Breaking Bad. Game of Thrones. Mad Men. The Sopranos. The Wire. Like any self-respecting TV obsessive, you’ve watched them all. And with a dearth of long-running standbys still running, and a glut of new premieres to wait and see on, you need a mass-consumption candidate to fill in the weeks while we await for Autumn TV season to get going. Luckily, Justified is one of the best shows on television that hardly enough people are watching, and with all six seasons arriving on All 4 on Friday, it’s the perfect time to binge-watch the Kentucky crime drama and become an acolyte faster than Raylan Givens can draw down on a man.
Here's why you should be get started on this under-rated gem today.
1. Raylan Givens is the biggest, most certified badass on television.
Sure, Heisenberg had his dastardly moments, but we’re also fans of just straight-up shooting a guy. Timothy Olyphant’s Deputy U.S. Marshal (legally) kills way more dudes than a marshal ever should, looks great walking away from stuff, and generally possesses the kind of calm, collected, kill-you-with-his-stare demeanor every spaghetti western lawman should have—just with a necktie...and a BlackBerry. And while there’s plenty of subdermal emotionality going on here (an ex-wife, daddy issues), Raylan mostly serves as the show’s cooly unsympathetic centre for its alternately brilliant, sadistic, and just plain stupid criminals to bang their heads on. And get shot by.
2. His backup ain’t shabby, either.
The funniest part about gunslingin’ Raylan Givens is that he’s not even the best shot in his own office. That title goes to Afghanistan veteran and former Army Ranger Tim Gutterson, who, despite his wisecracks and frequent bouts of PTSD, can put a bullet through a perp’s brain stem before his hands get the signal to draw. Art Mullen is everybody’s favourite grumpy, too-old-for-this-shit white chief, and Rachel Brooks gets the unenviable role of being black female law enforcement in the Kentucky countryside. All in all, there are just as many quotable, GIFable moments from the show’s supporting cast as its twin fan favourites—and that’s saying a lot.
3. Boyd Crowder is the most stylish man on television
Neo-Nazi, born-again Christian, Harlan County’s preeminent oxy distributor, and much, much more. The many faces of Boyd Crowder don’t stop him from being a constant foil to Givens’s law-and-order ways, nor do they stop him from having the most consistently awesome style on television. Slim-cut denim, mouton-collar bombers, the sociopath-standard-issue air tie: Crowder has the Western duds and anarchist élan every Brooklyn lumberjack can only dream of.
4. More pulpy, witty, Kentucky-fried dialogue than you can shake a bag of oxy at.
As Boyd Crowder frequently likes to remind us, just because the men and women of Justified are Kentucky hicks with heavy Southern drawls doesn’t mean they aren’t a bunch of deceptively smart bastards (he should know—the guy IDs a quote by Thomas Jefferson and delivers another by Saul Bellow in the same scene). Whether it’s Boyd philosophising that "you dictate the river of fate through your own actions," or Raylan asking what he and dead owls have in common (they both don’t give a hoot), Justified is one of the most literary down-low crime dramas there’s ever been.
5. But most importantly, it’s about family.
Any modern TV show worth its salt must have copious amounts of subtext, and underneath all the drug heists, shootouts, and menacing, sneering dialogue, Justified is a show about the bonds of blood and history, and the ties that bind for better or worse. Raylan returns to his hometown of Harlan after escaping from his criminal father and petty thieving friends, only to be drawn back in—this time, on the other side of the law. And his family’s enemies don’t care that he’s a marshal, only a Givens. Try as he might to walk the straight and narrow, do his job, and reconcile with his wife, the hills of Harlan don’t forget. From the Crowders, to season two’s Bennetts, to the new season, when nincompoop Dewey Crowe’s extended family comes to Harlan to roost, this isn’t just some rote crime procedural: It’s the Hatfields and the McCoys, but with federal agents, mob bosses, drug dealers, and rocket launchers. What else do you need?
Justified seasons 1-6 are available on All 4 now.
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