A thread for JUSTIFIED, a TV show on FX starring Timothy Olyphant

it's yonks since I've watched this but I recall some long night-time dialogue scenes with Ellstin Limehouse that were part of what elevates this well above the average usual stuff

I just finished Glitz (not a Raylan one), first class Leonard. There was this great little aside, that seemed kind of Raylan, where Vincent the main character is talking to a mobster who's making a big production out of his tough wiseguy routine and Vincent thinks to himself "They work so hard at it, don't they?"

The great thing about Leonard's crime fiction is that he shows you that most criminals are dolts with maybe one big-for-them idea that they're far too inept to execute properly. There are no criminal masterminds in his books, only people who've managed to stay one step ahead of criminals even dumber than them, but it never lasts.

new trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6KEgWSFfaE

for the spoiler averse: it seems to give away a lot.

boyd holbrook seems like a good adversary

The original Leonard novel City Primeval was subtitled High Noon In Detroit, so I can kinda guess where this will go. Very much looking forward to it.

I must say that the dead deer strapped to the back of a rusty old american car under grey skies at an anonymous gas station is michigan as fuck

Holbrook seems like a shoe-in for Justified casting imo

i think about the last scene with raylan and boyd often

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, May 19, 2023 2:14 PM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

great news! fx put it on youtube and i may or may not have watched it a half dozen times in the past week because it's perfect.

Just got to the first Wynn Duffy episode in the rewatch, Jere Burns is a HOF "that guy!"

I’m reading city primeval atm, the lead detective is a Mexican American named Raymond Cruz so I am just picturing Raymond Cruz with a moustache. They had to have been at least slightly tempted to cast him in the series right?

Olyphant still has the old twinkle, but the daughter of a cop conveniently being THAT naive/clueless/trusting is some irritating bullshit.

We watched the first episode and it wasn't great, but yes, very twinkly.

the Boyd Holbrook baddie is just about the lamest criminal character in Justified since the Rappaport one in that season of it I completely forgot

Yeah, this guy sucks. Maybe Wynn Duffy will pop up and kill him and the real story will begin...

Rooting so hard for this to be good but really not sure so far

Olyphant has slipped right back into the character tho, no complaints there. I think at least it will be a serviceable adaptation of the novel even if it doesn’t do justice to the parent series (btw the setup of these first two eps — clement mansell kills the judge on a whim when he gets in the way of setting up the Albanian — takes like 15 pages in the book)

I just think the tone/vibe is a bit lacking, it doesn’t need to match that of the old show but it’s a bit bland so far

First two episodes were ... fine. Wish it were a little zippier. Not sure what to do with a bad guy whose main motivation seems to be just being a bad guy.

There were a couple of scenes in the second episode where I thought, wait a minute, I know those places, that's not Detroit, it's Chicago. And I was right. Filmed mostly in Chicago, too, sound stage but also street shoots. Where I guess things were interrupted one night by actual crossfire:

https://deadline.com/2023/02/timothy-olyphant-talks-shooting-set-of-justified-city-primeval-chicago-1235256122/

Okay not reading this thread, just popping into say I decided to watch the series from the start on a whim after seeing this thread about SNA for a while and got damn, I love everyone in it (especially Winona, hard to confess that one to my wife).

Up to season 2 now, Boyd better keep walking that straight and narrow

Tapped out on this new series midway through episode 3. Having the villain (who is FUCKING BORING AND NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT SCARY) tell a lie about his mom dying in a tornado and having said tornado appear on screen and suck Mama up into the sky is some Fargo bullshit.

It's driving me nuts that the villain's motivation seems to be just being a big asshole. The subtitle of the Leonard novel is "High Noon in Detroit," but this guy isn't much of an adversary, just compulsively adversarial.

But yeah, three episodes in and this is just not that good, (elder) Olyphant aside. I really can't believe they were satisfied with this script/story after the relentless sharpness of the show. Goodwill will get me to watch it, but damned if it isn't disappointing.

Part of the way into season 6 on the re-screening -

Forgot just how bad Michael Rappaport is, a real turning point from "corny but a decent character actor" to "fuck this guy"

Not that you'd want it to just be a cop-buddy-dramedy but it really shines when Rachel and Tim are heavily featured, I would have traded 15% of the Raylan and Boyd show for them to get more screen time.

Boyd gets less interesting the darker he gets - less charismatic without the family drama and more just an asshole.

Rappaport’s on-screen presence has gotten worse over the years as he’s become even more of a thin-skinned weirdo offscreen. That Justified character was supposed to be menacing and he just seemed perpetually whiny!

overall, the City Primeval miniseries was mostly a miss for me. the father/daughter stuff didn’t quite work, Keith David character was good but was only there to introduce the macguffin, Raylan’s womanizing seemed oddly charisma-free, and the other law enforcement characters were a non-presence instead of a good backing cast

and they cast an actor whose actual name is Boyd and then just made him a hyper-violent dork!

We never made it past the third episode. Should we?

I think that's where there actually starts being movement. Mansell and the Albanians meeting up finally gets some things moving, but it's still pretty bleak

I ducked out around episode 3 myself, then decided to come back to it. I was pretty satisfied with it by the end. I thought a lot of the “Raylan is older now” elements, like the relationship with the lawyer, were handled well, though it was pretty funny how quickly the female detective figured out that he had something going with the lawyer — as ever, Raylan is not as slick as he thinks. I continued to hate the villain all the way to the end, but I ended up feeling okay about it, because every single other character wound up hating him, too. The coda/tag, which I won’t spoil, felt tacked-on and excessively fan-servicey. So ultimately…ehh, but I don't feel my time was wasted.

