Justified

I don’t watch weekly television. Most recent was Yellowstone, but even then we DVR the whole season and binge them over the course of a week. This means the last TV show I waited a week for a next episode of was Justified.

Ah. Justified.

The Beloved Spouse™ and I watched all six seasons a few weeks ago, the

second time we’ve hung with Raylan and Boyd and Ava since the show went off the air in 2015. While there are lines we can recite with the characters, there are still things we hadn’t noticed and the special features are as good as any I’ve seen.

I don’t have time to discuss all the things I love about this show. Some plots have more twists than an intestine, but the show is an homage to Elmore Leonard, whose plots got out of hand at times and no one cared. That’s not why people read his books, and it’s not why people watch Justified. Leonard’s writing was all about character and attitude and the show has those in spades, from the opening shot of the pilot, Raylan walking through a crowded hotel pool area to kill Tommy Bucks, to the last scene in prison, where Boyd says Raylan personally delivered news of Ava’s “death” because they dug coal together.

Never has anything that ran as many episodes maintained that level of wit in the writing, people saying laugh out loud things and not realizing they’re funny, it’s just what that character would say. Raylan: “If you wanted me to shoot you in the front, you shoulda run toward me.” Boyd: “God damn, woman, you only shoot people when they're eatin' supper?” Ava: “If by uncomfortable you mean it made my skin crawl, then yes.” Dewey Crowe: ““You mean I got four kidneys?” (We could do a whole series on the wisdom of Dewey Crowe.) Art Mullen: “That mystery bag thing is giving me a bit of a Marshal stiffy.”

The show dodged a bullet when the creators realized Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) could not die in the pilot; the chemistry between him and Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) was too good. This kept Justified from being a crime of the week cop show—okay, an extremely well-written crime of the week cop show—and led them to build around annual villains while still showing what else marshals might do on slow days.

Ultimately what makes the show work—in addition to the talent and dedication of the writers, cast, and crew—was the devotion to Elmore Leonard. The special features are full of oblique and direct references to the respect and affection everyone had for him. He died during pre-production for Season Five, and that year’s extras include a hilarious reading of The Onion’s obituary by Patton Oswalt, annotated to show where they broke all ten of Leonard’s Ten Rules of writing. “The Coolest Guy in the Room” is a half-hour biography interspersed with cast members reading from his books. The extra bonus disk has another half-hour of readings, and the actors who read make sure we know what a treat it was to work with him and know him.

Justified is violent, irreverent, funny, and heartbreaking, all in balanced doses. If you haven’t seen it, do so. If you have, do so again. It gets better with age and familiarity. If you’ve seen it and didn’t care for it…different people have different tastes. You’re just not someone I’d want to hang with, is all.

Justified

The Beloved Spouse™ and I re-watched Justified recently. Didn’t quite binge it. One or two a night generally sufficed, though there were evenings when the end of a season neared and we couldn’t leave one or two episodes hanging, especially if we were going to have to take a couple of nights off. Watching the show this way gave us a new perspective on it. We both found it even more enjoyable than when we watched them as they aired.

First the disclaimer: we never actually watched Justified live, as in “Tuesday nights at 10:00.” TBS didn’t retire until shortly before the final episode. Staying up till 11:00 and getting up at 5:30 was not on her agenda. (Nor would it have been on mine.) We routinely watched the show on DVR over Wednesday dinner, which meant we got to skip the commercials.

Of course, fast-forwarding through commercials isn’t the same a skipping them. You still have a break. Justified was written well enough to take these breaks into consideration, but still, they’re there. Watching on DVD a year-and-a-half later removed even that small gap in continuity. The episodes held together better. It was easier to get into the state all authors and readers seek, the vivid and continuous dream where we forget we’re being told (or shown) a story and accept everything that’s happening as real. (Kudos to John Gardner for that felicitous phrase, and to John McNally for teaching it to me.)

Add to that the lack of a week between episodes and nine months between seasons and the time lines make more sense. Clues sown to be harvested an episode or two later came to fruition that same night or the next. I’d always thought Season 3 was the weakest, as the story lines didn’t hold together as well. Watching 13 episodes in a week showed I’d been wrong. Season 3 works very well. Season 4 still leaves me wondering how Drew Thompson held the entire area in thrall for 30 years, but a lot more of it makes sense to me now.

What I liked best about this re-viewing is the relationships. Of the characters, yes, but also of the plot lines. I can’t think of any show that stayed more true to its characters than did Justified. While Boyd and Ava may seem to be all over the place in their plans and personal relationship, at their core they’re the same. Boyd’s conversion in Season 1 may have been legitimate—I believe now that it was—but it was also convenient. It was what Boyd Crowder needed to hold things together at that time. When that was no longer the case, he moved on to the next thing. Had his daddy not fucked with his church, Boyd might have been quite happy to stick with it, but once his flock was gone, so was he.

