I'm not that into romantic storytelling. Stories that deliberately obfuscate the flaws of their characters in order to make them reflect an ideal. Strength. Beauty. Love. Good. Evil. That sort of stuff. I get it, it's a Platonician form of narration that aims to give the audience something they've been longing for in their actual lives. It's a century old storytelling tradition. It works, it's just not my thing.
Except when it is.
Justified is was very much a romantic television series. It had no basis whatsoever in reality. The Elmore Leonard inspired show was closest thing to a contemporary Western you could get, without the era details and antiquated manners I always skipped in Western novels anyway. See, I was completely gung ho about Justified for the time it lasted, called it "the best show on television" in several water cooler discussions I had. Now, the show is over and I've watched every episode. It's time to go back on this firestorm of awesome that raged in my head for six years.
- Protagonists Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder and to a certain extent Art Mullen are all different representation of a same concept: the law. It's a very American thing to philosophize on how to position yourself against the concept of law, justice and the authorities, but thanks to the excellent writing of * AHEM * CANADIAN writer Graham Yost and his talented team, it materialized into three lives spectacularly clashing because of their set beliefs on the law and its meaning. Raylan enforces it. Boyd challenges it and Art lives his life in accordance to it. Get my drift?
- That said, I thought the ending of Justified denied the very spirit that made the series successful. I'm still unsure whether Raylan and Boyd's rivalry turned into a blood feud or if Good triumphed over Evil, but there didn't need to be any resolution to their conundrum as this ideological confrontation lives every day in America. We glorify drug dealers, real and imagined, for taking responsibility for their success. We chastise police protocols and idolize rebels, yet we wouldn't feel safe without institutions looking over us. These are very contemporary contradictions in our Zeitgeist. It doesn't need resolving. At least not now.
- Justified turned Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins, two Hollwood jobbers, into pop culture superstars and rightfully so. Goggins is the more talented of the two, which might explain why Boyd Crowder because such a cult figure for fans of the show. I have to say Boyd was my favorite character I came across in God knows how long. He's an intellectual, a philosopher and a psychopath whenever he's forced to make a life-or-death choice. His ultimate goal is to make a life for himself and form a family, but he's always going to choose himself over his friends if he has to make a run for it. He is reckless and unflinching, yet thoroughly human.
- I believe what prevented Justified from becoming the equivalent of Breaking Bad or even Sons of Anarchy in the ratings was the lack of an overarching storyline. It is supposed to be about Raylan catching Boyd, but for the first three seasons they foster such a brilliant "friennemies" relationship (because they dug coal together), that nobody really got into the whole Raylan vs Boyd thing and whatever season specific storyline was going on became what Justified was about, not unlike hospital soaps in the nineties. It was both a failure from Graham Yost and his team and an happy accident. Boyd Crowder wouldn't have become such an iconic character if he had been marked off as evil from day one. The shroud of ambivalence made him great.
- I've always found Graham Yost's dialogue to be very enjoyable, although overeloquent. Everybody in Justified is a smart mouth. I will say though that Yost's dialogue has never felt more natural than in Sam Elliott's mouth. The man straight out delivers in the last season.
- So yeah, the series is over. It's been over for six months, but it took me some time to gather the courage of ordering the last DVD set and sit through it. Justified is the only show I bothered buying in DVD for years, aside from the first season of True Detective. It was an exceptionally well-written show that didn't need to break the rules to stand out. Now, excuse me as I'm going to go mourn the characters I have thoroughly loved for six years. I'm happy it ended before the series outstayed its welcome (and it got very close to), but I'll still have to take a moment to grieve. In the meantime, I will leave you will the most underrated television show theme in recent years. It never failed to get me pumped up for some tough guys talking shit and raising hell.