I haven't read much if any Elmore Leonard so are the books close to the adaptation.

The original Raylan story, Fire in the Hole, is pretty close to the Justified pilot, fwiw.

Leonard is tons of fun, btw.

The coda/tag, which I won’t spoil, felt tacked-on and excessively fan-servicey. So ultimately…ehh, but I don't feel my time was wasted.

Yeah, the ending was annoying. If they are thinking of making more of these, I hope someone breaks it to Timmy O that Junior O cannot act and should not be in them.

Anyone seen the 1997 version of "Pronto"? I did not realize that James LeGros that plays Wade Messer was who played Givens in that movie adaptation.

It's got Peter Falk as Harry Arno, which seems like a pretty on target casting.

Got to be interesting to see if nothing else.

just finished, what a huge disappointment. mostly been covered, ridiculous Jason from Friday the 13th bad guy with no charisma, fellow law enforcement officers are total duds, daughter plot went nowhere, Keith David who actually had some juice and felt like a Justified character was wasted....I liked Sweet and the defense lawyer...even Raylan seemed a little charmless at points. Marvel movie ending, surprised Samuel L Jackson didn't pop up wearing an eye patch.

Season 6 really isn’t a huge improvement on 5. I had blessedly forgotten Boon(e?).

Oh man, I don’t know if I can handle Young Olyphant’s voice.

The cartoon villain’s signifier of badassery being a White Stripes mix tape is certainly a choice.

got thru episode 6, let me tell you that the white stripes mix is not meant to be a signifier of badassery

This is so bad. Should have been a series about the Detroit Armenian mob starring the guy from Oz.

Armenian mob, Sweety and the blonde girlfriend, that could be decent.

We're though episode 6 and this season is such a slog, though it did feel like there were a few signs of life in episode 6. I don't expect the last two episodes to save it

episode 7 was good, finale was a let down. the epilogue was totally unnecessary fan service (but not unwelcome, tbh, i am a fan after all)

that was even more frustrated like if you were gonna do that anyway what the hell did we do this whole season for??

We haven't returned to it after the third episode, but it's extra frustrating that this followed what seemed to be years of "we're waiting for the right story" or "the timing has to be just right" or "Tarantino found the perfect source material and lobbied Olyphant" or whatever, and then the results are so wan. I sometimes felt the same way with the reboot of "Party Down." You literally had years to come up with ideas, and then against all odds a new season arrives, and it feels like it's been given no thought at all. Or, like, they were told they had a very limited budget and schedule and had to rush something into production. Maybe that was the case.

Think I can already guess what the epilogue will be

party down season 3 was much better and more thoughtful than this

i think what a normal season of justified, even a less-good one like season 5, has that this one doesn't is time to breathe. we knew what made every thug or underboss or put-upon law enforcement officer tick, while in this, characters are just tossed into the mix and act with no established motivation or personality quirks, let alone personality. sweety was the only character that felt truly fleshed out, and a lot of that was due to the performance. aunjanue ellis was great as caroline for a bit, but her character got more and more muddled as the season went along.

Party Down 3 was fine, but I'm pretty certain my affection for the characters was doing a lot of the heavy lifting

Sweet was the only character that really felt like a classic Justified character to me

Oklahoma wildboyz - no redeeming qualities as a character
Blonde girlfriend - pretty good Leonard character if not Justified
Sweety - good all around (except for that one shot of him making bass face)
Armenian mob boss - pretty good, probably would have been funny trying to hide out in Harlan County
Cop who was in Bosch - why was he in this
Cop who wears Oakleys and definitely has a Punisher skull sticker on his F-250 - I think they were casting for SEAL Team and put him in the wrong pile
Redheaded cop - stupid storyline
Black detective - felt wasted, that guy had gravitas

Raylan felt like a passive observer so much of the time rather than the driver of the story (despite committing various crimes to get the wildboy) - almost like they took a non-Raylan story and shoehorned him in. Hmmm

I have a soft spot for season 5, which a lot of people didn't like, and I mostly think every season of Justified was solid to great. But this season was bad. There was no plan, just people running back and forth. Daughter was a drag, Raylan a shadow of his former self. Very little fun compared to previous seasons - best you get is weird character quirks like the White Stripes thing. Last episode was anti-climactic too, like they couldn't wait to get to the epilogue

And I was 90% correct about my guess for the epilogue, lol. Fully agree with ums - if you're gonna have that happen, just make the damn season about that. Though I guess there's a high chance they will make that season next, assuming people didn't hate this one too much

Big Chief in the soundtrack for episode 2 of the new show. I thought that a pretty good deep cut Michigan representation in the music.

Just finished season 2 - haven’t read the thread beyond that point to avoid spoilers. Great show, what a cast. Glad to see Kaitlyn Dever who played Loretta has gone on to have a strong career. Fun to see Margo Martindale playing a backwoods version of her character on The Americans. It wasn’t remarked on ITT during the first 2 seasons but the nazi shit everywhere hits way differently now :( On to season 3