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

I assume the death of Leonard had something to do with it.

― Look at this joke I've recognised, do you recognise it as well? (forksclovetofu),

"It" being the S5 decline. Part of what made the early seasons great was the crackling dialogue, delivered well. I could imagine Leonard's role, once the milieu was set up and handed to showrunners and writers, as being dialogue doctor. S5 was leaden-tongued and cloth-eared.

Anyway, I have the season set to record.

I still think they should have moved Raylon to Miami for season 5, it might have given the show the jolt it clearly needed. And a full season featuring the Alan Tudyk character who got outrageously done in too soon.

the best short-lived character was icepick fletcher imo

i have a hard time resisting telling people who would have no idea what i'm doing that "the anus is on you"

I have really enjoyed these first 3 eps, it feels like a return to form. Sam Elliot's new big bad in town and Boyd in murderous form whilst also looking vulnerable. Not forgetting Wynn Duffy's tan session.

Haven't seen last night's yet, but it definitely seems back on the rails this season. My only complaint thus far was that a certain person died before we were allowed the joy of seeing a certain reunion one last time (although I hope we still get to see the other half of that team again before the series ends).

will see this series someday. Sam sans stache still weird tho.

https://s1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/teidCd4uKMs_aPLEr_KvZQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://l.yimg.com/os/publish-images/tv/2015-02-04/6cfe1390-ac27-11e4-bbcd-a5ebe3ea9498_JustifiedWynn.jpg

It's too bad that Duffy seemed to lose most of his menace when Quarles first made the scene.

No real opinions yet on this season/arc, but it's still in Act I.

so great to see Dillahunt get to speechify again

He's always so effortless in his portrayal of terrifying creeps. I never saw his sitcom but I honestly can't even wrap my head around its existence.

I don't blame your reticence after last season WilliamC.

It's not even reticence as much as my personal shift toward seeing seasons as really long movies, and not having an opinion on a movie until I've seen all of it. It's easier said than done when the movie takes months to screen. I will say that nobody's accent has made me go "lol fuc u" yet.

I reckon Rappaport's accent will be a cautionary tale to other actors for decades to come.

Really didn't need to see Wynn Duffy in a posing pouch. That said, his transformation into an effete Bond villain (a description I ganked from the AV Club review, or its comments) has been slow, organic, and hilarious.

Did anybody else get a weirdly homoerotic vibe when henchman Earl was threatening the mine-dude's patsy son, Tyler? The way he whispered "You don't like it when I hurt you, do you?" reminded me of Ben Gazzara's henchman telling Patrick Swayze "I used to fuck guys like you in prison" in Road House.

i'd like the last episode to climax with a constipated wynn duffy walking angrily into a bathroom where he finds raylan and boyd both shot dead on the ground, slow dolly in on wynn's face, transforming from grimace to shock to slowly dawning joy, fade to black, end series

Seems back on form, so far. Good.

Goggins has just signed on to co-star w/ Danny McBride on a new HBO comedy from the Eastbound and Down creator. I approve of this development.

The Wiz going kaboom elicited long and lusty laughter

Oh man that made me really nervous for about two hours and I couldn't sleep. Funny, though!

Sam Elliot is really doing a amazing job of being the final-level boss of Justified bad guys.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2015/02/kentucky-police-department-calls-for-arrest-of-frozens-elsa/

I suddenly got the feeling after this week's episode that Raylan is going to make a play for some of that $10M near the end, maybe just a little slice of that pie.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/tv-review-justified-final-season.html

last episode's series of betrayals was a bit up and down; the season has been redemptive tho'

Great season so far. The last 4-5 episodes have all been exceptionally tense, but it's still fun. I was worried the show was gonna get too edgy and dark in the leadup to the big finish. And for sure Eva's story has made up for her lousy lot in the last season.

It's really good this season, which just makes me even more annoyed at how crap it was last season.

did they swap out showrunners/writers or something?

Damn, they're picking up the pace.
poor mikey

I got hold of one of the Elmore Leonard Raylan Givens books recently. The 2nd one Riding the Rap. Found it in a charity shop. Hadn't been aware how much he'd appeared in print. The credits to the show mention a short story.
Anyway it's Leonard so it's quite readable.
Apparently there's a pre-Justified tv movie of the 1st book called Pronto. I looked for a torrent of it but couldn't find one. It stars someone who later turned up as a Justified character.

I don't remember not enjoying the last series before the current one. Was it widely panned?

