Eeeehhh...I dunno. There's some decent ideas lingering in the fifth season, but it's bogged down by a shitty primary antagonist(s) the greater purpose of whom seems to be establishing a creepy southern white guy narrative that transcends Boyd, Dewey, et al. Obviously they made Boyd the low collar, scumbag, southern white guy that's designed to encompass the racist criminal archetype that the audience is meant to dislike immensely, but the writers also saw a need to establish Boyd's likability so he could be a suitable rival-cum-friend for Raylan. As such, they have needed to, at times, juxtapose Boyd and his crew with significantly more violent, more stupid, more red-in-the-neck, and more overtly racist antagonists to give him the proper anti-heroish image.
In the first season, it was pre-gunshot Boyd and post-gunshot Boyd. In the second season, it was Boyd and the Bennett brothers. In the case of season 3, the situation was reversed with Limehouse being subtly characterized as a lesser evil that's just trying to get by as a black man in a southern world that despises him since--of course--it's the white guy that's the scum of the earth (but other than that, it was Boyd vs Dickie Bennett).
I'm in the middle of season 3, and I have yet to see it the way you're describing it here. I think that you're projecting a bit much onto the show here. If anything, the Bennett's have been shown to be a complex bunch. Yeah, Dewey and Coover weren't that bright with Coover being downright foolish. But Doyle and Mama were shown to be more clever and far thinking. Boyd was shown to be using the whole Nazi thing as a ploy from the first episode. I've yet to see Limehouse get a justification for what they're doing. All of the bad guys except for the Dixie Mafia people have given one excuse or another, but they're no less valid than Walter White's were in BB.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
