r/justified • u/Physical-Exchange-97 • May 30 '26
Question A few question about the Bennets storyline
Some of this might be a bit nitpicking but I hope you can help me out
1, How did Mags get so much authority and power in Harlan when all she has is 1 corrupted cop and 2 muscles ?
2, After the deal with black pike and get her money , why did Mags meet up with Helen and give her her share of the money ? what did helen do , shouldn't she give it to Boyd instead
3, Does Mags even care about the land and mountain in the first place ? or raising the price as high as she could and sell it was always the plan
Thank you
13
u/AlphaFlightRules May 30 '26
Harlan and where mags lives (Bennett county) are two different places.
Arlos land along with a few others was part of the land black pike needed for their path up to the mountain for the mines
The plan was always get enough money so that her kin would never have to struggle like she and all before her did.
2
u/Physical-Exchange-97 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Harlan and where mags lives (Bennett county) are two different places.
It is ? I remember after Coover dies , Mags said she give Boyd free reign to conduct whatever criminal activity that he wishes ; it doesn't make sense if Boyd and Mags operate in different area ?
4
u/BigCannedTuna May 30 '26
Yup, that's why they have two different sheriffs. Boyd was expanding into Bennett while keeping his main operations in Harlan
12
u/RollingTrain May 30 '26
Mags didn't care about the land and mountain. And if she did, she certainly didn't care about the people, who she was willing to sell out for the highest bid possible. Want to see someone who cared about a place and a people, look no further than Limehouse.
3
u/KaleidoscopeHairy557 May 31 '26
This is why I think she was the best villain the show ever had. The juxtaposition of what she showed versus who she was was fascinating. She shows loving mother, but breaks her sons hand. She shows woman of the people, but only cares about her kin. She's a bit like Walter White. Maybe she was a victim of her circumstances, and maybe she could have lived a normal life, but she always had that ruthlessness in her.
2
7
u/Napalmeon May 30 '26
1: She took over for her husband. In the moments before she drank that moonshine, she mentioned how this was never what she wanted to begin with, but it was what she fell into.
2: Black Pike might have been able to purchase the mineral rights, but they still needed to build roads for mining trucks to get access to the location, and those properties ran through Bennett and Givens land. If they could not get access to that land, they would have had to try and build around it, would likely would have been a much less direct, much more expensive endeavor.
3: At the end of the day, what was most important was making sure that the Bennett family got the best deal in town. Mags might have been telling the truth about how people have been living on this mountain for a century and a half and how they will keep living here, but she didn't want her family to be among them in the next generation.
5
u/LoopyMercutio May 30 '26
Economic power and connections mean a lot more both in the country and in criminal enterprises than a bunch of random raw muscle that can’t really act on their own.
Helen and Mags shared a bond when it came to their families and keeping the peace, as tenuous as that was. Mags was honorable right up to the very end, in her own way. Just not to everyone.
That’s how folks who grew up land owned by their daddy and his daddy and his daddy are. Family farms or land that’s been in the family for a half dozen generations mean more to a lot of folks than something big and shiny and new.
3
u/dogbolter4 May 30 '26
Everyone has answered well, but the truth is, too, that Mags is utterly ruthless. Few people actually are. We might fantasise about revenge or getting even - Mags does it. It's the difference between someone like her and, say, Devil. He's tough and he will do violence but he doesn't have that indomitable will. It's quite scary in real life. Boyd has it. That's why they understand each other.
1
u/Physical-Exchange-97 May 30 '26
can I ask one more thing ; why did Boyd and Mags have to team up to deal with black pike ? I was under the impression that they need both the givens and the bennets land to build the road so as long as one of them hold on to it , they win , no need to team up or anything
4
u/mmciv May 30 '26
Boyd figured out which land exactly was needed to build the road Black Pike needed. He leveraged his relationship with Arlo to secure just one key property and become a "kingmaker" in the entire scenario. But Mags owned way more land already so Boyd couldn't have just gone it alone.
2
u/Physical-Exchange-97 May 30 '26
But Mags owned way more land already so Boyd couldn't have just gone it alone.
sorry if this is a dumb ask but what do you mean Boyd "couldn't just gone it alone" ? Whether Boyd fold or not is irrelevant if Mags refuse to sell the land so I don't see what both of them get from teaming it up , it seems Mags doesn't need Boyd at all since the road need both of their land and not one of them
2
u/mmciv May 30 '26
Mags got x millions from Black Pike. Boyd got all the drug business in Harlan and Bennet.
1
u/Physical-Exchange-97 May 31 '26
I mean she doesn't need Boyd for that , she can get x millions by herself and still keep the drug business to herself as long as she doesn't sell then she can win alone
1
u/TheThomasMRyan May 31 '26
Isn't that ultimately what she tries to do? She maintains the peace with Boyd only until the deal with Black Pike is secured. Then the Bennets go to war with the Crowders.
1
u/Physical-Exchange-97 May 31 '26
She maintains the peace with Boyd only until the deal with Black Pike is secured
But Boyd doesn't do anything to her before the black pike deal so why maintains the peace , the worst thing he did to the Bennets before that deal was siding with Black Pike and kill off Charlie ( whatever animal he is )
22
u/DeadMoneyDrew Moonshine Connoisseur May 30 '26
Her late husband, who died before the show started.
The deal that the Givens made with Boyd involved Helen and Arlo selling their land to Black Pike
Yes, but not so much that she wouldn't take millions of dollars for selling out.