The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Justified: City Primeval' Episodes 1 & 2 Recap

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney return to don the hat and take on the mean streets of Detroit in this recap of the two-episode premiere of 'Justified: City Primeval.' Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And together we host The Big Picture, The Ringers Film Podcast for new releases, career retrospectives, director interviews, movie drafts, top fives, and so much more. Twice a week, we break down the latest releases, argue about whether movies are doomed, and debate our modern film canon. Listen to The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Jonah Robinson and joining me today, not wearing a hat, hat list. It's Rob Mahoney.

Hi, Rob, how are you? And if there were ever an occasion to pull the hat out of storage, it was today, I failed you, Joe. I'm sorry. It's okay. No one gave you the memo. You can stand in for all the rest of Detroit. And Steve, our producer and I will be the, like, hat full interlopers. Anyway, we are here to talk about justified city primeval.

Quickly, before we start, there's a lot going on in on the prestige feed right now. After, like, a little break, we are back. in full force. There was a Hall of Fame justified episode earlier this week where Chris Brian, Mallory Rubin,

and I talked about one of the best episodes of television of all time. Bloody Harlan. Rob, if you had been part of that committee, is that the episode you would have chosen

from the original justified series? Or is there a different one you think is the best episode? I think that's the one, right? It's kind of the perfect union of all the season plot lines

of justified at its best, of funny justified, of tense justified, of like long arc justified. I mean, it's really hard to dispute it. Thanks for backing up our choice. I appreciate you. Also, this week we will have a prestige episode

about the Apple TV Plus series Hijack. Van Lathen and I will be checking in like sort of mid-season on that show. Great show. If you guys aren't watching it, a big fan of that. And also, I don't know when it's starting, to be honest with you.

You would think I would know the entire Presti's schedule. I don't. But there will be a big fan of that. be some the OC rewatches with Julia Libman, Bill Simmons, and yours truly coming up in honor of the 20th. Did you feel that in your bones? 20th anniversary of the OC is this August. So that, among many other things happening on the prestige feed right now. But we are here to talk about the first two episodes of Justified City Primeval. So your spoiler warning for this is anything from the original justified series,

though I think, Rob, we agree that you don't have to have seen that in order to watch City Primeval, right? Do you agree with that? Absolutely not. And honestly, we'll probably keep the drive-bys on that to a relative minimum, I would think, for that reason. Yeah. I just want to like flag it in case someone's like, oh no. Totally. I was going to get to that. And then the first two episodes here, which are City Primeval and the Oklahoma Wildman, both of them written by Dave Andrew and Michael Dinner and both directed by Michael Dinner. Michael Dinner, we should say, is the director of Bloody Harlan, the aforementioned Hall of Fame

Justified episode that we put in earlier this week. Just some quick, like, background on what we're doing here with City Prime Evil because, yes, Timothy Oliphon is back in the hat. And we're delighted that that is true, but it looks a lot different than the original justified. This is an eight-episode, limited series. Might they do more? They might.

I think it will depend how many people. watch this season. But a key creative is not back, which is Graham Yost. We've been talking about Yost a lot, both in that Hall of Fame justified episode, and then Mallory and I

covered the show Silo over in the Ringerverse, so Yost is over at Apple, making slow horses in Silo, and that's what he's doing. He's an EP on this, but like in name only. So we've got two justified alums helming this one, you know, the names

that I just mentioned Dave Andron and Michael Dinner. Andrew, I should say, wrote 17 episodes of Justified, including the season one banger Hatless, one of my favorite justified episodes. So great bona fides there. And then Michael Diner, of course, also directed some incredible episodes of the show. So these are the two main creative forces behind the scenes here. Plus, Taylor Leonard Elmore's son is also on the staff gear. So that is nice to keep the legacy alive.

No other cast members other than to me. with the only font are scheduled to appear, though I will say, based on some things that the creators were saying, like, illusions, gentle smirking hints at TCA where they did a panel that I saw, I would not be surprised if we saw something in the finale. That's what I'll say. I feel like if we're going to get anything at all, any taste O'Harland, it might come in the finale, though no guarantees.

No one's guaranteeing anything. Who would resist, you know, like throwing somebody back into the water here? But honestly, if that's what it turns out to be is we just get kind of a little cameo show up in the finale, that's great restraint in these revival times that we're not just bringing the whole crew back together. And honestly, I think it works to City Primeval's benefit. Like, I really like this new group of actors

and this new group of characters and getting used to a whole new setting and seeing Raylan and kind of a fish out of water dynamic there. I think that fish out of water aspect is part of what's so appealing to me about this show because it's such an uno reverse on what Justified was because, and here we go, we're getting into it. You know, justified in its original iteration is about, you know, a U.S. Marshall, Rail and Givens from Harlan County in Kentucky, and he does something that may or may not be justified in Miami that gets him, you know, kicked over to, to Kentucky.

and he constantly is drawn back into his hometown and all this sort of stuff. And he is trying to escape the water, but he is constantly being thrown back into the pond that he came from in Harlan County. So there are some great episodes Injustified where Oliphant, as Raylan, is sent to Harlan to be sort of like the hillbilly whisperer essentially of like those people. So to see him on the reverse, he's the outsider. He's like how Rachel feels when she goes to Harlem or whatever. That's who he is in Detroit is really fun.

The blue filter on Detroit is here intensively. Like we know we're in a different place entirely. What did you like most about these first two episodes, Rob? Well, let me lay it out this way. My primary concern with City Primeval was if you take justified out of Harlem and run it back all these years later with an entirely new cast or almost entirely new cast. Will it still feel like Justified?

And I think you get the answer in the opening scenes of this first episode, which is, of course it will, you big dummy. The Stetson still fits. Raylan still got it. But you put him in a world that looks at his style of kind of gunsling or policing

with even more skepticism than it used to. And I would argue that, especially for its time, Justified actually puts a critical lens on Raylan quite a lot. The original series does. This one even more so. Like we are throwing him

straight into a court room to explain his actions in apprehending some would-be criminals. And I think that puts the show in a really interesting place from the start. And then you get to Detroit and find out that honestly, Raylan may not even be the biggest cowboy in the police force in question. Like, there are a lot of interesting dynamics as far as the criminal element in Detroit, the police element in Detroit. And as we've been saying, where Raylan fits into a world that he just does not understand

fundamentally. I love that. I love that you went straight there because I wanted to talk about that. the idea of like the show justified. The reason it's called justified is this shooting that begins the whole show. Obviously, this is based loosely on some Elmore Leonard writings, but in terms of like the show itself, the shooting of, you know, a killer in Miami who was like given a clock to get out of town and Raylan's like times up and he gets drawn on, but he shoots him. And the question on everyone's mind was, was this justified? Was this something that you, Raylan, should have done?

And throughout the show, like, Raylan is always flirting with the moral boundaries of his job, what is reasonable versus excessive force, et cetera, et cetera, when dealing with all these people. I think this season, again, this is my light drive-by of justified spoilers. It's, like, really just contained to hear. The season four finale episode Ghosts, which takes place, um, partially on a tarmac, and Raylan essentially walks away and lets the Detroit mob put a hit on a hitman who has threatened his family, Nikki Augustine, the great Mike O'Malley. And like that shot is forever emblazoned on my mind of what Raylan's face looks like when he walks away and lets this thing happen.

And then the blowback, to use another justified episode title, the blowback that happens for him in season five as a result. result of that about like how his boss art feels about it, et cetera, et cetera. Like, it's not just, oh, he did this one thing at the beginning and it never came up again. And it was just the constant recurring struggle for, for this man. And I think, you know, I brought this up when we talked about the Hall of Fame episode, but like trying to sell a bunch of my friends on watching Justified has not always been

the easiest thing because they're not sure that this is a story that they want to engage in. And I, to your point, I just feel like this has always been on the show's mind of like, it's not glorifying Raylan when he kicks the shit out of someone with his, you know, beautiful boots. It's also showing us as these episodes do what Willa looks like when she sees her dad do this. And then to give him that foil in the Norbert Leo Butts, Norbert Leo Butts is like one of my favorite actor names of all time. he's a great Broadway star, I love him. To give him that foil of like, ooh, like, ooh, this shit with the dog, ooh, this shit with the door. Like, oh, is that who I am?

Like, I think is absolutely brilliant. And it's clearly, you know, all this is obviously still on the show's mind in a more profound way, in a more specific way, in a more pointed way. And you can tell just by the fact that, you know, Boyd-Hulbrook brings up that Miami incident in this second episode. And coincidentally, FX of... uploaded that clip to their YouTube channel three months ago. I can't imagine why they would want that reference point to be out there for people who are

looking for that as a, you know, something to turn back to to remember exactly what happened in Miami in the initial first season of the original justified. But you're right. Like, Raylan screws up constantly throughout the original justified. He makes selfish choices. He crosses lines. And that is the point of the show. Like, right?

It's all about how he and Boyd are, you know, two sides of the same coin, how there can be this paper thin line sometimes. between certain kinds of policing and certain kinds of criminality to the point that he's investigated by the FBI, he's benched all the time in that show. There's basically like a series-long plot line where he's investigated by the ADA in Harlan, right?

And so the fact that we are already kind of back into those spaces, but in a way that especially through Angenu Ellis' character, which we're going to need to clear out at some point in this pod, I'm all about everything she is doing in City Primeval, incredible addition to the cast.

But the show makes clear very quickly that Raylan threatening a suspect, mishandling an arrest, generally doing Raylan things will result in criminals walking free in this world. So we not only have kind of the facts on the ground of making justified in a more modern environment, we have the stakes of the show, right? We have the stakes of the show set up where it's like if Raylan does what Raylan always does, this is not going to go great for him. Anjanie Ellis and Carolyn Wilder right here because I think if Raylan is, the fish out of water here, then Carolyn is the Raylan figure in that she's someone who grew up

around lawlessness. We find out that she has this relationship with like sweetie and, you know, grew up, you know, doing her homework in his bar. Like, you know, and even like this is what she was around, this criminal element. Her husband, her ex-husband is, you know, on the wrong side of the law in, in, like, is a grifter essentially. And she's the lawful side, right? She's the lawyer. she's the order of law and order. Like, you know, that is that is the Raylan role. And so the question I think will be for her as this all becomes more personal, as it is, because of her connection to sweetie, because the way that he feels squeezed by Boyd-Holberg's character, Clement, the way that she does, all that sort of stuff, where will her boundaries be? How will this blur for her?

She is phenomenal. When I, that courtroom scene, that initial courtroom scene, where she just like goes to town on this like cowboy icon of television and just like renders him speechless. And then later I fucks him in a bar. I'm just sort of like the full package. Love her. Everything that is happening between Anjneux and Timothy,

Aliphon, like bottle it up, sell it to me. When he leans in in the second episode and gives her the, are you following me? Are you following me? Oh, no. Oh, man. There's a lot. There's a lot happening. I'm extremely into it. Love their dynamic. Love the adversarial nature of it. And they have such a great exchange, too, when he goes to visit her in her office to kind discuss the Clement situation and like what he is allowed to do and what he is not allowed

to do in which it becomes very clear exactly how only, not very clear. We get allusions to just how compromise she is in this situation, and that she is in this position somewhat reluctantly, somewhat against her will, and a reiteration of the fact that, like, she knows what her job is, she knows what Raylan's job is, they are playing their parts in this system,

but according to her, they're going to play by the rules. They're going to do this by the book as much as possible. At least that's her stance for now. We'll see once the guns start going off exactly, as you said, where her lines are. That chemistry between them is really refreshing for me because I think if justified had a weak link,

it was never giving Raylan, like, the romance was between Raylan and Boyd, right? Like, there was never, I think, with love and respect to Natalie Tenia who played Winona, like there was something just always that didn't quite work with Winona for me, the mother of his, you know, teen child here. And, you know, I loved him and Ava,

but that was so short-lived. And then there was just never anything that filled, the gap that Winona left when she left justified, like not even the great Amy Smart could like really work with Raylan. Again, I think it's just because there was nothing that could hold a candle to like the scenes he had with Walton Goggins. So to have like this, I mean, because the swagger is like such a big part of it. And like when he when he does anything, Raylan is like flirting with people.

When he's interrogating, you know, absolute dirtbag criminals, he's smiling at them. might as well be tipping his hat, like this whole thing. So to give him someone like Carolyn Wilder and a scene partner like Angenu Ellis to work with is such a gift from this show. I love it. It's going to be dynamite all season long. And yeah, they are positioned across purposes. They are positioned, but also with some mutual interests, obviously.

And, you know, Carolyn wanting to protect the people like sweetie, people who matter to her in this world. And so as we get what, like, get a better sense of, like, what those relationships are and what exactly matters most to her. I just cannot wait to see all the ways that they bounce off each other off of the course of this season. But you're right, the Raylan is always a little bit flirty.

And I, like, I mean, Sandy, poor Sandy did not stand a chance. I think she summed him up very well, though, when she goes off on this, like, full monologue describing the Raylan experiments, the dewy skin, the simmering anger, you know, she really, you know, really got a sense of him.

Kind of cute, though. You know, kind of cute, though. Yeah, she gets the full read of him. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity

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Her fella, though, does not love her describing Raylan as Dewey. No. Let's talk about the titular character of episode two, The Oklahoma Wildman Clement Mansell, the great Boyd-Holbrook. I've never, I don't think I've gotten a chance to talk to you about Boyd Holbrook, though I've, like, you know, luck has given me several instances on various podcasts to talk about in the last couple years. It's Boyd-Holbrook season.

Yeah, where are you? I don't know when it's not Boyd-Hollbrook season, but I love what he brings, especially in roles like this, right? He's so great at Menace. There's something that's so magnetic about him, but when he wants to unsettle you as a performer, he can just crank it up on a dime. And I love actors who have that kind of range, that kind of variability, that kind of unpredictability in these scenes. And so, yeah, I'm needless to say, I'm really enjoying what he's bringing to this show so far. Big boyed shoes to fill, obviously, for our guy Holbrook. But I think he's acclimating himself really well to a totally different kind of character,

a totally different kind of experience that we're used to getting from Justified. But he's already putting Raylan in some really uncomfortable situations. I think pressing his buttons in ways that we alluded to earlier, you know, he shows up at the hotel, not just to threaten Raylan and his daughter, but I think because he's trying to bring out the cowboy a little bit. He's clearly provoking Raylan in a way that he wants to compromise what the police and the marshals are trying to accomplish here. And so that kind of like one move ahead of Raylan dynamic, it's certainly something we've seen from other, you know, big bads and other great villains and justified before. But I think seeing it in this way with his daughter involved, there's like very clear pain point that someone like Clement can push any time he has access to it. It puts the show in a pretty different place.

I think that there's something very Elmore Leonard about the kind of villain he is because he's quite different from the dynamic that Walton Goggins's Boycratter had with Raylan but he reminds me of a number of other Elmore Leonard villains especially like we meet him and we find out right away that he is like musical aspirations like a recording deal is something that is on his mind. This is I think every show you and I have done together on this podcast. There's been an extended car sing-along scene, but this is the first one for which a character is singing along to their own demo tape. And look, one, the recording sounds great. I'm ready to download it on Spotify, throw up the

track. Okay. But also, I just really enjoyed the sing-along to your own tape. Great character introduction. Yeah, absolutely. Stealing a car, cutting a deer carcass off the back of the car and stealing it and making sure to be able to play his own demo tape in there. But that idea of a villain who wants something who has dreams, like it reminds me a lot of get shorty or be cool or, you know, stuff like that. Or there's like one season of Justified where Boyd-Crow wants a Derry Queen franchise. You know, like giving your menacing villain this like hope and dream and like a sweet hope and dream, an artistic open dream,

is a way to keep them from complete, you know, black-hearted menace, right? We're humanizing this person. We're giving them a hope and a dream.

And we're also making them a little silly on top of it. Like, you know, his desire to be the next Jack White is, is, you know,

kind of hilarious. I love that element, yeah. Yeah, it steers into what has always worked for justified in that way. Like, I think when,

justify the original series was maybe at its weakest or it's less successful, they were either villains who we just, like, didn't understand what they were after. There's a lot of very serious hit men and fixers who come to town, and Raylan has to, like, match wits with them.

And it's like, all right, you know, this is another guy to plug into this formula. I guess this is what we're doing. Or they were just kind of running back and trying to iterate on the crows, or, you know, trying to, like, you know, do things that happened. Do the Benetts again with the Crows. and like kind of, again, just kind of cycling back

through the same sorts of themes less successfully. And so to get something that is kind of new, kind of refreshing, again, a totally different setting, a totally different world and criminal system that Raylan doesn't get yet, and to also get the character beats that are recognizable to us but manifest in a very new way, that's kind of all we can hope for from a series like this.

You know, a revival series that's going to make something feel both fresh and comfortable at the same time. Honestly, I've been very, very impressed so far with how they've walked that particular high wire act. I don't know how intentional is. Though I suppose you get in a lot of Leonard, Elmore Leonard books. But in Harlan County, Harlan County, where we spent so much time and justified, is so small. And everyone has known each other their whole lives that the fact that everyone is constantly getting drawn into each other's business, the fact that Boyd is always at the center of something doesn't see. seem that odd because you're just sort of like, it's a small town, everyone knows each other.

Okay. There's only so many like bottles of oxy you can run or whatever, right? In Detroit, however, the way in which this storyline is already snarled in on itself, like the way that like the way that Clement just happens to kill this judge played by the great Keith David, not because of anything to do with like the book or the police CI or anything like that, but because he gets road rage, you know, essentially, feels so, so coincident. And the fact that he then has a connection to Carolyn, who Raylan had already met, et cetera, et cetera, feels so coincidental that on the one hand, you might be like,

okay, like, would this really happen? Detroit is a big enough city. But on the other hand, what it then gives the show to me is this sense of, like, fate and destiny. and like barreling towards something. We're going to talk in a second about sort of is this show justified. Does it justify its own existence in like what it wants to explore? But the book that it's based on, which does not have real and givens in it,

and we'll talk about that in a second, but the book that it's based on, City Prime Evil is City Primeval colon high noon in Detroit, which to me means we're headed for a shootout. Like how could we not be with something called? something with Raylan Givens who loves a shootout and something called High Noon in Detroit. So if these two figures, Clement and Raylan, are circling

each other towards pistols at noon, there has to be that kind of inescapable destiny quality to it. What do you think about that? Absolutely. And Justify has always kind of flirted with those ideas of fate and destiny and the way lives

are intertwined, but as you're saying, the scale of the city is noticeably different. I didn't bump on it so much, I think, just because Justify has conditioned me not to bump on it. This is, it's very justified shit to be investigating one crime and accidentally stumble into another. I can't even count how many times

that must have happened for Raylan over the years. So that kind of like wrong place, wrong time, like comedy of errors is very much in the DNA of the show. And I took as more of like a little bit of red meat to the base, right? You know, you get some moments in these first couple episodes

that are like, okay, for justified fans, this is, you know, we're still the same show. We're still going to have a scene where, they're busting down doors and hillbillies are trying to run out to escape. This is still ultimately happening, but we're going to kind of juxtapose things just enough to hopefully get some new blood in there.

I think so far that's been successful. We'll have to see how that plays out over the course of the show, though, but there's no question that these two characters are faded to be kind of bound together by this initial incident. Does it strain credulity? Of course. Is it a convenience

of kind of procedural and episodic television? Definitely. But I think as long as you're along for that kind of ride, this probably will be a good and rewarding show for you. Yeah, I didn't mean it so much as a criticism, but like as an almost like mystical element that I never sort of felt from the original series of this sort of like, because speaking of like Raylan being drawn toward something, something we talked about with the Hall of Fame episode earlier this week is that sort of inescapable suck of Harlan. drawing real and back into something, right? Like one more job, one more chase after Boyd Crowder, one more like whatever, right?

