Summary
Justified: City Primeval fleshes out some of its story elements as Clement’s crime spree begins to turn heads, win him allies, and cost more lives.
This recap of Justified: City Primeval Season 1 Episode 4, “Kokomo”, contains spoilers.
In last week’s Episode 3, it was suggested that Clement had “made a mess” at Skender’s cashless safehouse. “Kokomo” reveals that to have been a bit of an understatement. We assumed he’d simply executed the Albanian, but not quite. What he actually did was needlessly crush the man’s leg in the saferoom’s door, satisfying his own appetite for brutality, horrifying Sandy, and earning the ire of the entire Albanian mob.
If you thought the latest episode of Justified: City Primeval might offer something more in the way of motive or psychology for the Oklahoma Wildman, you’ll be disappointed – on the contrary, the latest outing only serves to make him seem crazier, more inscrutable, and more out of the law’s reach than ever before.
Justified: City Primeval Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
The extent of Clement’s plan, beyond his own satisfaction, seems to be using Judge Guy’s little black book of what one assumes is kompromat to blackmail Detroit’s public officials. Nobody knows quite what’s on those pages just yet, but we can certainly take an educated guess. Whatever it is has dollar signs in Clement’s eyes, as well as Sweetie’s and potentially Carolyn’s.
Why does Sweetie team up with Clement?
Since the cops smashed up Sweetie’s bar during a police investigation, he’s not entitled to an insurance payout, and since going behind Clement’s back is likely to be a death sentence, as he’s seen first-hand, Sweetie is lured back to Clement’s side of the aisle by the potential upside of Guy’s journal.
It’s an entirely self-serving and uncomplicated motive. Sweetie reveals the existence of the journal to Carolyn, and you can tell it seems like the easiest answer to a boatload of complicated problems. However, as we see with Sandy in this episode, the real question is whether self-preservation is going to be able to trump the moral quandary of being complicit in Clement maiming everyone who mildly inconveniences him.
(Side note: I have no idea what’s in this for Sandy now she has seen the real cost of stolen penthouse suites, and I suspect, given her worsening weed habit and the look of terror on her face when she later drives past her now-toothless roommate’s place, that she’s going to try and switch teams sooner rather than later.)
Who is Toma?
The other function of “Kokomo” is introducing the Albanian mob presence in Detroit, which has been alluded to before now but really comes to the fore in this episode thanks to the debut of a wonderfully deadpan Terry Kinney as Toma Costia, Skender’s cousin and a respected mob higher-up who has a cultural responsibility to avenge what happened to his “idiot manchild” relative by coming down on Clement with the full weight of Albanian organized crime.
Norbert, who deliberately namedrops Clement in the meeting with Toma in the hope that the Albanians will do the police’s job for them, is intended to be a kind of dark mirror to Raylan, who, once upon a time, would have probably done exactly that himself. But this is an older, wiser Raylan who’d rather do the right thing if he can help it, though having Willa out of the way lets him assume some of his classic swagger in his testy conversations with mobsters, hoods, and pretty women.
What happens to Sandy’s roommate?
The Albanians, though, do set about looking for Clement themselves. They lean on his associates, including Carolyn, and try to lure Sandy into an ambush by threatening to pull out her roommate’s teeth with pliers. Since Clement won’t leave his steak uneaten, she loses a few of the gnashers until Raylan and Norbert are able to raid the place.
While Raylan holds one of the gangsters at gunpoint, Norbert chases the other outside and guns him down in the street. Justified? We don’t know, probably deliberately. This is the point when Sandy and Clement drive past, the former looking like she has seen a ghost.
Justified Season 1 Episode 4 Ending Explained
With all this going down, Carolyn needs 24-hour protection, so Raylan parks outside her house for security. It isn’t long before she’s sitting in the passenger seat, drinking and flirting with him, and the episode ends on a slightly ambiguous note that may or may not imply Raylan perhaps abandons his roadside stakeout to join her inside.
Apparently, in the source material, the character who Raylan is standing in for does strike up a relationship with Carolyn. It wouldn’t be outside of the norm for Raylan to make potentially misguided romantic choices either. I guess we’ll find out next week.
You can stream Justified: City Primeval Season 1 Episode 4, “Kokomo” exclusively on FX.
