, U.S.A.
Strictly speaking, the Marshals Service office is in Lexington, but Givens is Harlan born and raised; he once worked in the mines, and his father Arlo (Raymond J. Barry) is deeply involved in the county's criminal fraternity. Raylan's old association with locals, including Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), make him a more effective marshal -- but his personal life becomes increasingly troubled.
Occasionally episodic, the series hits its stride in the multi-episode arcs -- hillbilly Sopranos locked in hundred-year-old feuds. Season two, featuring a series-stealing performance by Margo Martindale as Mags Bennett, ruthless matriarch of the Bennett family, covers a lot of the same ground as Winter's Bone. The line between true portrait and condescending hicksploitation is thin, but this feels like a genuine -- occasionally even affectionate -- portrayal.