Everyone Should Watch Justified

My fiancee and I have been systematically watching complete runs of series for a while now (not having cable, a lot of time is spent finding streams that work). We started with The X-Files, which understandably took a while to get through. Using the Vince Gilligan connection, we moved to Breaking Bad, which led to Deadwood (unintentionally) via Anna Gunn. Timothy Olyphant brought us to Justified (you didn't need to know all of that, I'm just really fond of drawing connections), which I'd been hearing a lot of good press about on NPR and the AV Club. We're closing in on the first season finale and it's easily become one of the most entertaining 40 minutes of television I watch. 

To be sure, I need to adjust to the styles of the show. Justified doesn't have a distinctive look like Deadwood or Breaking Bad. It mostly just looks like any number of shows like Burn Notice or Royal Pains, sort of blandly polished. Also, I've gotten so used to heavily serialized shows and have such an aversion to the seemingly millions of police procedurals out there that when it became apparent that Justified was going to feature a different conflict every week while trying to balance an over-arcing story, I instinctively wanted to reject it. However, after a few bumps in the early going, Justified has won me over, full force.

The AV Club makes the point that Justified has cracked the formula for combining serialized and procedural plotting and they are spot on. But what I didn't expect from the procedural elements was how exciting and mysterious it makes the next episode (I never watch the "next week on..." previews for shows because they are always misleading and always give away too much for my tastes). Instead of going into the next episode wondering how the protagonist(s) are going to extricate themselves from whatever problem they are in (and I can't help but think of Breaking Bad right now), Justified makes you wonder what sort of case Olyphant's Raylan Givens is going to have to deal with while he tries to deal with bigger priorities.

Another bonus of the procedural elements is that they allow for a cavalcade of amazing guest stars. The first few I got excited about were Alan Ruck and Tony Hale, but then a trend started to develop. Peter Jason. Ray McKinnon. W. Earl Brown. Sean Bridgers. Every episode was turning into a Deadwood reunion! Con, the reverend, Dan Dority, and Johnny Burns were all back shootin' the shit with Seth Bullock (well... not so much the reverend). Little makes me happier than thinking about the between takes conversations and everyone reliving their Deadwood experiences. Plus, I'm a fan of filmmakers who work with the same people repeatedly because it really gives the sense that everyone likes each other and is having fun making movies and that's the feeling I get when I see these guest stars. I can't wait to see who else is going to pop up.

As it's based on the work of Elmore Leonard, I'd be remiss if I didn't include the amazing and often funny dialogue. Everyone gets to shine, but any time Raylan gets to banter with an adversary, the show is electric. This is probably why the episode with W. Earl Brown is my favorite. The only issue I have with Justified so far is that some of Raylan's colleagues cyphers. They are simply there to follow orders. For a show that creates such memorable one-off characters, it's disappointing that the supporting cast gets such short shrift. Hopefully that will change as the show builds its world. 

Oh, and the theme song sucks. Two issues. Watch Justified!