And if that is what the show is interested in, it's interested in that and the way in which that draw of his hometown and draw of the criminal roots that he came from, from his father, iconic bad dad, Arlo Givens. And the question then to me on my, mind most when I'm watching the original justified is can we escape these cycles can we can we can we move to Miami can we like have a relationship you know like well all those other stuff like that can we ever get truly get out can we ever break that cycle of everything so that's not quite

what's on the mind of of city primeval how would you characterize what is most on the mind of this of this show well I think I think it is still somewhat on the mind. It's just positioned a little differently, where instead of Harlan itself being the thing that's pulling in Raylan, like Clement has this exchange with him in Carolyn's office when he's explaining, like, there's only two types of cops at your age, right? There's the guys who got passed over for the big chair,

and there's the ones who love it so much they're going to have to be dragged off. I think that's kind of what the show is hinting at that's like pulling Raylan. It's like he could be doing a lot of different things at this point in his life, including raising his daughter, which he's trying to do but gets kind of pulled into this and small, you know, TBD. He's trying to drop her off at camp, at least.

He's doing a type of parenting. Yeah. But he keeps getting pulled into all these various cases, all these various schemes, just like normal. And so maybe there is a gravitational pull that exists beyond Harlan, right? There are criminal elements everywhere. There are conspiracies going on

all over the country, all over the world. There's always something to investigate if you want to duck your head behind that door. And clearly, something about him, whether it's, you know, you could say a passion for justice or maybe just a passion for getting a few rounds off, whatever ultimately your view of Raylan is, there is something that keeps dragging him back into this space. And he clearly has a knack for it. He clearly has a lot of power in it and a, you know, a talent for investigation and a talent for, you know, working

people and working sources and getting to the bottom of things. But there's really no question he would be better suited being out of this particular game. It's an addictive quality, right? that this has for him, the thrill of this. And for us too, right, in watching it. Absolutely. And, like, you know, again, to glance on some plot details from the original series, like, you know, Winona is constantly asking him to, like, leave this behind for her. And spoiler, he never does for her.

And also, my really good friend, Jenny, has been, like, watching Justified all the way through for the first time. And I'm getting, like, constant text updates from her. And she's in the final seasons. Again, this is, like, a spoiler for late season. And Justified. She's like, is this man ever going to meet his daughter? Because like, it's a plot point at the end, like, frantic text messages from her where she was like, why won't Raylan meet his baby?

Like, Winona moves away, has the baby. Railin literally goes to Miami while his baby is also in Miami and does not meet his baby. So this whole thing with Willa, his daughter here, is a huge, like, that's how the story ends, in Justified, is like, him with his daughter eating ice cream. classic Raylan, like having hung up that old hat for a new hat, by the way, the old hat's back and really happy because I hated that new hat. And like, so then the, so many years have passed. The timeline doesn't really add up, but Timothy Oliphon said, I just wanted my daughter,

my real life daughter, to be in this show. Who can blame him? So, like, she's a little older than she should be, but that's okay. I was like, not that much time has passed since I was recapping the justified finale, right? And here is Raylan in, like, Arlo Givens Bad Dad Mode. Arlo was constantly putting criminality above being an actual father for his kid. And even though Raylan is on the other side of the law, he is constantly putting that, like, the high of the chain. Maybe that seems too critical only two episodes into the series.

I haven't watched more. But with the context of, like, probably this is who Raylan has been her entire. life, you know? I think it's, yeah, we're still exploring that cycle, that question, can you escape who you were, who Arlo is, et cetera, et cetera, you know? Well, I mean, teenage girls are complicated, Joe. I don't know what to tell you. Are they?

I have no idea. I do love, and, you know, this is where you really get the payoffs of casting your own daughter and things is like the level of side eye and talk back. There is a pretty real feel to it. there is a good level of authenticity to someone talking shit back to Raylan in a believable way. And I think in a way that puts him on the back foot, I think especially in that scene where she and Raylan and Clement are all together in that booth at the hotel restaurant. And you get, I mean, probably honestly my favorite little snippet of these entire episodes so far

is as Clement kind of puts his arm around Willa and you get the slow turn from, really you get the whole Aliphant spectrum. one moment, right? Like, you get the slow turn from like Cobb Vance, warm and fuzzy, like, I'm projecting a kind of, like, niceness in this moment, all the way to, like, Sheriff Bullock and Deadwood, like, I'm about to beat this guy's face in. Full jaw clench. Full jaw clench in a way that plays out so beautifully.

And, of course, if you know anything about this character and his history with violence, you kind of have a sense of where things might be headed after this particular moment. But the fact that he doesn't quite realize how badly he's being played just yet and how how far, I don't think he has a measure of who Clement is at all. And that is what is exciting, right? This is not Boyd. This is a character he does not understand. And we're going to get to enjoy all season long,

him trying to figure out exactly what he's gotten himself into. I loved that sequence in the hotel, like, bar. I thought that was incredible. I love thinking about, like, the idea that Oliphon himself has said, like, yeah, I'll play your law, man. I'll do it again. Like, you know, I'm on happening. I'm happy to play the greatest hits is what he said.

