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Farewell to ‘Justified’

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Justified

There have been so many great TV dramas in the past decade. Too many, if you have a life like mine and have limited hours to watch TV live or even catch up later on demand or online.

With “Mad Men” winding down in curious fashion, “The Americans” getting out in front of me, leaving me unable to keep up, and “Walking Dead” uneven but still rewarding, I’m mostly keeping pace only with the superhero shows like “Arrow,” “The Flash” and “Agents of SHIELD.”

One show that I did keep up with, pretty much every week, was “Justified,” Graham Yost’s show, based on characters created by wonderful writer Elmore Leonard, about U.S. marshals, lowlife criminals and everybody in between in modern-day Kentucky, was too good to miss.

I watched the show live pretty much every week during the course of its six seasons. And I mourned a little bit when “Justified” ended its run six days ago.

If you’ve never watched, I highly recommend it. For so many reasons:

The lead characters, marshal Raylan Givens and criminal Boyd Crowder, are charismatic and fascinating and they’re portrayed by terrific actors in Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins.

Other lawmen (and law-women) came and went and a couple dozen wonderful bad guys (and women) have passed through these parts but Raylan and Boyd were, ultimately, the reason we watched every week.

The two – who grew up together, dug coal together, dreamed of getting out of Harlan, Kentucky, and had less than straightforward solutions to problems – did the most fascinating dance for six seasons.

As much as we rooted for Raylan, we agreed with his boss and co-workers that he could be an angry, danger-seeking jerk.

And as much as we wouldn’t want to be on the bad end of a deal with Boyd, we’d also like to have sat down the bar from him, having a beer and listening to him formulate schemes and recounting fascinating characters he met .. and, most likely, swindled or killed.

“Justified” never let us forget that, as shaded and shady as these two could be, they were our protagonists. We were as caught up in their stories – more so, really – as any tried-and-true, straight-arrow characters.

I’ve been to and through Kentucky many times. I’m not sure I pined for the characters of “Justified” – Mags Bennett, Dewey Crow, Wynn Duffy or any of them – to sidle up next to me at a diner.

But it would have been fascinating.

Elmore Leonard’s ‘Raylan’ a new take on the ‘Justified’ cop

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If you’ve been watching and enjoying “Justified” the past couple of years, you probably know that the FX series about the U.S. marshal dealing with hillbillies, meth dealers and killers in the hills of Kentucky is taken from the work of Elmore Leonard, one of the most beloved writers of crime drama.

The lead character in the show, Raylan Givens, has appeared in a couple of Leonard novels, “Pronto” and “Riding the Rap,” and “Justified” itself is based on a Leonard short story, “Fire in the Hole.”

Leonard has returned to Kentucky and the world of Raylan Givens in “Raylan,” a recent novel that some “Justified” fans will find familiar.

“Raylan” follows Givens as he deals with a marijuana-dealing family, a double-dealing coal company representative and a card-dealing poker player who happens to be a Butler University student from Indianapolis.

A couple of those plot points should seem especially familiar if you’ve watched the show, but Leonard — who apparently shared some storylines with the writers of the series — threw in a few twists. Marijuana-dealing brothers Dickie and Coover don’t answer to their mother, Mags Bennett, but to their father, and they’re involved in organ-snatching. And Carol, the coal company executive sent to Harlan County to persuade property owners to give up their mountain, is more dangerous here.

To be honest, the book feels a little half-baked. Is it because I knew and loved the TV versions of these stories and characters first? Maybe. But the coal company story goes nowhere and the storyline about the card-playing college student feels truly tacked on.

As much as I loved seeing Boyd Crowder, Raylan’s longtime friend and sometimes nemesis, in the book, he doesn’t have a lot to do.

And frankly I can’t imagine the Raylan Givens I’m familiar with doing some of the things Leonard has his character do in this book.

What happens when an author’s characters take on a life of their own? Well, Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes when he became something more to readers than to the author.

I’m sure Leonard — who wrote genre classics like “Get Shorty” and “Out of Sight” — can live with the TV incarnation of his Kentucky lawman. And thanks to the TV show, viewers can embrace whichever they prefer.

‘Justified’ returns tomorrow night

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Oh yeah. The coolest show on TV is back.

“Justified,” the crime drama based on Elmore Leonard’s writings about small-time Kentucky criminals and the U.S. marshal opposing them, returns Tuesday night on FX.

Timothy Olyphant is back as Raylan Givens, the slow-simmering marshal, as is Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder, Raylan’s longtime friend, sometimes nemesis, sometimes ally.

FX has given us an idea about what to expect this season:

“In Season 2, Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens (Olyphant) squared off against criminal matriarch Mags Bennett (the part for which Margo Martindale won an Emmy Award). The end of Season 2 brought about the end of the Bennett family’s hold over Harlan County and the return of Raylan’s old nemesis/friend Boyd Crowder to the criminal life. This season, Boyd and his crew will find they aren’t the only ones making a play to rule the Harlan underworld. Now Raylan finds himself facing off against dirty politicians, hidden fortunes, a mysterious man named ‘Limehouse’ and an enterprising and lethal criminal from the Motor City.”

The Motor City? Will Raylan run afoul of “The Detroit Connection?” (Sorry, inside joke.)

Even though this is the third season, you won’t be missing anything if you’re just jumping into the show.

Check it out, Tuesday night on FX.

Counting the days to ‘Justified’

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Jan. 17 can’t come quickly enough.

I’m not wishing for the depths of winter. (In fact I’m a little SAD about it.)

But since Jan. 17 brings the third season of “Justified,” I’ll put up with the wintertime blahs.

If you haven’t watched the first couple of seasons of FX’s “Justified,” you should. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Back? Okay.

The series, about a tough U.S. marshal who gets disciplined for killing a bad guy in Miami by being sent back to his home territory of Kentucky, is typical in many ways of the more adult cable TV series airing on FX and AMC like “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Sons of Anarchy” and “The Walking Dead.” “Justified” has “grown up” language and violence, but like those other shows, the draw is the characters and plots.

Based on stories by crime writer Elmore Leonard, “Justified” centers on Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), the cop who is less than thrilled to be back in Kentucky. And who can blame him? Givens is back in the mix with his father, an aging crook, his ex-wife, the hapless but hot Winona (Natalie Zea) and, best of all, longtime friend and antagonist Boyd Crowder (the excellent Walton Goggins, from “The Shield”).

Raylan and Boyd have a long history. They grew up together and worked in the coal mines together but parted ways after that. By the time of the first episode, when the quietly disgruntled Raylan comes back to the town of Harlan, Boyd is the head of a white supremacist group and fond of blowing stuff up: Churches, cars, banks, you know.

But the relationship between Raylan and Boyd — the best thing about the show — is complicated. The two have a real bond that Raylan can’t ignore even as he works to link Boyd to crimes plaguing Harlan.

As the series has progressed, Raylan found Boyd at his side more often than he found him in his face. The characters are great antagonists but as complex as real-life friends would be.

The show has a real feel for danger and violence. Not just from the meth-heads and petty criminals that populate the backwoods but from Raylan and Boyd. Raylan is wry and smooth but there’s a reason Winona describes him in the first episode as the angriest man she ever met.

The first season revolved around the cat-and-mouse relationship between Raylan and Boyd, while season two introduced a great character, Mags Bennet, a small-town Ma Barker with a brood of scary sons.

I don’t know what to expect when the new season begins. Promotional clips have shown Raylan and Boyd working together and at each other’s throats. With this duo — one of the best on TV — I wouldn’t have it any other way.