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

i lean the opposite direction; really enjoy the wandering long-form narrative.
just finished third season, forgot how abruptly it ends!

Art specifically traveled to Detroit to investigate, so yeah, he cared.

But I do agree that they've had trouble clarifying the stakes this season. Now that they've cleared the deck a bit, not to mention neutralizing the almost series-long Big Bad, they should be freed up to hum right along.

also the other high stakes thing is ava going to federal prison! it's not just raylan's show; i daresay we're certainly meant to care somewhat equally for boyd at this point.

The Danny strong bit was so corny and underdeveloped I don't want to give them any credit for it.

Throwing in this knockoff orange is the new black scene for some shit "she was one day from retirement!" drama, ugh

I'm all for Boyd going ham, though

I heart Olyphant but Goggins straight-up owns this show now. I love that he doesn't have an Emmy, but he does have an Oscar.

prison story is some bullshit i just hope it's lazy writing in service of something awesome, which in fairness this show has kind of earned.

I'm loving Ellis from Mud as Kendall Crowe.

This season is missing something, though, isn't it? It's just so over-stuffed, it's hard to work out what that missing thing is. My theory is that Raylan has gotten too broody.

Last two eps have been tons better though.

I knew I'd seen that kid somewhere!

Only he wasn't Ellis, he was the pal, "Neckbone."

well you said you wanted higher stakes
whole goddamn episode was uncomfortable to watch, dunno about the ava is the new black C-plot (D-plot? how many threads are they running simultaneously?) but otherwise they kicked this up a few notches to overflowing boil
one of the best cold opens in this series too

"overflowing boil" seems more than a bit much - would like to think raylan's grin would dissipate at that point - but i was glad to spend some time with the marshalls and see some plot strands finally come together

This season is such a turd.

disagree but it's the first season where i feel like they're just pushing too much shit together at the same time.

my dr. told me that's the definition of a turd

i stand corrected

I have a terrible admission to make

*i have stopped watching Justified*

;_;

;_;

Maybe I am in denial but I will stick with Justified till the death, in the forlorn hope that this season will pull itself out of the mire, I suppose it is starting to hum a bit. They were too quick to kill off two of the most promising new characters imo. Watching ep 08 tonight and wished I hadn't read this thread :(

It's by no means bad by the standards of otyher shows, but the last couple eps have been uncharacteristically weak.

i wish they'd sideline the ada plot and raylan's love life. the whole "i have a daughter in florida" red herring feels extra pointless right now.

i'm glad avon barksdale is in this show right now but don't know what he and the other thug are adding to the storyline.

I request more shots of Amy Smart in underwear

I feel like turning the Mexico saunter into a two (maybe three) episode diversion was because they weren't sure what to do with the Crowes and Boyd. I like watching Raylan go get the kid (I'm one who thinks this show has the characters to handle amusing stand-alone stories) but things really need to have a focus. The Art thing feels like it was sidelined too quickly. Less said about Ava the better.

I can understand why people are not feeling this season as much, but it's still diverting enough and easy to watch. I don't mind Rappaport. The guy who plays his brother is awful though. Is he supposed to be Larry the Cable Guy?

You know, I am so far behind this season - and this thread - but we're up to maybe episode 3 and the misogyny and violence toward women is becoming tough to watch. Either women are calculating shrews/harpies or they're being smothered, threatened with sex or getting guns waved in their faces. Or both/all three. Pretty ugly.

Oh, and these few eps in Rappaport is terrible. Like, truly bad. Always nice to see ubiquitous character actor Xander Berkeley.

I don't think that description of the female characters fits w/ Ava, Wendy Crowe, Allison, or Judith (who turns up later) really at all. And certainly not Marshal Rachel, in those rare episodes when she gets screentime.

Well, I'm not talking about the show up to this season, which feature plenty of strong women (including Rachel and Ava). But so far in this season Eva is just popping up bitter and angry in prison to yell at Boyd, Rachel barely gets screen time, the Russian (?) near-widow is both a gold digger conniver and also got yanked out of the cop car by her hair and had a gun shoved at her while the cop more or less threatened rape. This past ep (again, maybe 3) features the prostitute candy hauled in stuffed in a box, and that g-friend of Xander both strangled and smothered to the point of unconsciousness.