Same with Ava. Yes, she’s the small town girl who still had a crush on Raylan, but she also killed Bowman in cold blood once she’d made up her mind he had to go. Much as she detested Boyd early on, it made sense that they’d get together eventually. Raylan had Winona, but even if he hadn’t, Ava would have been Raylan’s girl. She and Boyd were equals. Until they weren’t, and they went their separate ways.

If the show had a weakness it was in the use of the subordinate marshal characters, Brooks and Gutterson. Neither had full advantage taken of their potential as characters. Brooks ended up filling a plot role as the acting Chief Deputy who didn’t do things the way Art would have. Gutterson got better banter opportunities with Raylan and a few more plot lines of his own, especially in Season 4 when he engaged with Boyd’s man Colton. Erica Tazel and Jacob Pitts were up to weightier chores.

Maybe. In the end, this was Raylan and Boyd’s show, two brothers from different mothers

whose love-hate relationship played out over the entire course of the series. That’s what Justified got right and did best. The writers knew this—I suspect they knew they’d dodged a bullet when they decided not to let Boyd die at the end on the pilot as he did in the short story that served as source material—and played it expertly. No TV show, movie, miniseries, book, or other storytelling medium ever realized a fuller symmetry than did Justifed in the first and last times Raylan and Boyd see each other: hugging in front of the Nazi church building, then Raylan’s “courtesy visit” to Boyd in the final scene, “because we dug coal together.” The perfect ending to what was damn close to a perfect show, when taken in consideration of what it set out to be, a tribute to the genius of Elmore Leonard.

If you’ve not seen Justified, you ought to. Even if you’re not a huge fan or Leonard’s work—through if you’re not, why not?—there’s a lot there in the relationship building. If you have seen it, watch it again. You’ll enjoy it even more. We did, and will again.

PS
A key benefit to buying the DVD set is the special features. They’re excellent, especially the first three or four years. (Season 6 not so much. I had the feeling they rushed them to get the boxed set out.) The sense of commitment of the writers, cast and crew is palpable throughout, as is the affection for Leonard and his work. There are several features that deal with him exclusively, notably “The Coolest Guy in the Room.” If you know anything of Leonard’s writing and philosophy, Patton Oswalt’s reading of Leonard’s obituary in The Onion is not to be missed. (I would have planted a link, but it appears to be locked down on the Internet. Sorry. The written obit is here. Look up the Ten Rules yourself if you don’t know them. Must I do everything?)

Justified

(Be forewarned: while there are no blatant spoilers, bits of the show’s ending may be inferred by reading this.)

Rarely, if ever, has an artistic enterprise been more a labor of love than Justified. David Simon had a similar level of commitment to The Wire, but as a soapbox. Justified was created and existed for the love of Elmore Leonard’s work—and for the man—from Graham Yost to everyone involved.

True, the story arcs didn’t always hold up to close scrutiny. Season Three was a mess. Season Four was great fun until it was over and you had time to catch your breath and wonder how Drew Thompson was able to pull all that shit off.

Doesn’t matter. Justified was never about the stories. It was all attitude. The characters’ attitudes, and Justified was homage to Elmore Leonard; of course it was all about the writing.

the show’s attitude toward them. Few shows have ever been so overtly about the writing, but the whole point of

This was never more evident than in how the writers and actors responded after Leonard’s death in 2013. Examples abound. Several came to mind immediately:

The brief, understated tribute to Leonard before the Season Five premiere. He would have approved. No histrionics, nary a word wasted. Everyone said their piece and got out of the way, just as he would have written it.

Later that season, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) was going on as only he could during an interrogation when Deputy Marshal Tim Gutterson (Jacob Pitts, perfectly deadpan) suggested that Boyd “leave out the parts we’d tend to skip.” A true Easter egg. Leonard aficionados caught it right away, a direct quote from his “Ten Rules of Writing.” The Beloved Spouse and I replayed the scene several times to catch every nuance.

Leonard made his bones writing Westerns, and never denied much of his crime fiction were updated Westerns. It was only right for Raylan  (Timothy Olyphant) and Boon (Jonathan Tucker) to square off in the middle of a lonely road to see who was faster.

In the pre-Justified Givens stories (Pronto, Riding the Rap, “Fire in the Hole”), Raylan wears what

Leonard referred to as a “businessman’s Stetson,” comparing it to the hats worn by the Dallas cops in pictures of the Lee Harvey Oswald shooting; he never cared for the hat Olyphant made famous in the show. Raylan’s hat suffers a bullet hole in the finale, so Raylan takes the hat of the man who shot him, who bought it to bust Raylan’s balls. It’s still a little bigger than Leonard’s idea, but it’s a lot closer.

 

No true Leonard fan avoided choking up in the final episode when Raylan, packing up his desk for the last time, picked up a well-used copy of George V. Higgins’s masterpiece The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Gutterson looks at the book and asks if Raylan bought it used, or if he read it a lot. Raylan says “If I said I read it ten times, it would be low,” and tosses it over. I have the edition of Eddie Coyle that Leonard wrote the introduction to. Here’s what he felt about it: “I finished the book in one sitting and felt as if I’d been set free. So this was how you do it.” (Knowing how the writers and crew felt about him, one has to wonder if the copy used was Leonard’s.)

