How It All Goes Down
- Sheriff Ed Tom "Italics" Bell wonders if "law enforcement benefits all that much from new technology" (3.1.1).
- These sections are like Sex and the City if Carrie Bradshaw had been played by Tommy Lee Jones. Call it Tex and the City. "What type of holster would I wear to a formal event?"
- Bell quickly gets off topic, though, and starts thinking about how he never had to kill nobody, which is a good thing.
- Also, he says "bad people can't be governed at all" (3.1.6). So why try?
- Llewelyn gets off the bus but leaves Carla Jean on it. He says he'll call her when he can.
- Carla Jean tries to get Llewelyn to promise not to hurt anybody, but he won't promise. "That's how you get hurt" (3.2.23), he says.
- Bell is eating supper (what is it? Texas BBQ? Texas toast?) when the phone rings.
- There's a car fire in the desert.
- Bell takes his wife with him to investigate the burning vehicle. The couple that sheriffs together, stays together.
- The car has Dallas plates, but the Bells don't know why it's on fire.
- In the morning, Bell gets another call to head out into the canyon again.
- Bell saddles up his horses and rides on down. Yippee ki yay.
- There's another vehicle that's been torched. This one is a pickup truck, and Bell recognizes it as Llewelyn's.
- The Bells wonder if Llewelyn was a dope-runner. Bell doesn't think so, but he still wonders how Llewelyn got into this mess.
- From the truck, the Bells go to investigate the carnage down in the canyon—you know, all the dead bodies that have been left there for days.
- The Bells go on foot. The horses "don't need to see this" (3.3.80).
- It clearly looks like a drug deal gone wrong, but by this point, the drugs and the money are gone.
- Bell returns to the office to fill in Deputy Torbert—and to count how many people have died so far. (Nine.)
- Torbert asks, "Who the hell are these people?" (3.3.200).
- To answer that question, the scene shifts to Chigurh, who is at Llewelyn's trailer.
- Chigurh busts the lock with his weapon and goes inside.
- No one is there, so Chigurh drinks the milk and then goes through the mail. He probably didn't even wipe his feet when he broke in. How rude.
- Chigurh finds a phone bill with calls to Del Rio and Odessa.
- From there, Chigurh somehow finds out where Llewelyn works and goes to look for him there. He isn't there. Where is he?
- Well, the scene shifts again. Llewelyn is checking in at the Trail Motel in Del Rio.
- Llewelyn pushes the bag of money deep into the air vents and goes to sleep.
- Llewelyn wakes up after sunset and gets a taxi to take him to Ciudad Acuña, where he buys first aid materials for his feet.
- After a bite at a steakhouse, Llewelyn returns to the motel…. but a gap in the curtains makes it look like someone is in there.
- Llewelyn has the cab driver take him to a Ramada Inn, and he sleeps there instead.
- The next morning, Llewelyn goes into town and buys a shotgun, a hacksaw, some pliers, a screwdriver, a flashlight, and some tape. That's a normal shopping list in Texas, we guess.
- Then Llewelyn goes to a sports store and buys a tent—but he takes only the tent poles and bag and leaves the actual tent behind.
- Back in his hotel room, Llewelyn saws off the shotgun and stores it in the tent bag.
- Finally, Llewelyn buys new clothes at Wal-Mart and goes to sit and brood by a lake.