The New ‘Justified’ Gets What Made the Old ‘Justified’ Great

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We simply missed Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, and ‘Justified: City Primeval’ understands that

I missed him so much. “It’s my recollection your client was behaving in a threatening manner,” says Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, testifying in court, poorly. “Things that occur to you when you grew up in a mining town,” says Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, shrewdly discovering the secret tunnel in the knucklehead militia compound. “Don’t need to talk tough, I’m just tryin’ to help,” says Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, calmly negotiating his 50,000th hostage situation. “You know the problem with a nose ring? Leaves a hole in your nose for the rest of your life,” says Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, exasperatedly parenting his teenage daughter. “I see you near my daughter again and I’ll fuckin’ kill you,” says Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, less calmly, while he beats the crap out of a guy.

He’s back. Oh, wow. Thank God. And it’s not any of the words Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens says, necessarily, but how he says them in his soothing, sultry, steely, quietly seething Kentucky drawl, amused by almost everything and (quietly) enraged by absolutely everything. A handsome and valiant and intriguingly flawed Old West cowboy set loose in modern-day Detroit. Also, he’s wearing the hat. You know the one. Love the hat. He’s back. Oh, wow. Thank God. I missed Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens so much. Sorry, but I just like typing/reading the words Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens again.

We can agree, certainly, that Justified—the sleek and witty and delightfully shooty Kentucky crime drama that ran on FX from 2010 to 2015 and starred Timothy Olyphant as, you guessed it, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens—is the greatest TV show of the 21st century thus far, with the best series finale of the 21st century also. (Ignore that ranking: “We dug coal together” is undefeated.) We can agree that the current, dismaying Streaming Era practice of rebooting / resurrecting / reanimating / regurgitating every last bit of available IP is dystopian and profoundly uninspiring, except in this case, because the new limited series Justified: City Primeval premieres with two episodes on FX Tuesday night and it whips ass, or at the very least it whips ass to hear Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens say words again while wearing the hat. The only real vexing question is how badly you’ll miss all the former buddies and adversaries he used to say words to.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, as you are likely aware, is the creation of god-tier crime novelist Elmore Leonard, who wrote approximately 50,000 of the best crime and/or Western novels ever written, crackling with erudite-tough-guy dialogue and increasingly exasperated by the dystopian indignities of the modern world. Leonard died, at 87, in 2013, midway through Justified’s glorious run; this new eight-episode series (co-run by Justified vets Michael Dinner and Dave Andron) is based on Leonard’s notably Raylan-free 1980 book City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, now reworked to add Raylan and update all the erudite-tough-guy dialogue to our dystopian present. “I tried to hold up a guy a few weeks back,” says our new Big Bad Guy, the flamboyant and volatile and extra-shooty sociopath Clement Mansel, scratching his balls with his own gun and played with dirtbag relish by Boyd Holbrook. “I put the gun to his head, and he asked me if he could Venmo me.” (Also: “Ever seen Yellowstone?” jokes a jovial semi-drunk lady who catches sight of Raylan in his hat in a semi-fancy bar. “I would fuck the shit out of Kevin Costner.”)

If you’ve come to Justified: City Primeval for the ultra-cool Elmore Leonard of it all, then this time-warp aspect is tremendous fun, what with the flustered cop drinking matcha and the terse courtroom argument disrupted by funny cat videos and the small-time crook marveling, “You know weed is legal now, right? They got these shops, you just walk in. Browse. Like buyin’ a record.” What a perfect bit of Elmore Leonard dialogue that Elmore Leonard didn’t write. But most likely you’ve come to Justified: City Primeval specifically for the Justified of it all, which is to say the Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens of it all, given that Olyphant is the only familiar face from the original show, barring any late-breaking surprise cameos that I’m trying so very, very hard not to actively hope for.

You don’t really want to know the plot. You know full well that’s not the point. All you gotta know is it’s 15 years after “We dug coal together” and Raylan’s still on the job and he shoots his mouth off and finds himself stuck in Detroit battling a shooty dirtbag sociopath while also contending with his sulking teenage daughter, played by Timothy’s real-life daughter, Vivian Olyphant. (“Nepotism, you can’t beat it,” he cracked to The New York Times. Great line.) You got the hardass judge (Keith David, forever undefeated). You got the soulful small-time crook and bar owner (Vondie Curtis-Hall) who apparently almost played bass on “Atomic Dog.” (“I’m unfamiliar,” Raylan says when the song comes up, breaking my heart just a little; hopefully in later episodes he gets big into P-Funk.) You got the steakhead cop (Norbert Leo Butz) whose job it is to say, “This is how we do it in Detroit” too many times. You got the Big Bad Guy’s dazed ladyfriend (Adelaide Clemens) who is tasked with delivering the rare super-clunky line of dialogue. “He was quiet—polite, even,” she remarks after Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens drops by. “It’s funny, I get the sense there’s some meanness in him. Otherwise, he was cute.”

No. No way. I get the sense there’s some meanness in him is not gonna cut it in a series whose sterling legacy includes “Honestly, you are the angriest man I have ever known.” Justified: City Primeval is an update in all the familiar ways: Raylan is older, greyer, tired-er, less immediately shooty, and saddled with a rebellious teenage daughter who doesn’t have much to do early on besides wear Guns N’ Roses or AC/DC t-shirts and wander around rebelliously. He is also on far shakier ethical footing in modern-day Detroit, as he is frequently reminded by an extra-hardass but possible hardass-with-a-heart-of-gold lawyer played by Aunjanue Ellis, who is City Primeval’s early revelation in the sense that she especially understands that what made the original Justified truly spectacular was all the smart-ass cops and extra-erudite robbers that Raylan got to say all those words to.

I miss Boyd, man. And Wynn Duffy, what with his love of women’s tennis. And Ava. And Winona. And Art and Rachel and Tim. (Tim especially.) I miss the original Justified’s deep bench of villains, from the sublime (Mags Bennett) to the ridiculous (all them redheads) to the confounding (Gun Hipster). Olyphant, of course, already reprised a beloved all-time-great TV role via 2019’s odd but lovely Deadwood movie, which got the whole gang back together; City Primeval will absolutely thrill Justified heads even though Raylan’s your only (early!) source of continuity. This new show understands that we want Raylan and the Big Bad Guy in constant face-to-face proximity, and that the Big Bad Guy should say rad shit like, “Did you know that if you play reggae too fast, it becomes a polka?” right before shooting a bunch of people, and that we like Raylan the angrier he gets and the more he tries to hide it.

City Primeval is worthy of the Justified name, is what I mean to say, and I will watch the shit out of all of it and so should you, but if it wants to even touch the original show at its absolute best, it’s gonna have to work double-time to build up its own Wynn Duffy and/or Limehouse and/or Drew Thompson and/or Tim Gutterson. If you know you know, and you know what City Primeval is not, or isn’t yet. But late in the second episode, in yet another ultra-cool bar crammed with loquacious lowlifes, Raylan leans real close to one character and almost whispers, “Can I ask you a question? Are you following me?” and yes, yes, yes, wow, there’s that electrifying chemistry, there’s Raylan and for that matter Elmore at his absolute best, there’s the best show of the 21st century thus far, back again, trying to make lightning strike twice, and one true thunderbolt in the first couple episodes is enough to make it worth their effort, and yours.

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