Near the end of the finale, Raylan four years back in Miami, the deputy who tells him he has transport duty is named Greg Sutter, after Leonard’s long-time researcher.

The ultimate tribute to Leonard was in how all of the above were done without mawkishness. Yost always said he thought of Justified as a comedy. More than funny, the show was fun. It never took itself too seriously, though it also never gave its characters short shrift. The cast of rednecks—many of whom would qualify as white trash, not to put too fine a point on it—were always treated respectfully, even when they were on the short end of the humor. While Justified could be dark and unexpectedly violent—think of Mikey’s and Katherine’s confrontation in the penultimate episode—it always gave its characters their due, and a fair chance. Just as Dutch always did.

A Foolish Inconsistency is the Hobgoblin of Small Minds

Yes, I know I got the quote wrong. In the context of today’s post, what I have here is correct.

Thomas Pluck recently posted an excellent blog to Crime Factory about foul language in books. The topic occasionally pops up, is debated for a couple of weeks, then subsides as writers find other things they can’t control to vent about. Pluck’s comments were timed with something that came to notice here.

The Beloved Spouse and I will occasionally watch a bit of stand-up on Comedy Central before turning in. Hop over to Channel 690, see what’s on, and stick around a while if it looks promising. We’re also regular viewers of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. With the Supreme Court currently looking into what can, and cannot, be said on television, one thing struck us: there is a strange inconsistency in what network Standards and Practices will allow, and what they won’t.

Let’s take Comedy Central, notably stand-up comics, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. They can’t say “fuck” or “shit” and get away with it; either word will be bleeped every time. This is in keeping with the late, great, George Carlin’s definition of the seven words you can never say on television. “Shit” is, however, permissible on FX, which is owned by Fox, which is the Official Network of Family Value Conservatives, as is “piss.” On Comedy Central—near as we can tell—you can be pissed off, but you can’t take a piss. A little weird, but it gets better.

CC allows the word “dick” as a reference to someone, but it can’t be used as a body part. You can be a dick, but you can’t have one, never mind why calling someone a dick is an insult. People act “dickish” all the time. “Balls” is okay, unless in the context of body part, so someone can have balls (“It takes a lot of balls to do that,” “You got some balls on you.”) but he cannot actually have balls. The origin of the phrase is, again, neglected. The secret here may be in the connection to what Archie Bunker so eloquently called “the groinal area.”

"Asshole” is a good one. You can say “ass” and you can say “hole,” but you can’t say “asshole.” Even better, they won’t bleep the whole word; just the “hole.” So “ass” is okay and “hole” is okay, but they are banned when combined, and it’s the “hole” that makes it obscene.

Then there is “goddamnit.” This one is okay for reasons that escape me. The Cultural Wars in this country are generally between the Christian Right (sometimes referred to as The Right) and people who generally want to be left alone and think we have bigger fish to fry (also known as The Wrong). A couple of ministers keep themselves in the public eye—and, not coincidentally, keep those contributions rolling in—by periodically pointing out the road to Perdition is paved with foul language and semi-second glimpses of Janet Jackson’s nipple. How does “goddamnit” get past these sentinels of propriety? I’m no Bible scholar, but isn’t taking the Lord Thy God’s name in vain one of the Ten Commandments? How does that get a pass, and “balls” doesn’t?

A study was recently released that says conservatives and racists are less intelligent. (Than what, we’re not so sure.) I don’t believe this—I’ll have more to say on From the Home Office in a couple of days—though inconsistencies like the above do give me pause. I sincerely don’t want to come across as insensitive—though, as regular readers know, I will if I feel the need—I’m genuinely curious about how this works, especially the “goddamnit” business. Feel free to enlighten me in the comments.

Even More Justified Than before

Justified is becoming Wire-esque in its storyline and character development. Early in the season it was a cool show, with offbeat plots, sharp dialog, and fresh, well-defined characters. Now the end of Season One approaches, and we can see how everything that seemed merely episodic three months ago is showing how interrelated it was. It’s a thing of beauty, and can’t be an accident.

The show’s worth watching to see what happens with Boyd Crowder alone. Is he legitimate about his “church,” though in a twisted way? Is he bughouse nuts? Is there some criminal enterprise here we still haven’t seen? No one—including the other characters—has a clue. It’s fascinating to watch everyone else act on incomplete knowledge, knowing how what appears to be a reasonable action by a character isn’t going to work out like he expects, but wondering how bad the eventual miscalculation is going to be.

Best of all, it makes sense. No supernatural aspects. No wild chases with gunfights to let God sort ‘em out. Solid writing and performances by excellent character actors, run with rare vision by Graham Yost. It’s enough to get me watching television again.

(Editor’s Note: Speaking of watching television, The Bridge will premiere on CBS July 10. Written in part by friend John McFetridge, this Canadian show has received good reviews and word of mouth from north of the border. I’m familiar enough with John’s work and standards to look forward to it with anticipation, and recommend everyone giving it a shot.)