Mikey's last second change of heart on Wynn's behalf seemed forced and false to me. What the hell did he think Katherine was going to do with Duffy when he (M) called her to give him (D) up -- give him a stern talking-to? This season is running out of steam (Givens is still too much a bystander in his own show), but still much better than last season. I figure Sam Elliott and Scary Babyface will get theirs in the next episode, then the final Givens/Ava/Boyd showdown in the finale.

Graham Yost was on Fresh Air last Thursday -- pretty good interview. Apparently Elmore Leonard was more hands-off than I would have guessed. He hated getting story notes when he wrote for the screen, so he didn't give out many himself.

If there was going to be a spinoff from this show, I wish it would be built on the Rachel Brooks character. A 2-front fight against the bad guys and racism/sexism from her own colleagues would be an interesting show. Mullen and Vasquez have both committed nut-punching offenses against her this season.

What are folks' thoughts on the idea of Wynn and Mikey as a couple? I feel like there were hints dropped, but obviously nothing definitive, ever. Still, some of the stuff they argued about felt like it went a little beyond boss/henchman.

I didn't get any sense of it until Mikey's "Hold me, Wynn" death, but that was more of a reference to the end of Reservoir Dogs than anything.

This season in particular has got a lot of humour from the fact that Wynn & Michael have an unhealthy intimate relationship for an employer and his employee/goon/manservant. The show has never been above gay jokes so it's possible they meant to creepily sexualise it for Smithers lols; in any case Michael's preposterous late burst of fealty to his abusive employer and subsequent fight was one of the most audacious things they've done so far in terms of violence implausibility & bad taste.

Personally I think this series has been fucking great. Steenburger & Elliot have been killing it & all the convolutions/side characters haven't killed the momentum the way they occasionally have before (despite the grand raylan/boyd endgamd being completely sidelined!)

My predictions a few episodes in were 1) Raylan will obv end up in that grave like they've been foreshadowing for fucking ever, and 2) this legal weed land grabbing plot is clearly just an excuse to have Raylan say "realitor" one more time this season. Ridiculously I was only right about one of those.

xp sorry I got a bit av club there I didn't really mean to say "audacious"

Finale tonight. I'm gonna miss it, but this has been a fine last season.

yeah, they went out on a high if occasionally absurd note after a dud of a prior season.
my money is on dead boyd and badly injured raylan going home to daughter and wife in florida, likely dead ava.

I'm betting on Boyd, Markham, Boon as the only casualties.

And possibly Wynn.

Markham for sure, gunslinger asshole kid for sure. I can't believe they're going to kill wynn; he's unkillable.
most of the marshalls should survive.

Art will likely live, as he had his near-death scare. I make no predictions on Raylan, Boyd, Boone, Markham, or Wynn.

I will throw my television through the window if they kill Rachel or Tim.

Boyd, Boone, Markham, Ava: dead
Raylan: alive if injured.
Wynn: Still living in the year 3000

Awwww, man. I'll be major bummed if they kill Ava. I love her with my heart.

she has burned a lot of bridges

i find rachel to be the weakest actor on that show by far and a general disappointment whenever she enters the storyline. they don't know what to do with her and she isn't helping.
killing tim would be a dumb move.
If they kill raylan, i wouldn't be shocked but it seems like they need closure with his daughter/wife if they go that route and i dunno how they manage it.

and I feel like they have to kill somebody who the audience would hurt for XP to myself

It would certainly take this already great season to a legendary ending if they have the balls to kills Ava and/or Raylan, amongst others.

Actually, I'm kind of convincing myself that Ava is gonna die. Boyd, too. Not Bonnie and Clyde style, but they're the two who want to get out of Harlan the most, and like the song says...

Raylan already got out. He's there by choice. He's not gonna die. Injured, yes.

yep.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/04/justified-a-rebel-of-golden-age-television/390486/

So many shows add secondary characters who turn out to be poorly developed, or opt not to add any at all precisely because it’s so hard to do them right. But from the rollicking mafia man turned informant Wynn Duffy, to the ruthless Robert Quarles, to this season’s leathery, magnetic big bad Avery Markham (Sam Elliott, another actor born to be on Justified), the show’s recurring characters—its villains, especially—were rarely thinly written, and always a ton of fun.

I say rarely because the fifth season of the show was what can be best described as a creative misfire. Michael Rapaport, who played the main villain that season, was the show’s first and only serious miscasting. The plot, normally intricate and layered in the best way possible, became unnecessarily convoluted in the same way that many shows that are on the air for a while tend to do. Even at its worst moments, Justified was still a good show—certainly better than most—and it’s miraculous that it didn’t fail much more than just once, given how fearless it was at taking familiar TV conventions and turning them on their heads.

Well that was a lot more low-key and bittersweet than I was expecting. I liked it!