It was a straightforward, long-awaited Justified this week. In an opening scene, Raylan spells out that to “hash something out” comes from the French for cut; like hatchet, or as Raylan puts it: to cut through the bullshit. And that seems to be the intention of this episode. First and foremost – and huge spoilers […]

People are dropping like flies along the way towards Drew Thompson. It’s a murder-heavy episode, but the most important one comes first: Arlo Givens, Harlan County’s Worst Father, dies of a fatal meeting between scissors and heart. Like his son after him, Arlo goes out with pizazz, on his own terms. He dies fighting, and […]

Perhaps combined last weeks over-bloated Justified and this weeks light episode could have made one interesting story. The Drew Thompson Mystery does not appear to be complicated enough to pad out an entire season, and so Raylan faces yet more easily dispatched obstacles. To make up for Raylan’s strange storyline, Boyd attends a high society […]

“Footchase” reveals a key problem in Justified’s new direction: without a central villain to organize around, the episode drags along, weighed down by a mess of plots and characters. The Drew Thompson Mystery is interesting in previous meticulously balanced episodes, which the sixth episode certainly was not. The show struggles to balance the nebulous mass […]

After spending the first four episodes apart, Justified’s hero and anti-hero finally meet again, brought together by familial ties to this season’s increasingly complex central mystery. Appropriately, the episode is titled “Kin,” and after last weeks lull, it’s a return to form. Justified’s is built on the premise (thematically; very literally) that eventually everyone must […]

The title, “Truth and Consequences,” of this weeks Justified is an apt summary of the episode. Truths are revealed; consequences are felt. First: Raylan learns the truth about Lindsey. Now that Winona has left Raylan for Kevin Bacon, and the writers are, mercifully, not trying to spice up Raylan’s life with any kind of inner-turmoil, […]

Breaking from its normal structure, Justified’s second episode, “Where’s Waldo,” simply picks up where the previous one left off. The episode replaces Raylan’s usual one-off marshalling story with a continuation of the investigation of the Panamanian diplomat bag found Arlo Givens’ walls in the previous episode. Meanwhile, Boyd’s burgeoning criminal empire continues to face problems […]

Why aren’t more people watching Justified? The show, now returning for its fourth season, which basically revolves around the fact that Timothy Olyphant totally pulls off a cowboy hat. Olyphant stars as Raylan Givens, a cowboy hat-wearing US Marshall, who solves crimes and is better than every one. Always. More people should be watching Justified […]