But I love what your point, that there's a massive difference between Seth Bullock and Cobb Vance. Oh, my God. And Rayleigh-Givens just sort of floats around in the middle there. You know what I mean? He could be all smiles and charm and just tell you very nicely to fuck off. Or, you know, he can clench the jaw and then beat, like, throw your face into the revolving glass door that the camera is inside of and just, like, beat the ever-loving shit out of you. But again, to your point, when Clement walks away from that, he's smiling because it's exactly what he wanted, right? So I want to talk about actually just like an underrated performer that I'm excited to see here.

Marin Ireland, who like is playing Maureen Downey, the like other Detroit cop, is just great in everything that she ever does. She's sort of, I never get confused who she is, though my brain often wants to say Terry Polo, but she's not Terry Polo, she's Marin Island. But she's so, I think she's incredibly underrated. And I'm excited to see her here. It's like one of those almost like casting spoilers where I'm just sort of like, surely Maryland, Marin Island is going to get something to do

other than just sort of like stand grimly in the background of something. So I'm excited. But then again, like Rachel and Tim on the original Justified, like who were phenomenal like actors and phenomenal characters had hardly anything to do ever and were just like excellent flavor. So it might just be that they're like, we're just going to swing high for excellent flavor to surround like our core characters here, you know? But I think that's where we're getting the inversion paying off already, right, of Raylan being in this new setting. Because even, you know, when he and the other Detroit police officers show up after the judge has been killed, this incredible incident has been carried out, another murder of the judge's like assistant, associate, you know.

Sidepiece. I'm not sure exactly what their relationship is. I'm not going to suppose. You know, I'm not going to presume. Seems like, yeah, okay. They got something going on. Something there. But she's been murdered.

She's been shot in the face. Raylan shows up and it's a grizzly murderer. But he doesn't understand that that woman was a confidential informant for the police department, right? He doesn't understand all the way these things are connected yet. And so the combination of, you know, Marin Ireland's performance as Marines so far. And also you get Victor Williams as Wendell Robinson, who are kind of filling in the gaps for Raillin as far as who these people are, what they are to each other. what the lay of the land is here.

And so those are just fundamental, like, more important roles than I think we saw out of the Marshall's office in the original Justified, who, yes, they show up to, like, headshot from sniper posts or, like, you know, give some whip crack dialogue. Like, those things are important in a TV way, but these people are actually important to the solving of the case in a fundamentally different way. I really love this Wendell Robinson figure, no relation, obviously, but I always love a Robinson and anything. but I don't know, it's a really nice energy.

Like, I like that he calls Real and Slim, and I think it's just like a really nice energy for Oliphant to bounce off of as they wander around. We haven't talked much about Vondy Curtis Hall as Sweetie, the owner of a neighborhood bar. I love a neighborhood bar as, like, a place where, you know, the elements can mix. There was a somewhat misguided,

but still kind of interesting section of Justify where Realon was living above a bar. It's either like shitty motels or above a bar for Rayleigh Givens, you know what I mean? Real Divorce Dad energy for him, even though before he was a divorced dad. And what do you think of Sweeney and this location and its possibilities?

Very cool character, right? Just in terms of someone who almost made it out as a musician now owns this bar because he got caught in some kind of criminal web, not unlike so many of our other justified characters, as they alluded to in this episode, has a liquor license under his deceased mother's name. So, you know, shout out to him, put it all together.

It can make it at work. Even if he's got to see the over-the-counter weed at his bar, but, you know, whatever you got to do, sweetie. And of course, a performer I really love in Vondie Curtis Hall, like I, you immediately, just by him being cast in this role, get a sense of, obviously there's a seriousness and a sternness to that, but like, as a performer,

he can have such a sensitivity to him that especially when you're getting him playing kind of, you know, at least it's alluded to or insinuated that he kind of betrayed this group of other drug dealers he was working with and working in kind of setting them up for Clement to rob them and eventually just like killed them all in cold blood.

I think he's probably the epitome of you know, kind of one of the running themes throughout these two episodes is the idea of like, are these characters in over their heads or are they where they want to be? And he is so clearly in over his head in a way that the only reason he basically is doing anything at this point is to not be implicated in all these murders and robberies and other things he's been associated with.

And that's exactly the kind of performer I want for that role. And I think he's been nailing it so far. What do you think of the conversation he and his co-horse were having about the Pistons, NBA host, Rob Mahoney? I have never, in the history of my basketball life, heard someone actually make the case that Joe Dumars is the greatest, Piston, in part because of his work as a journal manager, I think that's a stretching of the rules, right? Like, I operate by the Basketball Hall of Fame standard, which is you can be inducted

as a player, you can be inducted as a coach, you can be inducted as a contributor to the game. We don't get to mix it all together and look at your total contributions to a franchise. So Isaiah Thomas, to me, is pretty clearly the greatest Piston of all time, but as always, I defer to your expertise in this area, Joe. I mean, what are you feeling about the grades in Pistons history. Well, like, I think, you know, there were, you remember how there was that, like, rumor that Thomas might, like, come in and, like, coach for the Pistons around, like, 2014. Do you remember that?

