Boyd Crowder has come an awfully long way on Justified, from Raylan's chief nemesis on season one to a man viewers find themselves sympathizing with on season two.

How has Walton Goggins played this role? How well does he work with Joelle Carter? The actor discussed these topics on a conference call earlier this week.

How would you characterize the evolution of Boyd?
Boyd is continually changing... if you look at the trajectory of Boyd Crowder and you think about kind of this Svengali, kind of this showman in the pilot episode. Then this near-death experience and this religious conversion and the ambiguous kind of nature of that conversion, only to be revealed at the end of Season One that he did truly believe in God. 

On Season Two... He’s searching for the absence of meaning. He’s just trying to wander and be aimless for a while. I think we, as human beings, find a character like that sympathetic. 

I think that with that type of vulnerability that Boyd is feeling this season that you’re going to get an opportunity, as you already have through these five episodes to kind of see who this guy is.  You’re looking behind the curtain; you’re getting to see behind the façade. 

Talk about working with Joelle Carter and the relationship between Boyd and Ava.
I worked really hard with the writers and with Joelle to set this relationship up in a way that we feel like we’ve earned it so that when it happens, if it does happen - and I won’t give you a definitive answer one way or the other, but - if it happens, you will be ready for it. 

You will think that we’ve earned it because we’ve taken our time with it.  I think for any kind of courting process especially in a town like Harlan, which in my estimation, in my opinion, is suspended in time. Even though we have cell phones and things from the 21st century, it really is of another place in time and courting means something and ways to go about that mean something. 

We worked really hard to do it slowly and to do it over time so that when we do get there we feel like we’ve earned it. 

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.