U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, on assignment in Miami, has given gangster Tommy Bucks 24 hours to leave town. With the deadline approaching, Raylan finds Bucks eating a meal at a poolside hotel restaurant. He gives Bucks another chance to leave town, but Bucks pulls a gun instead, and Raylan pulls his and kills him.

Due to the controversial nature of the Tommy Bucks shooting, Raylan gets transferred against his will to his home state of Kentucky. Art, the chief at Raylan’s new post, wants to know if Raylan’s familiar with Boyd Crowder, who originates from Raylan’s hometown of Harlan. Raylan does know Boyd, they used to dig coal together. These days, Boyd is a white supremacist specializing in robbing banks and acts of domestic terrorism, and the Marshals Service is trying to make a case against him.

The very night Raylan arrives back in Kentucky, Boyd Crowder and a new skinhead recruit, Jerod, blow up a church in a nearby town. As Boyd levels and aims the rocket-launcher, he shouts, “fire in the hole!” Later on, the untrusting Boyd kills Jerod in cold blood, incorrectly believing him to be an informant.

The next day, Raylan and the other marshals investigate the church explosion. Witnesses differ on what Boyd said when he fired, but the pastor, Pastor Fandi, thinks it was “fire in the hole.” Turns out that’s also what Boyd used to say back when he and Raylan dug coal, and Boyd would set charges underground. Raylan convinces Pastor Fandi to do a lineup and see if he can identify the man with the rocket launcher.

When Raylan hears that Boyd’s brother Bowman got killed by his wife, Ava, just the night before, Raylan goes to see her. Maybe she can help build the case against Boyd. Ava’s happy to see Raylan, she had a crush on him in high school. She’s not broken up about killing Bowman whatsoever. She was sick of him beating on her. She jumps in the shower to freshen up and one of Boyd’s minions, Dewey Crowe, shows up looking for her. Raylan identifies himself and tells Dewey to leave. Dewey gets a shotgun out of his car, but Raylan disarms him, roughs him up a little, and tells him to let Boyd know he’s looking for him. Once Ava gets out of the shower, she’s able to tell Raylan where Boyd’s probably hiding out.

Raylan shows up at Boyd’s church hideout. They have a drink of moonshine and Raylan accuses Boyd of using the whole Aryan nation thing as a way of getting recruits to help him rob banks and blow stuff up. He tells Boyd to show up for the lineup. Boyd does show up, but Pastor Fandi is unable, or unwilling, to identify Boyd. As Raylan’s walking him out, Boyd mimics Raylan’s stand with Tommy Bucks and gives Raylan 24 hours to leave town… or else.

That night, Art, Tim, and Rachel, Raylan’s colleagues, are holed up in Raylan’s hotel room waiting for Boyd to make his move. Raylan gets a call from Ava Crowder (she’d invited him to supper) encouraging him to come to her house, telling him the food is almost done. Raylan can tell from her voice that Boyd is there, forcing her to make the call.

Raylan and the other marshals head out in separate cars, but before they get too far, the other marshals are ambushed by some of Boyd’s men. Although they are able to disable and disarm Boyd’s lackeys with relative ease, they get separated from Raylan, who continues on to Ava’s, followed at a distance by Dewey Crowe and Devil. Deep in the woods en route to Ava’s, though, Raylan stops his car in the middle of the road and leaves it there, so when Dewey and friend come upon it, they’re confused as to where he’s gone. Once they stop their car, Raylan sneaks up on them, climbs in their back seat with a shotgun and makes them handcuff themselves to the wheel.

Raylan arrives at Ava’s house to find Boyd at the head of the table eating chicken, a pistol on the table next to him. He makes Raylan put his shotgun in the other room, so all he’s got is his holstered sidearm. Raylan sits across the table from Boyd. Boyd wants to know if this is anything like Raylan’s confrontation with Tommy Bucks. The situation’s tense. Boyd has the upper hand, his gun out on the table and Raylan’s holstered. But Ava Crowder, the wild card in this situation, enters the room with Raylan’s shotgun. She points it at Boyd, Boyd grabs his gun, Raylan pulls his and shoots Boyd in the chest.

Boyd lives, the bullet hitting him near the heart, but not quite in it, the last we see of him he’s being carried into an ambulance.

Raylan, meanwhile, drives back to Lexington and breaks into his ex-wife Winona’s house. It’s the middle of the night and Winona’s new husband Gary finds Raylan sitting at the table with a drink in his hand. Gary almost has a heart attack. Winona comes down to see Raylan, who just needs someone to talk to. He wonders aloud if he would’ve shot Tommy Bucks even if Tommy Bucks hadn’t pulled his gun first. He says he never thought of himself as an angry man. “You’re the angriest man I’ve ever known,” Winona replies.

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