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

I found it got a lot better after the first few episodes, but yeah, still not worthy of him. I don't understand how everyone in the world doesn't see how amazing Timothy Olyphant is. He would've been great in Big Little Lies, for instance (even though SKARSGARD was great too).

his best movie roles were probably The Crazies and A Perfect Getaway. he's great in down-and-dirty genre movies

I'm kinda surprised they haven't gone back to redo 'Pronto' and a prequel with the stories that are based in Miami with the Given's character. If you did it right, you could also use the other Miami characters like Chili Palmer etc.

Not sure if it was ever mentioned upthread, but that is kinda the triumph and the tragedy of this show, and maybe of Olyphant’s career - they found the perfect Elmore Leonard leading man, just in time for Elmore Leonard to bite the dust.

Olyphant picked up a producer credit starting midway through (season 3, I think?) and apparently acted as a sort of "Elmore whisperer" helping to make sure the writing reflected his style correctly. The fact that EL died while they were working on S5 and it wound up being kind of a weak, downbeat season is not a coincidence, I don't think.

Looks like movie stardom is just not in the cards for him. Perhaps not even TV stardom, at this point.

tbh i think he has certainly achieved TV stardom.

when i think of Season 5 i think about how pretty much anyone in that Daryl Crowe role other than Michael Rapaport would have considerably improved those episodes.

Yeah, I mean he's starred in two major dramas and guested or recurred on at least a half-dozen major sitcoms, including one where he played himself. xp

i think in retrospect what was refreshing abt Justified was the very subtle character arc for Raylan, just learning to not give in to his anger and quietly avoiding his family's fate. when all the speculation running up to the end of the series was suggesting that everyone would die or whatever, it made me think people have stopped learning to watch the show they're watching and have instead started to expect every generic tv trope for feel-bad cable series to show up on every show, even if they're completely outside of expectations pretty much all of the time. i think a lesser show with a more cliched dark tone would have killed off so many characters along the way, Breaking Bad/Ozymandias style.

to be a bit clearer

**even if the show is completely outside of the feel-bad genre pretty much all of the time.

xpost Nah, stardom is when people tune in to the show to see him. Which they did, for Justified and Deadwood, to an extent, but those were both ensembles and also two of the best shows of all time, with a strong case to be made for at least one of them being *the* best. And he's great in them, and maybe they would not have been great without him, but I don't think he could anchor a show based on those masterpieces alone. He's not, like, Ted Danson or something. He got lucky. And in some ways so did we.

But again, the Drew Barrymore show, I don't think anyone really watches that, and regardless, it's the Drew Barrymore show that he happens to be in. Like, my wife loves Timothy Olyphant and would gladly dump me for him (I mean, I don't blame her!), but even she has no interest in that show. You want stardom? I don't recognize at least 7 or 8 of the last 10 Barrymore movies, but she's a household name.

i think Ted Danson is a pretty good comparison actually, he starred in one of the great ensemble sitcoms of all time, and as great as he was I suspect it's a stretch to say people were tuning in to the show to see him. but he is still a TV star, as is Olyphant. In the sense that he's the type of guy they think of to anchor a show, and i bet his name is still at the top of a lot of lists, which is what makes a TV star imo.

it could be argued that the TV star bar is a bit lower, i mean guys like Simon Baker and Michael Weatherly(?) have been above-the-line stars on shows.

There's no way anyone tuned in to Becker for anything but Danson.

no i liked whatsername

i think people tuned into Becker because its lead-in was Everybody Loves Raymond!

i think a new series starring Timothy Olyphant would get a big push based on him alone, but at the same time i think he's not really invested in TV or film stardom despite him achieving it (imo!)

whatever the next show is the creators need to base it around how Olyphant looks damn good in a hat

i like him best with facial hair but its not required

seeing this thread again has made me realize how much I miss this show - especially since I don't think anything since has managed to walk the same line of being both smartly written/performed and actually fun to watch

yeah, it wasn't perfect and had some dodgy seasons (less said 'bout Crappaport the better), but there is nothing quite like it currently running. It just had *something* that isn't easily replicated.