Have I met Wendy Crowe yet? Doesn't ring a bell. Or Allison - is that Amy Smart? Because she's just being dangled out right now as another woman unable to resist Raylan's charms.

It's almost as if there are episodes you haven't watched yet.

idk, it seemed like her character has free agency, to me

Wendy Crowe is the redhead, played by Alicia Witt

I get the objections. the nastiness (of thst sort) subsides for the most part after what you've already seen iirc xxp

Allison is definitely the most level-headed woman in Justified history as of this week's ep

It's almost as if there are episodes you haven't watched yet.

Of, for sure, but it doesn't change what I've seen so far. I mean, the body count has been through the roof this season, even for this show.

I haven't seen this week's yet, but I've felt that the character is getting more out of her interactions with Raylan than vice versa.

re: Amy Smart's Allison character

Ok, I googled Wendy Crowe, and I guess I haven't seen her since she posed as a lawyer in Florida?

Like I said, I'm behind.

funny to hear people finally snapping and giving up when i'm kind of intrigued by where the hell they're going with raylan. possibly nowhere (wouldn't be the first show to have character motivations jerked all over the place in later seasons) but he's been aggressively non-shit-giving in the least aggressive way possible, and i almost expect him to turn crooked or something.

like, tell us again you won a radio contest, dude

I'd like to think none of this has anything to do with the death of Elmore Leonard.

One big prob. is turning Boyd into some sort of weird, bug-eyed Southern Gothic cartoon (which the show has even made fun of), while Raylan is so smug in his confidence he's sort of a non-entity - what's danger to a dude who never misses? Three of the best characters are his co-workers, but they're barely on-screen. Some of the least interesting stuff is his love life, and that takes up a ton of time. And given all the big personalities the show has to work with, Rapaport is just a lumbering miscast mistake. I'd rather the ghost of Mags Bennett than his whatever the fuck accent he's struggling to maintain.

His main danger is being stuck on a desk at work, estranged from his ex-wife and daughter with circumstances showing that he really isn't motivated to go see them, and finally separated from the crime going on in his hometown due to burnout.

With his dad gone, his life on hold, and Boyd moving into more complex territory, Raylan's been getting progressively more restless. Kind of thinking this is a pressure cooker that we're not quite noticing yet.

If they're actually attempting "let's be boring* to set up an amazing emotional climax and final-season plotline," then I will tip my cap.

* I know nobody is actually trying to be boring.

I don't know, Raylan is pretty bored and fed up, trying to get transferred and all.

I think a spin-off series featuring Nick Searcy and co would be excellent, definitely would watch. Back in Season 3 one of the ep's they mainly gave to Searcy was a standout

i would soooo be down for a show that actually centered around the marshall's office

I don't feel like theshow is totally going off the rails or anything, it's just a bit of a weak patch. They're four and a half seasons in, it happens. I'll be very surprisedif they don't have some really great stuff in store for the final season (or even the end of this one).

Season's going to end with Rapaport showing off the fancy gator pool he had built, because he missed gators so much. Then he's going to give a long speech about gators before Raylan shoots him and he falls in the gator tank and is eaten. Then they're going to find out he was a crooked undercover NYC agent. Then some weed-smoking, moonshine-swilling mountain person finds the gator (which had been on the loose), thinks it's a dragon and kills it to eat it. When the hillbilly takes a bite of his gator burger he bites into something hard, and it turns out to be Rapaport's badge. So the hillbilly tosses the shield over his shoulder and it lands with a thud on a pile of other found badges and personal effects that mean nothing to this man of the mountain soil. Banjo music plays. The end.

Oh, sorry: SPOILERS!

unless i missed a sentence of exposition somewhere, last night's "i dunno how william forsythe found them in that parking lot before us...or even found another car...we may never know!" was a real storytelling low point for the show. not to mention how little they gave forsythe to work with.

yyyyeah. time to stop adding new characters for fuck's sake. Which will not happen; we have a VERY SPECIAL GUEST STAR next week already.
This isn't breaking the show for me but it's miring it down in needless complexity and occasionally lax plotting.