There were always such rumors. I feel like his, like, his, like, record with the Knicks just, like, really put a damper on all of that. And if you want to read more about that, I found a Sports Illustrated article from Rob Mahoney in 2014. Damn. Explaining the Isaiah Thomas versus Dumars, uh, the. You had a lot of salty things to say about both of them, actually, in that article, by the way. You were just sort of like, let me, let me reveal the true legacy of these giants and how they're not all that.

You know, the goodwill, like, quote, the goodwill cult for Dimmers. I'd be quoted to myself. From building the 2004 championship team is long since gone, papered over with his costly mistakes since. That's just a taste of the, you know, the shit talk to. you did on both sides of that argument. So great stuff from you, Rob Mahoney. One, accurate. Two, I feel like I just walked in Raylan style to just an entire collision course I was not expecting.

So thank you for the blind side with my own commentary. But I stand by it. All these years later, I stand by. I think I actually nailed that one. Any other details you want to point out? I will start and I'll say, I'll say, I watch this as I do most things that I have to cover with the closed captioning on. and one of my favorite close captioning moments

was when we first meet Clement at the gas station, the captions like, mischievous music plays. Like, not his, not the white stripes that he plays later, but like the instrumental before he gets in the car as he's like contemplating, cutting a deer carcass off the back of a car and stealing it. Any little details that hopped out to you that you want to talk about? Well, I think for one, just the fact that Keith David came and went so quickly

as part-time judge but full-time cad and just a legendary performance in limited minutes here and I really appreciate it and in part because it facilitates what to me is an instant justified line of an attempted car bomber. His interests and his motivations were explained by the fact that he said that Keith David banged his mother

and you just can't get that anywhere else. You know, like that's really why we're here. What did he say? Like, oh yeah, I gave her son the maximum and she still wanted a piece. Dusting stuff. Incredible. Incredible. Raylan, in, like, promising his daughter that they're going to leave tomorrow, right?

Of course. They're going to leave tomorrow. It's going to be fine. Sure, there are six more episodes of this TV show, but we're going to leave him to a tour tomorrow, right? He wants to go through Memphis. He wants to go to Graceland. Would you go to Graceland with Raylan Givens? Or where would you want to go on a road trip with Real and Givens?

I mean, Graceland with Raylan sounds great, but I have to say, my guy's sense of the pulse of what is interesting to a teenage girl is a little off. That being said, no one in the history of the universe has had more of a parade of band T-shirts than Willie Givens because she goes from like ACDC to the Rolling Stones to like. In the same day, she's going through multiple band t-shirts. Yeah, exactly. So she likes music. She and Clement have that in common and sweetie. They do. And, like, clearly a certain kind of dad rock sensibility, but I think Elvis is a pretty big reach for a Gen Z audience at this point.

I think, yeah, and I wonder how much, you know, this is such an intentional infusion of, like, musical interests for these various characters in Detroit, you know, the birthplace of Motown, et cetera, et cetera. The moment, so I watched the first episode, and only the first episode several months ago, when I was, you know, I was at the TCA panel, etc. They let us see like an early episode, which I actually think they cut a little differently in this final product. I think there was less Willa actually in this final thing. Oh, interesting.

Their performance is not working for everyone. That's what I've, that's the word on the street. But I'm with you that I like that there is just a base level of irreverence. Like, no one is, she's not cowed by any scenes with her dad, et cetera,

etc. But there is a moment in that episode when Carolyn and her associate are at the bar and they're looking at Timothyal event and her associate says like have you ever seen Yellowstone like I would fuck this shit out of Kevin Gossner

and I clipped that and sent it to Mallory Rubin I was about to ask. I don't think there has ever been like a more concentrated dose of special interest for Mallory Rubin than like silver, Timothy Olifant, people talking about Yellowstone, people talking about fucking Kevin Costner, all in like one clip, astonishing stuff. Direct freaking hit. Yeah.

Yeah. I heard you guys on the Hall of Fame pod, Chris alluded to an extremely Mallory moment and wanting to get a reaction cam to it. I have to say, like, why is this not publicly available ringer content? Why do we not put a live cam on Mallory for this episode? Oh, yeah, she hasn't. Well, I sent her that clip, but I think he was, I think he was talking about Boyd-Holebrook in his tidy whiteys. Yeah, I do. But maybe he was talking about the Yellowstone moment. But yeah, unfortunately, I did already send her that clip months ago. But maybe she forgot.

Well, on that note, though, Boyd Holbrook trying on, you know, we have this kind of friend we have not met in the show yet, Skender, the Albanian man, who Sandy's, like, kind of working over. And Boyd Holbrook systematically working his way through Skender's closet, trying on all of these, like, slightly too small, very loud shirts. It's confusing. I don't think that Skendt. Closet. Is it not? They're saying the guy who owns that place is named Dell. So it's like Sandy has like two marks that she's working.

