In early 2009 -- several months after cable shows Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Damages broke out with major awards and critical success -- a project named Justified was shopped around. The potential series was pitched as a procedural-like cop drama with an Elmore Leonard-flavored twist, and picked up by the expanding FX. Quickly, however, developer Graham Yost’s vision was contorted by the demands that came with a rapidly-shifting TV climate. In Mad Men, there was a sophistication to its darkness; in Breaking Bad, a classy aestheticization of violence; in Damages, an innovative anthology format. And in all three, not to mention others preceding and succeeding them, was a deep fascination with the antihero: the moral ambiguity (if not rot) of the Walter Whites, the Don Drapers, the Patty Heweses.
Justified was indeed altered to adopt such appealing attributes. Its first half-dozen episodes were all contained stories, in which Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) -- transferred back to his hometown of Harlan, Kentucky after being involved in a controversial shooting incident at his old Miami post -- would hunt down fugitives, some familiar and some new, before getting his man by the hour’s conclusion. But that approach would define Justified less and less. Over time, the series meditatively used violence as just about any other testosterone-fueled cable TV drama worth considering had, and darkened its lawman hero accordingly. (“You are the angriest man I’ve ever known,” Raylan’s ex-wife Winona told him at the end of the pilot.) Yet it stayed its own thing: Justified dabbled in a little bit of everything, its core always defined by the witty eccentricities of its basis, Mr. Leonard.
And intriguingly, the sixth and final season of Justified revealed that its swiftly-applied gloss of cable prestige was just that -- gloss. Rich with three-dimensional characters and compelling themes, the show capitalized on its strengths as it headed toward the finish line and pulled back in certain areas. Raylan, affection for the bad guys and occasional ineffectuality as a lawman notwithstanding, was affirmed as a more classically Western hero, a genuinely “good guy.” His adversary, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), ranged closer to the villainous end of the spectrum than in any past season, while the woman perpetually caught between them, Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter), bounced back and forth with the frequency of a pinball in its prime. Most importantly, Yost and his writers maintained a commitment to having fun. Although it landed at a satisfyingly dramatic point, the season as a whole was as inspired in its comedy and entertaining in its looseness as anything that’d been tried before.
Justified’s turn to serialization resulted in a more impactful show than it likely intended. Its first season laid the thematic groundwork, paralleling the toxic father-son relationships that had come to define the choices and personalities of both Raylan, the Federal, and Boyd, the amateur outlaw. In so doing, it quickly became clear how the familial and criminal cultures of Harlan would yield distinct, powerful stories. The series’ sophomore run then introduced (and promptly did away with) one of the Second Golden Age’s most memorable and imposing villains in Margo Martindale’s Mags Bennett. Season three, arguably Justified’s most ambitious, simultaneously brought in a sociopathic carpetbagger and the leader of a disenfranchised African American community to explore and dissect the function of integrity in a crime-infested small town like Harlan. The decision to tell longer stories in Justified was certainly for the better, in other words, even if the back-half of the series’ run -- until season six, that is -- was slightly bogged down by having to set up the final Raylan/Boyd showdown.
The key to Justified’s success was always its sense of self. Around the same time as its 2010 premiere came era-specific products like The Killing and Low Winter Sun, murky cable dramas that drowned in the depths of their pretentious seriousness. Justified may have proven flexible enough to change the way it told its stories and fashioned its protagonist, but Leonard’s voice in particular kept things exciting in story, textured in tone and entertaining in execution. Its world was as well-defined as any dramatic series' of the time. With the brilliant banter between series regulars Raylan, Boyd and Ava a constant, the show’s roster of idiosyncratic characters expanded by the year: Jere Burns’ memorably reactive Wynn Duffy, Mykelti Williamson’s wearily protective Ellstin Limehouse, Patton Oswalt’s hilariously bumbling Bob Sweeney, Mary Steenburgen’s brilliantly seething Catherine Hale and, to close out the show, Sam Elliot’s fearsomely villainous local Avery Markham. In pure talk, there was the fascinating variance in cadences; in plotting, the show’s density of intelligent characters allowed for, in a prism both true to character and utterly engaging, frequent outmaneuvering and reshaping strategies. It didn’t stop at the smart guys. The show was often at its most poignant when in the hands of pawns like Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman), or lowly outcasts like Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies).
Despite boasting the traits of a modern-day cable drama, Justified remained an exception. Its unabashed sense of humor and endorsement of Western traditions kept it consistently separate, for better and for worse: Though a critical darling through most of its run, Justified was underappreciated by awards bodies and never really broke out in the ratings. On the surface, its stories may have been too small-scale; alternately, its aesthetic never fell in line with those prestige hour-longs comparable in quality. No matter, Justified held -- holds -- a special place in the cable drama canon.
