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Is FX's Rebooted 'Justified: City Primeval' Justified? Here's What The Reviews Say
"Justified" ran for six seasons and was one of the most critically acclaimed TV series of the century, but it's somehow still criminally underrated and underseen. The show is getting a new season — a sort of reboot/revival that lasts for eight episodes starting on July 18, 2023 on FX.
This new version of the show ditches Kentucky for Detroit, and is based on Elmore Leonard's novel "City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit." Timothy Olyphant is back as Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens, and he's on the lookout for The Oklahoma Wildman, played by Boyd Holbrook. Walton Goggins doesn't seem to be back in any way, which is a tad unfortunate.
Here's what critics think of the new miniseries.
The premise
Time waits for no one, and yet even as a middle-aged man (and father!) in a foreign city and a contemporary era, U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) remains, in "Justified: City Primeval," the same cocky, laid-back badass that fans knew and loved during the series’ original six seasons, which wrapped in 2015. A modern-day Kentucky-bred gunslinger in a ten-gallon hat and with a roguish twinkle (or steely intensity) in his eye, Raylan is an old schooler with new-school charm and wit, and FX’s eight-episode revival (premiering July 18) finds him a bit grayer and more exasperated by his responsibilities, but otherwise still a lawman of peerless cool and skill, as quick on the draw as he is with a smartass remark.
The new big bad villain is great
Here, the biggest complication comes in the form of Clement Mansell, a.k.a. "The Oklahoma Wildman," a grifter and killer who treats Detroit as his personal playground to let his psychotic tendencies run amok. Mansell is played by Boyd Holbrook and is the latest in a long line of "Justified" villains who have outsized personalities and enjoy running their mouths at least as much as they do causing mayhem. Holbrook has done a lot of good work lately (including playing a more fantastical villain in Netflix's "The Sandman"), but his turn as Mansell might be career-defining. He's a full-on maniac in this — singing his heart out to rock songs he blasts from the radios of cars he steals, prancing around his girlfriend's apartment in his tighty-whities, scratching his balls with a pistol, and enforcing his will on every mark or two-bit criminal that comes within his orbit. ("What am I doing?" he asks rhetorically at one point. "Whatever I want.")
His adversary is one Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), a frosty Oklahoma psycho with roots in Detroit’s underworld and a thing for The White Stripes (this is, after all, Detroit). Soft-spoken and sadistic, he's a slippery, implacable menace who knows all the legal angles — a spiritual cousin of Max Cady, the relentless stalker played by Robert Mitchum in the original "Cape Fear" (not to be confused with the over-the-top model played by Robert De Niro in the 1991 remake). Mansell has a crafty defense attorney (Aunjanue Ellis) and an old partner in crime (Vondie Curtis-Hall), both of whom are too terrified of their associate to make a move against him. He also has that judge's little black book, littered with dirt on cops, robbers and all manner of city officials, all of whom he intends to bleed dry. His other scam du jour has his girlfriend (Adelaide Clemens), who moonlights at a local casino, reeling in a wealthy mark (Alexander Pobutsky). This proves complicated, as the mark is well connected in the Albanian mob.
Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens — still absolute fire
Any worries about whether or not this follow-up can live up to its predecessor dissipate before the first episode ends, and "Justified: City Primeval" keeps pushing its hero in some unexpected directions. Most notably, Raylan falls hard for another character (which one is best left unspoiled) as their playful sparkiness turns into undeniable chemistry and then maybe something deeper, even as their relationship puts both in danger. "Justified: City Primeval" works as both the satisfying return of an old favorite series and a fresh take on a familiar character. The miniseries format suits it well, too, keeping the narrative tight without losing space for the characters to breathe.
There are new plot lines to dig into
Like Kentucky, Detroit has its own flavor, and that's illustrated to significant effect through the people surrounding Raylan this time around. It goes without saying that Detroit represents more racial diversity than the rural holler that is Harlan County, and the show sticks to that reality. But it's more than just dropping Raylan into a melting pot, giving him a Black partner, and commenting that he sticks out like a green hat with an orange bill in an upper-class Black neighborhood. "City Primeval" explores its Black characters' inner lives and sometimes even juxtaposes their lived experience with his, mainly through Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis), Mansell's ambitious lawyer — why is this intelligent woman with her own legal practice defending the psychopath?
But it's not just that the setting and characters are new and different; there is an obvious vibe shift that accompanies the move to Detroit, all the way down to the series' score and coloring that often paints the city in shades of blue. This is wise — Detroit is its own city with its own history and its own problems — but it appears that the move north has resulted in a loss of the show's signature sense of humor, too, which is probably the most unfortunate change. Yes, there are glimpses of the sly wit that once made the drama series one of the funniest shows on TV, but they are few and far between, and mostly act as a reminder of what the show is missing. The fact that "Justified: City Primeval" features a lot of the same creative team behind the scenes makes this most confounding. But this isn't the biggest change to the narrative.
TL;DR
Tense, funny, and full of new twists on the classic "Justified" tone, it's the return we've been hoping for, and then some.
The Givens character has been grafted onto the plot of Elmore Leonard's novel "City Primeval" and it's a solid match.
"Justified: City Primeval" is a stellar limited series, a worthwhile continuation of the original, and a wildly successful homage to the late Elmore Leonard.
Watch the trailer:
