It’s an understatement to say that I’m sad to see “Justified” go. Longtime readers know that I was always a big fan of this show, its characters (particularly the “bad” ones), and author Elmore Leonard’s work in general. Plenty of other TV reviewers have called this “the death of the modern Western” but they said the same thing when Justified star Timothy Olyphant’s last Western—Deadwood—ended, so we’ll see. And even though “Justified” was definitely influenced by Westerns, it was just as much a crime drama, a noir romance, a buddy comedy, and even a little bit influenced by the pirate genre in that so many of its episodes centered around different teams of thugs trying to get their hands on a vast fortune. It’s a testament to this show’s skill that it could so skillfully combine action, romance, suspense, drama, and laugh-out-loud comedy in the same episode, and sometimes even in the same scene. It was truly a show for the ages, and the most underrated TV program left on the air. [To say nothing of all the other underrated greats we’ve said goodbye to in the last few months…this is becoming a recurring theme.]
Series Takeaway: The single weakest thing about “Justified” may be its hero: Raylan, mostly because he was always surrounded by villains that were so much more interesting and, sometimes, more likable. I often wondered what would happen if Raylan just got out of the way and allowed “Justified” to become the full-on, anti-hero driven rural noir/crime-drama it was meant to be, but that’s not the show they set out to make…even as it became obvious that it’s the show it should have become. Anyway, this is by far the best contemporary series set in the Southeast and the only one that feels authentic, so I did appreciate that. So long to all the great “Justified” characters and the rich dialogue that I truly will miss. I’m getting sentimental just thinking about it.
Spoilers below of the series finale and all the seasons ahead…
The series finale was about as good as you could hope for. Sure, I might have wanted to see Ava Crowder punished for all her desperate, cowardly double-dealing, and Wynn Duffy dealt with for roughly the same. It’s Justified’s flaw that only its weakest supporting criminals—Dickie Bennett, Ava Crowder, Loretta, and Wynn Duffy—survived whereas almost every competent or powerful criminal was killed. By the end, I actually liked Sam Elliot’s Avery Markham a lot more than I liked Ava and most of the “good” characters.
But still, it was a strong episode, and I particularly loved the final scene. I felt certain they were going to kill off Boyd since they had him (uncharacteristically) kill so many people in the last few episodes from henchmen to innocent bystanders, almost as if they were trying to make him less sympathetic. The final lines of dialogue brought home how it was absolutely the right way to end the series, and that it was the smart decision not to kill off Boyd. “We dug coal together.” Perfect. Series Finale: A-
Ranking the seasons from worst to best…
Worst: Season Five… Almost every critic agrees that the second-to-last season was both too messy and too repetitive, and it’s probably this season that led to season six being the last instead of a seventh season. The Crowe family was just never smart or interesting enough to be the Big Bad guys we wanted them to be, and Michael Rappaport is the rare “Justified” actor who’s not from the Southeast so that was also apparent. Then there was Ava’s extended prison stay, Boyd’s collapsing heroin network (complete with field trips to Canada, Mexico, and Memphis) and Raylan’s shirking of his fatherly duties. It just never gelled together to create anything satisfying, but even Justified’s worst season is better than most show’s best season. Grade: C+
Season Three…Not everyone agrees that this season was weak, but I might personally like this one even less than season five just because it’s the real start of a lot of Justified’s later-season recurring problems: such as slapdash plotting, letting tired villains accumulate (at one point in this season there are five different villains going after Mags Bennet’s money) only for them to slip away like some Rockie and Bullwinkle cartoon, and going for the easy pleasures of Leonard’s lightest books over the Greek tragedies of family crime families that the first two seasons were about. This is also the convergence of three Justified characters I just never really liked: Dickie Bennett, Limehouse, and even Robert Quarles, the Detroit-based Carpetbagger who should have been a much more interesting character. Grade: B-
Season Four…This is actually a very good season, it’s just that I like the remaining season more. This is the season of the Drew Thompson-mystery, the hilarious appearance of Constable Bob (played by the great Patton Oswalt), the Detroit mafia manhunt, and some of the funniest moments of the entire series. Grade: B+
[Tie] Season One and Season Six…Season 1 gets tremendous points for setting up this fantastic world and Season 6 gets just as many for closing it out so beautifully. At its core, Season 1 is really about family and the complicated—okay—“screwed-up” bonds Raylan and Boyd have with their fathers. The Season 1 confrontation between Boyd and his father Bo is pure Greek tragedy, all played out in the lush green hills of Kentucky. Season 6 gets tremendous support from Sam Elliot’s charismatic “Bad Guy” who’s actually more likable and less likely to screw you over than any other character around him. And in a way both seasons end almost exactly the same: with Raylan letting his old mining buddy Boyd live and with a playful acknowledgement that he strangely likes him…even as he’s trying to kill or arrest him. Grade for Both: A-
Best Season: Season Two…I loved Margo Martindale’s Mags Bennett. The fact that this is the only season most of the Bennett’s appear in is what elevates it. This is “Justified” firing on all cylinders as we get Greek tragedy (the Bennett family), family blood feuds, grand noir, rich character study, fun gunplay, shady coal companies, and my pick for the best overall episode of the series: “Brother’s Keeper.” [Look at Martindale’s final expression in that episode, turning from heartbroken to wrathful determination which made me feel terrified, empathetic, and excited.] Grade: A
Goodbye “Justified” and my hope is to see a lot more film work for Margo Martindale and the excellent, always-underrated Walton Goggins, who really should be a bigger star and would be if he’d grown up in the 70’s environment of Nicholson and Duvall and DeNiro.
I’ll miss this show…maybe even more than a lot of the shows I’ve been asked to miss over the last few months. Because “Justified” is the only one that I can evenly remotely relate to from an Alabama perspective. Like the Bourbon the characters so often drink, there’s just something smooth and inviting to it, and it’s never easy to see something so satisfying go.