This show does not get enough credit around here. There’s a group of loyal viewers who discuss each episode, but I just went back and watched the pilot on Amazon. I’m only halfway through it and I can’t believe how good it is. It might be the best 30 minutes of TV in the last 20 years. So far, we’ve been introduced to Raylan (in a spectacular manner,) Art, Rachel, Tim, Ava, Boyd and Dewey. The writing is so tight, it’s amazing. The dialogue (thank you, Mr. Leonard) is spot on. Knowing what happens over the next four seasons certainly heightens the experience, and I can’t for the rest of this episode.
I appreciated it a lot more before sitting through the fourth season. All of the characters and prior story seemed to go right off the rails in pursuit of a needlessly convoluted whoisit - which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be unresolved in the writers’s minds until halfway through the season.
But the dialogue alone often rescued it, ep by ep.
Somebody: “Do you like westerns?”
Raylan: “Used to.”
I do believe that if Raylan is ever killed, he will have talked his way out of Satan’s office before the pointy one knows what happened.
I’m a big fan but can only watch when it comes out on DVD. I avoid discussions for fear of spoilers and may not check back in this thread for that reason. I recommend it a lot.
I think this is one of the very rare shows that you could know every plot point/spoiler that might happen and not give a shit as you watch the actors pull it off.
I’m a huge fan of both Walton Goggins and Timothy Olyphant.
A friend whose entertainment judgement I trust highly recommended this. I got a few eps into it and was not that impressed.
One thing that annoyed me was a scene where a couple was tied up with a strip of duct tape. One strip of duct tape. A six year old girl could escape from that. Petty, yes, but annoying to me. I’m still gonna give it a shot, but was certainly not hooked.
Its the dialogue and the delivery. Pitch perfect. The characters are basically one dimensional though they do each have their own unique twist.
Raylan: The cowboy hero, who’s trying to do everything in his power not to be his father. But just can’t do it. Quote from the 1st season: *Raylan, you do a good job of hiding it. And I s’pose most folks don’t see it, but honestly, you’re the angriest man I have ever known. *
Tim: The young smartass who can turn into a stone cold killer when the need arises. But has some serious demons that haven’t manifested themselves yet.
Rachel: The smart sassy sometimes sidekick who always played by the rules until she teamed up with Raylan. Now she’s following his path to nowheresville. But she still has the sass and the smarts to pull it together when needed.
Boyd: The well-read and well-spoken villain turned hero turned anti-hero who’s trying to get out of the game with his lady and his money (and open a Dairy Queen for some odd reason). He was basically set up to be the big bad guy, but even though he’s a murdering, drug-dealing, sociopath, he’s still the guy who people root for. Go figure.
And then there’s Ava…not enough words in the English language to make her character progression seem real, but yet they pulled it off.
And Art’s just there sitting at the office, being smarter than everyone.
Justified is the one show on television where I actually get antsy when I know a new season is about to start. It’s the only show that I must watch as soon as humanly possible, rather than let it sit on the DVR until a convenient time.
The writers have done a fantastic job of keeping things very Elmore Leonard-esque, especially in the dialogue. I also really appreciate that so many of the criminals are just not all that smart. I do miss a little of the Season 1 stupid-criminal-of-the-week stuff, but I’m picking nits here.
I want whoever writes for Art to follow me around all day feeding me lines so I can be half as awesome as he is.
So hard to pick out favorites in the dialogue, so I’m just going to go with one of my more recent favorites (WARNING: Spoilers ahead):
Oh yeah - the handling of Art-the-Boss as a character pretty much defines the quality of the show. This season, well before the wonderful quote above, Art starts getting twitchy about the case as it starts to unfold and appears to be big and important - he summarizes the facts to date and says something like “tell me you’re not getting a ‘Marshall Stiffy’ just thinking about this case.” Perfect.
It is a subtle show focused on tone, characters and dialogue - that seems to set it up to be loved by those who love that stuff, but not set up to be appealing to a wider audience. It is too languid even though it has punctuating violence on a regular basis.
dnooman - yep, stuff like that happens. Raylan gets shot at at close range and isn’t hit, too…I can let that stuff roll past me because I love the overall quality of the rest of it…
Perhaps one of the reasons it doesn’t get talked about much here is that there are only so many ways you can say ‘this show is awesome sauce’! I think it is my favourite TV show, although it’s not a show I’ve rewatched. But the show could consist of 45 minutes of the main characters sat around a table, chewing the fat, and I would be hooked. To me, the star of the show is absolutely Boyd. Whilst Raylan might offer the eye candy, I find Boyd a much more interesting and fascinating character.
This thread is very timely for me. My boss and I both enjoy The Americans, and he said if I liked that, I’d probably enjoy this. First disc of season 1 arrived last night; I’m eager to get started.
So… I’m a big fan; but I’m in the process of transitioning away from cable television. Am I going to be screwed when the next season starts; or have new episodes been available via Hulu-Plus; the internet; or some such other way?
Apply the above question to Breaking Bad too please.
Breaking Bad is just way too dark for me. Deadwood suffered from Timothy Olyphant’s “dead wood” acting. But it seems a decade later he has learned how to act and he inhabits Raylan Givens. Watching Keri Russell in The Americans in comparable, but the dialogue in Justified makes it number one.
It’s not only Justified that’s following the outstanding work of the teams that put together The Shield, Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy, Rectify, and The Americans, but in my opinion it’s the most rewarding from a characters and dialog standpoint. Nothing better since The Wire. Well, maybe Breaking Bad.
The fact that awards have been slow in coming just points out how silly those awards can be. If we keep watching, it will surely be back for seasons to come.
It’s rare to have everything going right in the creative departments and the cast really seems to be having a great time.
