Justified

[Craig H]

There were indeed tears. That was a great, great, great ending to this story. First part of the episode moved a little briskly, but everything was wrapped up nice. I'm not going to lie, seeing Raylan not wind up with Winona bums me out. And that last conversation with Boyd. Damn.

 

What a series. I will for sure miss it a ton.

[Eivion]

That was a fine ending. I'm a little disappointed Raylan didn't end up with Winona, but it somehow makes sense that he didn't.

[APO]

Whew. That confrontation in the barn was tense. The final conversation between Raylan and Boyd was great and yes there were tears.

It's amazing how different the final seasons were for Justified and SOA.

[Craig H]

SOA was so much of a fucking mess the last couple seasons.

[Jrag]

WYNN DUFFY SURVIVES!   9 mil richer and getting a tan the natural way.

[EVA]

I liked the finale a lot better the second time I watched it. The first time through, it kinda threw me off, because the big showdown happened in the middle, so I spent the rest of the episode waiting for them to make good on "No cell can hold him!" and Boyd's promises to get revenge. None of which happened, of course. Second time around, I was able to appreciate it for what it was.

The showdown was fantastic, though, and answered the question from way back in the very first episode, whether Raylan was the type of person who would've shot Tommy Bucks even if he hadn't pulled on him.

I liked seeing Boyd revert back to his Pentacostal preacher persona at the end, because 1) that's probably been his most enjoyable persona over the course of the series, and 2) underscores the point that "Boyd" has always been whoever he thought he needed to be to get through any given situation - Neo-Nazi hatemonger, charismatic evangelist, meek coalminer, ruthless drug dealer, whatever. Playing the preacher got him through prison before, so of course, that's who he chooses to be again.

And, of course, DUFFY WINS.

Plus, it's cool that they left all the major characters alive, that way in 5-10 years when someone at FX decides it's time to milk that property for some more money, everyone can come back for the "event series" continuation.

[Jrag]

Why wait 5-10 years to milk it when the Wynn Duffy: Surfing and Scheming spinoff is right there?  

 

Better Call Saul being so good has surely doubled the spinoff odds for other critically acclaimed shows.  Speaking of, didn't see you in the Saul thread this season EVA.  Are you falling behind?

[EVA]

Yeah, I've been behind on that since the first episode, so I've been avoiding spoilers. I think I've got the last half of the season still sitting on the DVR right now. It's great, I just can't seem to find the time to finish it.

[supremebve]

That is one of the most satisfying finales I've ever watched.  I never thought this was the best show on TV, but I always thought it was the most fun.  That last scene was perfect.  Am I the only one who thinks that Boyd gave himself up, because when it came down to it the only two people in the world he actually respected are Ava and Raylan?  Despite all of their bullshit, I've always sensed that Raylan and Boyd actually really liked each other. 

[Rev Ray]

-  I missed the episode where Boyd had Ava alone where she basically gives up that she's providing info to Raylan.  Since Boyd asks "Was she alone?" when Raylan tells her she died, do you think he knew she was pregnant?

 

-  Raylan is wearing the hat Boon stole from the hipster, right?

[stiffshots]

-  Raylan is wearing the hat Boon stole from the hipster, right?

 

Not quite. Boon opted NOT to take the hipster's hat, then went out and got his own (smaller) Stetson.  Which fit more with his "Wild West gunslinger wannabe" personality.

 

That was always one of Elmore Leonard's minor issues with the show: Raylan's hat was too damn big.  He initially envisioned the hat as a "business Stetson" a la the cop in the famous Ruby-shoots-Oswald picture, but eventually conceded that Tim O made the big white hat work.

[PuroresuFan]

After his last three character performances, FX (or any network with half a brain) needs to start working on something that features Walt Goggins as the lead actor.

[Craig H]

Rev Ray, we already covered the hat thing, but I don't think Boyd realized Ava was pregnant. Hell, even Ava had no idea she was pregnant at the time.

 

Regarding Raylan and Boyd, I've commented on it before, but Boyd, on more than one occasion, has saved Raylan's life, done something nice for Raylan even though Raylan needles him like crazy, and flat out told Raylan that Raylan was the only friend Boyd had, which is true. Boyd's only friend, Ava excluded, was Raylan. Everyone that Boyd surrounded himself with was just a lackey. Raylan always struggled with that, even in that final episode, because Boyd was someone he could be friends with except Boyd's an outlaw. Raylan could never separate that fact from anything else, even preventing him from giving Boyd the benefit of the doubt. Boyd was an outlaw in the past and despite turning over a new leaf, Raylan just could never believe it and practically drove Boyd back to being an outlaw. I guess that's one of the tragedies of this series.