That something was Elmore Leonard, and he's dead and can't be replicated. On the other hand, he wrote a shit-ton of books that capture the spirit of this show, that mix of smart cops and dumb criminals. There's a reason stuff like this, Jackie Brown, and Out of Sight are so good - Elmore Leonard is the best. I remember reading an interview with Stephen King where he said every time he finished a book he rewarded himself with an Elmore Leonard novel.

iirc only a couple of characters were taken directly from Leonard and he wasn't directly involved with the writing! so I think he can replicated to some extent.

Well, the entire first episode is the short story he wrote, and the rest spins from there. But yeah, obviously screenwriters can capture his spirit pretty well!

I did appreciate that he liked the show so much that he gave Raylan his own book.

Saw this:

One of Justified’s hallmarks is its ability to perfectly replicate Leonard’s whipsmart dialogue. And much of this comes from the first assignment Yost gave after assembling his team of writers: Read! “When we started the writing room, we bought as many of Elmore’s books as we could find and divided them up,” Yost told IESB. “Everyone took a couple on and read them, so they would get into the rhythms and get the style. One of the great things that I got to do in writing the pilot was actually retype a lot of Elmore’s style and put it in the script. It was interesting. Just the act of retyping it let me get into the language a little bit more.”

But again, the Drew Barrymore show, I don't think anyone really watches that, and regardless, it's the Drew Barrymore show that he happens to be in.

Season 2 starts in a couple of weeks so I guess some people watch it

From what I understand, every Netflix show receives a minimum order of two seasons out of the gate.

Olyphant is also great in Go but it's a small role.

^Is that right as there's been a few cancelled after just one? (The Get Down, Disjointed, Gypsy, Girlboss)

also there wouldn't be so many press releases about them commissioning second series of things

Haven't read the thread cause *spoilers* but we are near the end of Season 3 and I love the show with some reservations. Olyphant is a lot of fun as the lead and they have done a great job of populating the show with a host of minor characters that add a lot to the show's world building. It reminds me of a more fun and less consequential Breaking Bad.

Season 3 has been great! The build up of double-crossing and alliances between Raylan, Boyd, Limehouse, Dickey, Detroit, Quarles, and all of their lower henchmen is like an opioid-haze Miller's Crossing. Quarles is so hatable everyone just wants him dead. My one reservation is the Quarles backstory seems to rely a bit on a kind of gay panic that leaves me feeling a bit queasy.

Dewey Crowe is the best (loved when he thinks he has had his kidneys stolen).

I will say my wife is a bit less enthusiastic than I am. I guess it is a bit of a macho show and certainly some of the violence is a bit much. Ironically she didn't have a problem with the violence in GoT, so maybe it is just the guns.

s4 is the best one imho, I hope y'all enjoy it

bit bit bit

*spoilers* Oh yeah, one of the reservations was the episode where it appears Raylan is about to be arrested LPD for the murder of Gary and by the FBI for being a crooked cop and the entire story is created and resolved in a single hour. I liked the story and wish it had been developed/paced differently.

Loved this show so much!

Advance warning that S5 is ropey and really goes through the motions, but the last season after that is great.

They really underused jere burns though huh

Lol @ Raylan's "I disarmed him" comment.

smokin' oxycotin and watchin' ladies tennis in my motorcoach

They really underused jere burns though huh

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, January 2, 2020 5:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

whaaat no way. wynn duffy was an excellent character

yeah he gets good stuff to do in every season (ok maybe not s5)

S4 E1 is wild. What is up with Arlo's sudden shift from dopey small time hood/thug to prison assassin?

And if the thing in the wall is so valuable/dangerous, why wasn't he spending all his time searching for the presumed money/destroying the evidence instead of leaving it in the wall for 30 years.

?

lololol Forgot Quarles reaching for his forearm and Raylan just slowly pulling it away from him.

We just finished S4 after a bit of a delay. Great season, though I felt like it lost a bit of steam after the Drew Thompson reveal and Detroit just sort of gives up.

S5 is almost $30 on Amazon so don't think I'll be watching it any time soon.

iirc season 5 is not good. season 6 on the other hand...
I might be ready to rewatch this myself sometime.

they should pay US $30 to watch s5
i hate that season so much
tbh i dont think i finished it?

PBKR i dunno if you're in the US but Justified is on Hulu which would make it notably cheaper.

Is Season 5 Michael Rappaport?

yep

diiiiiiire is the only word

only the Alan Tudyk appearance episode and the "21-foot rule" scene are worth revisiting

wood harris was fun!