“Justified” Nearing Crime Show Greatness
If you’re not watching the new season of Justified (Tuesdays at 10 on FX), you’re missing the best crime series on TV and what may be about to become one of the genuinely great crime series of all time. For me, most TV shows reach their highest level in the first year. Stories have a theme. The theme works itself out in the first year. Everything else is a sequel, second best. Sometimes by the fourth year a new theme is discovered and the show gets a second wind, but it’s still rarely as good as that first season. Dexter and The Wire, two great shows, come to mind as examples.
But while the first three seasons of Justified have been distinguished by terrific acting, spectacular dialogue, excellent characters and moments of violence that were terrifying without being unnecessarily disgusting (usually), the year-long arcs of the plots have not been as great as the rest of the package. The show is inspired by an Elmore Leonard short story, and while Leonard’s genius for dialogue and his hilarious and realistic approach to human corruption are what inform the show at its best, his satiric and sometimes rambling plotting doesn’t translate that well to TV.(Or maybe it’s just that he’s not writing the show — though the creator Graham Yost has channeled him wonderfully.)
In its first two episodes, however, this season looks to me to have moved to an even higher level. The yearlong plot, which involves the unearthing of a long-lost messenger bag, is inherently compelling and makes a great hook on which to hang the sub-plots. And the main characters seem to have found themselves in ways that give them fresh life. The appealing out-of-his-time hero Raylan Givens (played with a pitch-perfect blend of irony and valor by Timothy Olyphant) is in a relationship with a barmaid that promises some really interesting complications, especially as his ex is about to give birth to their child. The small-town gangster Boyd Crowder (played by The Shield‘s Walton Goggins, one of the best actors on TV, if not the best) is now in a relationship with his widowed sister-in-law Ava (played by the excellent and heart-meltingly beautiful Joelle Carter) that is as genuinely affectionate and touching as it is murderous and corrupt. Nick Searcy’s perfectly played Chief, world-weary but compassionate, is struggling with retirement. And all the new characters — a tent preacher, a constable, the barmaid’s ex — look to be richly drawn and promising.
Really, watching the first two episodes was bliss.
The second golden age of American crime writing, which lived in the novel during the 80′s and 90′s, has moved to television. Justified is an excellent part of that excellent trend and just seems to be getting better.
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What makes Justified great is its emphasis on the idea that crime, and the reaction to crime, is something people create, not something that happens to them.
I hated The Shield, but you’re right about Goggins. The guy who played Dutch did quite a job as well.
I’ve kept this secret for all of my adult life and want to share it with everyone.
When I was in University in Toronto. Our College had a football team. I was the running back. Graham Yost was the equipment manager. Not a player. Really smart and clever but still some guys on the team treated him like, the… well …equipment manager. Goes to show you that you never know what people will amount to in life. Always show respect.
How different history might have unfolded if people on the train in South Africa allowed Gandhi as a London trained lawyer to travel in first class.
What the heck kind of ads are you running on this site? “Rush Limbaugh wants your unborn child shot”??
Look, KOC, you’re a lot better observer of these kinds of things than I am, but I don’t see any improvement in Justified from the first 3 seasons, all of which, BTW, were excellent. What I like best about the program is its honest portrayal of hillbilly culture. I’m from Chicago but have spent a lot of time with hillbilly types who came up north to work in the factories in my area. I also lived in Springfield, MO for a number of years, working as a bricklayer on a crew of Ozark hillbillies, and have lived in other places in the south. These are, for the most part, uncomplicated, mostly honest, hardworking people, except for the minority who’ve learned how to game the system and live off welfare and various other gov’t goodies.
The main problem I have with this season is how they’re not getting this tent church thing right. Nobody on TV ever gets fundamentalist Christianity right. What I see on Justified is probably exactly what the producers of the show have done: they study a few documentaries of snake handlers and other fundamentalist groups, and then try to imitate it with a bunch of actors who, try as they might, really look as if they never darken the doorway of a church. Granted, the preacher is portrayed as earnest and with good motives, which is a big improvement over some other things I’ve seen.
Tell me, what would be so difficult with these guys just driving down the street to the nearest holiness church, offering the members of the congregation a $500 payday to stand under a tent in front of the cameras and praise Jesus just like they do on Sundays anyway, assure them that they won’t be ridiculed when the program airs, and dress them up like Tennessee back country folk?
Watching Justified, most people would say, “I think they did a good job on the church stuff.” And it looks good- but it rings false if you understand that subculture.
So even Justified, with its A for effort in the religion department, mostly fails at representing a significant demographic in this big, diverse country of ours. Still a great crime show. Which is, after all the main point.