 

All that made it very surprising to see Raylan just let Ava go like he did. You could tell Raylan wanted to bring her in, but part of me feels that because Raylan is a dad, there's no way he could take Ava away from Boyd Jr.

 

By the way, I must have missed it, but how does Ava have that house and live off the grid if she gave Wynn the money?

[cwoy2j]

Rev Ray, we already covered the hat thing, but I don't think Boyd realized Ava was pregnant. Hell, even Ava had no idea she was pregnant at the time.

 

Regarding Raylan and Boyd, I've commented on it before, but Boyd, on more than one occasion, has saved Raylan's life, done something nice for Raylan even though Raylan needles him like crazy, and flat out told Raylan that Raylan was the only friend Boyd had, which is true. Boyd's only friend, Ava excluded, was Raylan. Everyone that Boyd surrounded himself with was just a lackey. Raylan always struggled with that, even in that final episode, because Boyd was someone he could be friends with except Boyd's an outlaw. Raylan could never separate that fact from anything else, even preventing him from giving Boyd the benefit of the doubt. Boyd was an outlaw in the past and despite turning over a new leaf, Raylan just could never believe it and practically drove Boyd back to being an outlaw. I guess that's one of the tragedies of this series.

 

All that made it very surprising to see Raylan just let Ava go like he did. You could tell Raylan wanted to bring her in, but part of me feels that because Raylan is a dad, there's no way he could take Ava away from Boyd Jr.

 

By the way, I must have missed it, but how does Ava have that house and live off the grid if she gave Wynn the money?

 

IIRC, it's the guest house of the person she works for. She tends horses for a rich lady or something like that.

[EVA]

Another great payoff in the finale:

So much of the subtext of the series was about how people are shaped by the culture they're born into. In the case of Harlan County, that resulted in generations of impoverished people with violent tendencies and few options in life beyond digging coal or a life of crime. In his last conversation with Raylan, Boyd said himself that the only way to get out of that town alive was to not be born there at all.

Well, one way or another - either by choice or by means beyond their control, the next generation of Crowders and Givenses aren't going to grow up in Harlan.

[cwoy2j]

 

-  Raylan is wearing the hat Boon stole from the hipster, right?

 

Not quite. Boon opted NOT to take the hipster's hat, then went out and got his own (smaller) Stetson.  Which fit more with his "Wild West gunslinger wannabe" personality.

 

That was always one of Elmore Leonard's minor issues with the show: Raylan's hat was too damn big.  He initially envisioned the hat as a "business Stetson" a la the cop in the famous Ruby-shoots-Oswald picture, but eventually conceded that Tim O made the big white hat work.

 

 

In his blog, Leonard said the hat was a Stetson Open Road

 

[Craig H]

Another great payoff in the finale:

So much of the subtext of the series was about how people are shaped by the culture they're born into. In the case of Harlan County, that resulted in generations of impoverished people with violent tendencies and few options in life beyond digging coal or a life of crime. In his last conversation with Raylan, Boyd said himself that the only way to get out of that town alive was to not be born there at all.

Well, one way or another - either by choice or by means beyond their control, the next generation of Crowders and Givenses aren't going to grow up in Harlan.

 

Nice job picking up on that. I didn't think about that at the time.

 

Here's a really good interview with Walton too: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/10/justified-finale-walton-goggins-talks-series-end

 

They pulled off ending the cycle of violence with someone's kids WAY better, like, a million times better, than SOA did. The more I think about Justified as a whole, the more I think it blows SOA out of the water. SOA isn't even in the same league.

 

And I keep going back to that last line about digging coal, which was Walton's idea. That was the perfect way to end things.

[cwoy2j]

I thought this part of the interview was interesting

 

 

There’s one part that they cut out, and I was very disappointed that they cut it out, that would have made it a little clearer, and in hindsight I think it’s the best thing, but…when Boyd pulls that trigger on Ava two times, he knows that there are no bullets in that gun. There’s a shot that Adam Arkin did, and a suggestion that he made, that was so appropriate in that moment where, after I fired that gun at Ava two times, Adam had me take the gun and point it at my own head and pull the trigger.

 

I wonder how that would've changed the dynamic of the scene.

[Jrag]

I assumed Boyd had a count on the bullets on the initial watch because he is always on top of stuff like that.  The trigger pull was a frustration thing.

[HumanChessgame]

So enough people whose opinions I respect are high on this show, so I'm thinking of giving it a try.  Is it good right off the bat or does it take a season or more to really get going?

[supremebve]

So enough people whose opinions I respect are high on this show, so I'm thinking of giving it a try.  Is it good right off the bat or does it take a season or more to really get going?

