A marvelous guest part for Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) as a wanted fugitive who had been working as a dentist to undocumented Latinos in a small office in LA, enraged by a smart aleck customer to the point he removed the guy's teeth without anesthesia! It turns out, once the customer goes to the authorities, that Ruck was a money launderer for the Miami mob (!), actual name Roland Pike, and he had actually eluded Raylen (Raylen was given his word that he would not leave the bar; Roland, however, tricked Raylen, fleeing). Raylen obviously wants to arrest him proper, but the Miami mob have sent a killer out to get him. On the lam with Roland is his dim-witted (but sweet and naïve) girlfriend (who also worked as his receptionist), Mindy (Michele Nordin). Her sensitive bladder is often a source of misery for Roland. He can't get documents needed to cross into Mexico as would have been easy in the past, and his following a Mexican willing to show him proper access betrays his trust (demanding extra money or Mindy's sexual favors). When the Mexican stabs him, Roland retaliates by bashing his head in with a boulder. It will only be a matter of time before Raylen catches up to them (he appeals to a Latino father for one of Roland's dental clients, who gives him the direction for which the fugitive was sent), but not without a bit of resistance (a Mexican sniper was enlisted to take Roland out; either the mob was involved or a sniper is used to kill whites so they can be stripped of valuables). Another of the early "one offs" in Justified before Lexington (and its surrounding Kentucky area) become more of a priority in overall storytelling regarding drugs and families associated in crime, Long in the Tooth relocated to California for this episode, allowing Raylen to tie up a loose end in his career that had been a blip against him (word is the bond and all that; I respect him for this, actually, but Roland did make him look like a dope, leaving him for an ice cream (!)). However, amusing enough, Raylen isn't the lead on the case; Rachel is given lead by Art. While there's a bit of tension between Raylen and Rachel regarding positioning among the ladder of US Marshall in Art's office, they make a good team. Here, Rachel is curious about how she would look in a cowboy hat when it comes up in a discussion with Raylen. While I personally prefer the storytelling kept in Kentucky, with the characters that populate the region where the marshals investigate crime and focus on depleting the drug-running operations that occur there, it doesn't hurt that, every once in a while, if the show went outside the box occasionally. I enjoy how Rachel sizes up Raylen, regarding his handsomeness and swagger, how easier it was for him to get "to the top" in law enforcement. All that said, this isn't really the kind of episode with anything pivotal or so truly memorable that it would receive the heralded accolades future episodes (and other seasons) would deserve. It has fun characters and a rather predictable outcome (I couldn't have been the only one who felt Roland's fate wasn't going to end well, right?), with Raylen facing down a Miami mobster and LA local (showing him around LA) associated with that city's mob in a gunfight similar to any you'd see in a western (Raylen, of course, is once again a cool customer who has such confidant poise, he can look those opposing him without a lick of nervousness, fully believing he's in control and will come out victor if a shootout does commence). My favorite scene has Raylen surprising the mobsters, hopping into their backseat, letting them know he knew of their presence the whole time they were planning to pop a cap in him when he found Roland.
Review of Long in the Tooth
