One of the best shows on TV today, the new season of Justified starts Tuesday.
Here is an extended trailer for the upcoming season.
BTW, if you have never seen the show, go ahead and jump into Season 4.
Yes, it does help a little if you know a bit of the back stories of some of the characters, but unlike some other longer running series, it is not crucial to know everything from past seasons. You really can just start watching on Tuesday.
(And should you too become a fan, you have three past seasons to watch later!)
As much as I was sad that Deadwood ended rather abruptly and should have gone on a few more seasons, it was worth it for Timothy Olyphant to be able to jump into Justified.
Great show - give it a try - and I am really looking forward to the new season!
You and me both. The Boyd Crowder character is over the top (acting-wise), but in general the cast is excellent. Neal McDonough should have won the Emmy in 2012 for his one-season stint as Robert Quarles, bringing the crazy. At least he was nominated.
Looking forward to this. Justified is one of my favorite shows. Actually, I’ll go further; Justified is my favorite TV show right now. Breaking Bad may be objectively better, but I enjoy watching Justified a lot more.
Justified captures the essence of Elmore Leonard’s books better than any of the Elmore Leonard movies that I’ve ever seen (as I was writing that I started thinking…“wait, what about Jackie Brown”…but the hell with it, I’ll stand by my statement).
Dickie is the ultimate cockroach, and as such, survived. I think he even ended up with his cooler with $36K in it.
edit: actually, I take that back. Didn’t he show up at Loretta’s looking for Mags’s money with a trunk full of Errol, and get shot by Raylan? I don’t think it was a fatal shot, though. So he’s back in jail and penniless.
At the beginning of season 2, who would have guessed that Dickie would be the last Bennett standing?
Jeremy Davies was at the Emmys in September with his Dickie hair intact (i.e., looking like he’d been sleeping on a sandpaper pillow). It warmed my heart.
ETA: I’m really looking forward to seeing Boyd go up against a holy rollin’ preacher this season. Probably the perfect adversary for him, other than Raylan.
I love this show. But it’s weird that I don’t recall how last season played out. Can we get a recap of who’s dead or not? Ava dead and Winona alive? Wynn Duffy?
Winona (pregnant with Raylan’s child) is living at her sister’s place since she left Raylan.
Quarrels was last seen down one arm (I believe the left) and lying in a pool of blood, telling Raylan that Arlo had killed Trooper Tom.
Arlo was last seen locked up for the Trooper Tom incident (then he decided to take the fall for Boyd, who is now un-locked up and back with Ava) for the killing of Devil.
We learned Cousin Johnny Crowder was the one that ratted out Boyd (Johnny told Limehouse, limehouse told Raylan) regarding Devil’s killing.
Wynn Duffy was last seen being “interrogated” by Raylan in his motor home in the form of Russian Roulette. He survived.
I believe Dickie is out of jail at the moment.
That’s all I can remember off the top of my head! Please feel free to correct me.
Oops - pivotal moment of the whole episode is that we learn Arlo shot --and meant to shoot- " a lawman with a hat on" to defend Boyd; I.e., it’s now clear to Raylan that Arlo intended to shoot him to save Boyd. (Arlo did not know killed Trooper Tom - just saw the hat, assumed it was Raylan, and fired anyway.
Or so I think. Again, anyone please correct me if my facts are fuzzy.
I think it’s fairly true. The show is structured so that the seasons up until this point have been very self-contained; they’ve introduced a Big Bad in the season premiere, and that arc (plus mini-arcs within the season) has lasted until the season finale. There are a few loose threads from last season, but nothing that you can’t figure out within the context of the show.
I started watching mid-season 2, and needed to have some things explained to me. Things definitely made a lot more sense once I went back and got caught up.
It’s not crucial to know previous season plots, but the relationships might be confusing.
Like Raylan and Arlo, Raylan’s father. Arlo hates Raylan and has apparently tried to kill him, twice. Raylan’s feelings about Arlo are complicated and it’s not just because one is a lawman and the other is a criminal. There were times when I thought Raylan wanted his dad’s respect and approval. After Arlo admitted he thought he was shooting at Raylan, who knows where that relationship is going? Was Arlo telling the truth? Was it the Alzheimer’s? Does he really have Alzheimer’s?
Also Raylan and Boyd. They’ve saved each other’s bacon a few times but again, one’s a lawman, the other is a criminal. I don’t want to say they respect each other, but it seems that they do. At the least, they’re wary of each other. They’re formidable opponents, and even more formidable when they work to the same end, even if they don’t know they’re working together.
But while you don’t have to see the earlier seasons, you will have to pay attention as you watch. The writers don’t spell things out. The characters convey as much by what they don’t say than by what they do say.
Starting mid-season could be a challenge, as by then the story of that season has been set up. I wouldn’t suggest doing that.
And AuntiePam is correct - it does help to know a bit about some of the relationships over the years - but I still think someone just tuning in for the first time on Tuesday will be able to follow the story and eventually figure out the dynamics of some of those relationships soon enough.
The beauty of this show is the atmosphere, characters and fast pace of the action - you start to feel like you too are living in that back woods and most certainly do have a dog in that fight.
I would go as far as saying that they like each other. They were childhood friends that took different paths. Raylan won’t hesitate to put Boyd in jail, but I think he’d feel bad about having to kill him. He’d do it, but he’d think about it afterwards.
This was actually sort of addressed in the pilot. Raylan shoots Boyd but basically misses the kill shot. After the shooting, Art makes a comment to Raylan that is something to the effect of, “I thought they taught you to shoot to kill at Glencoe?” Boyd also asks him (from his hospital bed) if he missed because they were friends. Raylan is non-committal with his answer in both instances, IIRC.
For anyone who wants a good set up, I highly recommend reading the short story “Fire in the Hole” by Elmore Leonard. The whole series is based on the story and it gives great insight into the Boyd/Raylan relationship. My personal take on that relationship is that Boyd sees Raylan as more of a friend than Raylan sees Boyd, but Raylan feels a sense of indebtedness to Boyd (for saving his life when they were in the mine together and subsequent events over seasons 1-3) which he doesn’t know how to reconcile.
I saw a pre-season clip with Graham Yost and (someone who’s name I can’t remember) discussing the upcoming season. There will be an overarching story throughout the season, but no “Big Bad.” And, you know what? That’s fine by me. I didn’t think anyone could compete with Mags Bennett, but then along comes Quarles. I don’t think there’s any topping their awesomeness, so why not have a season to sort of cleanse our palates and not have anyone try and compete with those two?
I hope the lack of a Big Bad lets the writers bring in more one-off or limited run characters like we had in Season 1. One of the reasons I like Elmore Leonard’s work (and even though he doesn’t write the show, I still conisder it an Elmore Leonard work) is that he’s so good at writing dumb, hapless, inept criminals. I’m hoping we get some more of them, like the home invasion gang or Alan Ruck’s dentist. I want some more of Raylan hopping into the back seat of bad guys’ cars.
Oh, and Patton Oswalt will have a recurring role as a constable who sort of wants to be Raylan when he “grows up.”