It is the position of this publication that until Jimmy pulls a gun on Dalton, Dalton has no intention to kill Jimmy at all. Why would he? Men have come at him hard again and again, brandishing knives the size of an infant, and he’s let them slide with a mere ass-whupping. It’s true that Jimmy just blew up Emmett’s house, but the old man’s alright. So is Pete Strodenmire. So is Red Webster. Is Dalton going to make the first kill in this feud simply because Jimmy expresses his preference for raping Dalton-like men in prison? I doubt it.

But when that gun comes out and Jimmy says “I’m gonna kill you the old-fashioned way,” all bets are off. You can’t block a bullet with tai chi. You can’t be nice and escort a bullet off the premises. You can’t growl a dopey comeback like “Kiss my ass” in response to a direct threat of murder, because in that time the murder may well already take place.

This is not to say that Dalton was given no choice but to murder Jimmy once the gun came out. He disarms the man and could deliver any number of non-lethal coups de grace were he so inclined. But as I’ve been saying for weeks now, the time to not be nice is upon us. If Jimmy’s gonna open the death door, Dalton’s for damn sure gonna stroll right through and dump Jimmy’s body in the foyer. As Cody put it, long ago, “You fuck with him, he’ll seal your fate.” This is Jimmy fucking with Dalton. The rest is just math.