While it’s not correct to individually pick at shows like Mad Men or Breaking Bad -- or their protagonists, among contemporary American fiction’s most memorable -- Raylan Givens was a character drawn with a unique sort of confidence. Justified flirted with but never totally embraced the idea of Raylan as an antihero. In each season, his decency was questioned at least a few times by other characters; acquaintances would endlessly remind him of his capacity to be just like Boyd, who similarly strained for independence after being under the control of a slimy criminal patriarch. But Raylan believed in the right things. His methods and penchant for danger were another matter, not to be disregarded unless in the opinion of his overall moral scale. Ultimately, the question posed of Raylan was less “Is he good?” than something more complex and, given the cliche of the “antihero” that’s come to pass, infinitely more interesting: Why is he good?
Considering TV’s recent exploration of heroism, that’s a fairly radical notion, just as Breaking Bad’s “Mr. Chips to Scarface” conceit was back in 2008. Through its various incarnations, the medium has always encouraged stoicism in characterization to at least some extent. As the case of The Sopranos demonstrates, that can make for an effective dramatic construction. But there’s a tendency to mistake flaws as inherently interesting -- or worse, to find comfort in the sour.
In Justified, there was comfort in Raylan’s drive towards justice. His methods were aggressively selfish, leaving his co-workers and boss, Art (Nick Searcy), to frustratedly, and occasionally with exasperation, clean up his mess. But his “breaking the rules” didn’t fit into the typified version of that trope. It wasn’t depicted as a merciless quest for justice -- and for that matter, it wasn’t masking a deep darkness, either. Raylan was mercilessly sarcastic and unquestionably confident, his quick-witted swagger a perfect fit within the series' frame. He was also intensely self-aware. His endless fighting with his father’s ghost was a battle he knowingly couldn't escape. And so too was his obsession with Boyd as Harlan’s outlaw; the two shared history and tendencies to a degree where they had formed a compulsively dependent connection.
Because Raylan was always keyed into what Justified was exploring, the series shifted our expectations of the cable drama hero. The challenges he faced were predominantly internal, and while occasionally wrenching -- like in the devastating season three finale, which pointed directly to the reality that Raylan's own father actively hated him -- they never reached the ethereality of what Don Draper confronted. Justified let Raylan be Raylan -- it let him solve crimes, outsmart his foes and deal with his issues head-on.
With lyrical, evocative dialogue, Justified was arrestingly poetic in conversation. And the series finale “The Promise” affirmed Justified as its own, strangely conceived beast. The show's long-awaited gunslinger showdown arrived in the first-half to little consequence. (A low-key villain died.) Indeed, the episode progressed like the end to any season, with pieces being put into place and the seasonal villain -- Elliot’s Avery Markham -- quickly getting booted off, in order to set the stage for Raylan and Boyd. The episode was remarkably-assured and unshaken by expectations.
The finale’s final minutes then turned one last time to the words, to the show's relatively iconic sound. Raylan didn’t kill Boyd, Ava wasn’t tragically slain; as in Leonard’s classic works of literature, the girl got away while the lawman justly got his target. And Raylan learned something -- he put Boyd in cuffs, rather than shoot him dead as he did to Tommy Bucks in the series’ opening scene.
The episode playfully snuck in references to the show’s early days, too, mirroring old dialogue and providing a near-inversion of circumstance. It had a hell of a lot more fun than what prestige cable TV normally delivers in its closing hour(s) -- which, given Justified’s unique existence in the time-period, felt only appropriate. And it ended at its best: wordy, loose, generously funny and unapologetically tender. The final scene jumped four years into the future, with Raylan visiting Boyd in jail all the way from Florida, only to share inessential information. But why? Boyd rightly asked why Raylan made his way back to Kentucky yet again just to talk after all was said and done. But that was always Justified’s signature, its greatest weapon and its strongest asset. And in that moment, after a brief pause for reflection, Boyd had his answer. He chuckled to himself at the thought of it; maybe, he was even touched.
The episode playfully snuck in references to the show’s early days, too, mirroring old dialogue and providing a near-inversion of circumstance. It had a hell of a lot more fun than what prestige cable TV normally delivers in its closing hour(s) -- which, given Justified’s unique existence in the time-period, felt only appropriate. And it ended at its best: wordy, loose, generously funny and unapologetically tender. The final scene jumped four years into the future, with Raylan visiting Boyd in jail all the way from Florida, only to share inessential information. But why? Boyd rightly asked why Raylan made his way back to Kentucky yet again just to talk after all was said and done. But that was always Justified’s signature, its greatest weapon and its strongest asset. And in that moment, after a brief pause for reflection, Boyd had his answer. He chuckled to himself at the thought of it; maybe, he was even touched.
Then came his line, a stunningly holistic summation of everything that came before it: “We dug coal together.” Raylan approved with a single word, and a second later we were faced with a black screen. That was Justified -- curt, clever and confident. Beginning to end, it was also pretty great.