Brad Wesley has had enough, though it’s unclear of what. Denise’s dance? He ordered it. The barfight? He started it. Jimmy’s faceoff with an outmatched Wade Garrett and an untested Dalton? He instigated it. Everything happening in the Double Deuce right now—even the bit where the whole place ran out to watch Red Webster’s store explode—is Brad Wesley’s design. So why fire a gun in the air and call everything off?

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Brad Wesley has two things: a colossal ego, and a gun. Not even he can shoot a man or two men to death in front of a bar full of witnesses, but still, the possession of the gun necessitates its use. That’s when the colossal ego comes in. Brad Wesley made the nights events happen, and he must show that he can unmake them as well.

What’s more, he must exert ownership over all of the involved parties. Think of how he told Denise to dance: “Of course you can dance, honey,” as if she’d asked his permission. It was noblesse oblige even to phrase it that way—he was commanding her, not responding to an audible request after all—but it still put him in the driver’s seat. So too did rolling with Dalton’s pet metaphor and summoning forth Jimmy, his top dog.

And so does his statement, after firing the gun to stop everyone in their tracks and saying “that’s enough”: “This isn’t working out, Dalton.” As if Dalton had asked. As if he and Dalton had entered into some agreement his end of which Dalton was no longer holding up. As if all events in Jasper, in every home and every place of business, must be run past Brad Wesley.

In that sense, this really isn’t working out, as Brad Wesley will learn to his sorrow, but not before sorrow is meted out in kind.