Yes. There's Dell who's out of town who's like Pennhouse they're using. And there's Skender the Albanian who they're like, you know, who was driving her around in that yellow car who they have like an active con that they're working on him. Or as Sandy said he's kind of Albanian. But yeah, Del's closet. The shirts that, you know, and he's like eyeballing the kimono on the wall. Like there's there's a lot going.

on in Dell's apartment for sure. Well, my apologies to both Dell and Skender. I don't want to mix wardrobes here. I know this is very important. Um, there's also, I don't know how to talk about it because I don't think you can explain it or necessarily replicate it. But I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this on like, what is with the cool factor that Elmore Leonard is able to generate in any story that he crafts? Like, it's, you know, obviously like one of the stories it's called be cool, but like out of sight, like there's,

it's just so cool, and I don't know how to explain it or dissect it or nor would I ever know how to replicate it. Do you have any thoughts or feelings on the taxonomy of cool in Elmore Leonard, you know?

It's a great, I mean, my temptation is to say that it's dialogue-driven, but with so many of these characters, honestly, and the performances, even just with the way

that carry themselves, you get that sense of cool, it's, you're right, that it's impossible to replicate. And I suspect if we knew how to get to the bottom of it, we would probably be writing extremely cool characters right now. But it's a level of mysticism I do not understand.

And really is the driving force of what made the original justified good. Was even in all of these wild, like, Harlan environments, Raylan is always cool. And boy, honestly, like, Boyd is cool. There are a lot of extremely cool, very watchable, very charismatic characters in that show. who are all operating in wildly different places in the moral spectrum.

But the way that they always intersect and the fact that you can get that consistently over multiple seasons of television now in a revival of that show all these years later, I can't say I understand it, but I'm thrilled that it's still here. Yeah, there's that iconic Boy, Crowder line, remember your ABCs always be cool.

And that is just like the, that is the undercurrent of all of these Elmore Leonard's stories. And I'm just thrilled to be back in this world. I will agree, something that I heard a couple of my, you know, our colleagues say,

like, they missed a little bit of the extra verve of the original justified dialogue. And I would agree. Like, I don't think it is, like, exactly on the verve level

of the original series, but it is enough for me. And it's just, like, enough for me to see Timothy Oliphant in the hat, smiling the smile that, like, fuck you smile, his weird walk that I could not explain to you if I had hours and hours and hours to do so.

You know, and to see that hat out of, like, the hat just looks so much more ridiculous in Detroit. Oh, yeah. And there are some shots where, like, him at a car or him from a long distance away where, like, you recognize him by the hat. And that was true in Harlan, too, like, the man in the hat. but it just blends better in Ireland than it does in freaking Detroit, Michigan. So, you know, all of that is enough for me to justify the existence of this show, and I'm delighted to be here. Yeah, we're really going to need to get like some kind of walking gate analyst on the pot at some point

to explain what's happening there because it is powerful and chemical and undeniable. Like there's, again, nothing captures exactly the kind of cool factor we're talking about is watching Raylan try to walk around the world. I agree with you on the dialogue that it's not quite at like peak justified level, but you're still getting, you know, Raylan alluding to Sandy needing to stock up on the good shit

to calm herself in these anxious times. You're still getting this killer, Kevin Costner line. You're still getting motherfucker I wanted Chick-fil-A. Yeah. I'm here for a lot of what's going on. Absolutely. Yeah, the aforementioned, My friend Jenny was watching it.

Every time I bring up the walk, she's like, he's in high heels, Joanna. Like, what can I tell you? The boots have heels on them. It's hard to walk in. So there you go. Anything else before we go about Justified City Primeval? No, I'm happy to be along for the ride. I'm happy to, you know, hopefully dig some coal together with you.

We don't know how much of the show we're covering. We are not here to promise you week to week. It might depend on how many of y'all listen to this. I said, y'all, like that's something I'm allowed to say. I don't own that. My culture is not your costume, Joe. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, Texas boy. But yeah, if you want to listen to this or tell your friends to listen to it, I don't mean to sound sweaty, but that is, that will determine how much we cover the show.

So that is the lay of the land here on the press TV feed. Regardless, no matter what, we'll be back for the finale. Like, that's, you know, that I can guarantee you, probably. But, I mean, that's all I got to say. The great Steve Olman produces episode, another justified fan on the roster. And also, I just want to shout out all the people I know who have watched the show for the first time because I was being so annoying about it on social media. I heard from a lot of people that they watched Justified for the first time,

and that pleases me to know it because I think it's a show that deserves as much attention as all the other, you know, a golden age of television prestige drama. So welcome to the hive, new justified fans. I found myself very jealous of your rewatch too, because I have to say, justified goes down so smooth. I have always found it to be among my most accidentally rewatched shows where I will dial up one episode, like, during dinner,

or at the end of the night, and then I end up spending the next two months just watching from wherever I started through the end of the show. Right. It just has that kind of pull for me. And honestly, for whatever this version, City Prime Evil is or isn't, I cannot wait to watch more. Like, I am absolutely hooked into this world in a way that is a little bit different than

original vintage justified, but has just enough to keep me going. All right. So we will be back at some point or another. Will Rob have located a hat by that point? Time will tell. We don't know. Again, thanks again. I already mentioned his name, but I'll do it again to the great Steve Allman for producing this.

And we'll see you soon. Bye.