Season 1 is good, not great.  Season 2 is on the short list of best seasons of television of all time.  Everything after that is up and down, but you will love the characters enough that you'll enjoy all of it.

[BurningBeard]

Season 1 starts off as kinda like a stand-alone run of the mill cop show for the first six episodes then develops more of an overarching storyline and really gets good. The even numbered seasons are definitely the best but the only one that's actually pretty shit is season 5 (apart from an Eric Roberts cameo)

 

As far as the ending, I thought it was very Elmore Leonard so was pretty perfect. I kinda groaned at the 'four years later' card but it was all the better for it and had a nice callback to the very first episode. Loved the final conversation between Raylan and Boyd.

 

And as far as Raylan taking Boon's hat... I'm just gonna go ahead and assume he only changes hats when he takes them off a dead gunslinger and that's how he got his original stetson

[PuroresuFan]

Season 1 starts off as kinda like a stand-alone run of the mill cop show for the first six episodes then develops more of an overarching storyline and really gets good. The even numbered seasons are definitely the best but the only one that's actually pretty shit is season 5 (apart from an Eric Roberts cameo)

 

As far as the ending, I thought it was very Elmore Leonard so was pretty perfect. I kinda groaned at the 'four years later' card but it was all the better for it and had a nice callback to the very first episode. Loved the final conversation between Raylan and Boyd.

 

And as far as Raylan taking Boon's hat... I'm just gonna go ahead and assume he only changes hats when he takes them off a dead gunslinger and that's how he got his original stetson

 

I love that idea so I'm going to assume it as well.

[Craig H]

THREAD RESURRECTION!!!!

I haven't commented on City Primeval yet, but I'm digging it so far. Thought episode 1 was a little bumpy because it was more or less the introduction of a bunch of new characters that I don't care that much about, yet, and less about Raylan. I did think Boyd Holbrook was playing a good villain though.

Episode 2 was much stronger and for the first time in a long time, we got to see Timothy Olyphant erupting like a volcano. He was in full Seth Bullock mode, which I think is the first time he's ever been like that on Justified. Usually Raylan is very cool and calm, but this was maybe the first time I can remember where he was fully unhinged and it was AWESOME.

Liked episode 3 too and man was that ending tough to watch. Usually when I talk out loud to my TV it's because something sucks or something really gets to me (in a good way) and in this case it was, "oh Raylan, come on!" 

I did expect more of a fish out of water type stuff, but they've largely avoided that except for the super douchebag cop who I feel like only says, "THIS IS HOW WE DO THINGS IN DETROIT!" Like, ok dude. Thanks for being the ACAB poster boy.

This is also far more serialized than I thought it would be. Justified was too, but Justified mixed the serialization with criminal bust of the week type stuff. I think that is what is throwing me off the most. It's still really good and I'm enjoying the hell out of it, but that total serialization and lack of anyone else from Justified is a bit of a bummer.

I will say that I do like how the people involved with making the show keep bringing the band back together. For example, Sneaky Pete had a lot of the people working on it that worked on Justified, so we got a lot of Justified actors on Sneaky Pete. Now some of those people from Sneaky Pete are showing up on City Primeval. For whatever reason, I like seeing that happen because it just makes me think that all of those people really enjoy working with each other.

And I do wonder if this continues beyond this season. I have seen this described as both a season of TV and a limited series, so who knows for sure. And with the strike going on, no one is really talking about the future of the series, but I can't imagine Olyphant and others would say no to more Justified related stuff. The one thing that did make me think we'd get more Justified beyond this was Willa wanting to visit Harlan. Seems like one of those things that will mean more later on.

[Craig H]

City Primeval continues to fucking rule and get better and better. Props to Boyd Holbrook for giving the best performance he's ever given. I'm not sure where he ranks when it comes to Raylan's rogues gallery, but he's up there. He's not the top, that's obviously Boyd. I think I worried about what Boon would do to Rayland more than what Clement will do to him. Dickie was one of the few to actually get in some good shots on Raylan, but also, Raylan was strung up and Dickie was a cripple so ultimately he didn't have much of a chance. So Clement is probably above Dickie. Clement is above Quarels too. Mags seems like she was more dangerous that Clement because she was probably one of the smartest people in the holler. Limehouse was legit scary, but never seemed to aim to put Raylan's life at risk.

So yeah, Clement is up there, but ultimately, I don't think he has much of a shot at Raylan. Still, he's a great character and while I could see what happened at the end of the last episode 2 or 3 episodes away, it was still pretty sad.

Two episodes to go and the messaging is starting to feel like we're going to get more than one season of this. My hope is that after Mansell is put in the ground or in handcuffs that we get a Boyd teaser in the finale or something to that effect.