The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Justified’ Hall of Fame: “Bloody Harlan”

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Chris, Mallory, and Joanna come together to revisit “Bloody Harlan,” the Season 2 finale of the Emmy-winning TV series ‘Justified.’ They discuss the underrated legacy of the FX crime drama, why “Bloody Harlan” deserves an induction into the Prestige TV Hall of Fame, and their early thoughts on the brand-new sequel series ‘Justified: City Primeval.’ Hosts: Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili, and host of What About Your Friends? A podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed, I talk to my best friend Stephen Othello and your favorites from within the ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed where we try to answer the question TLCS back in the day, what about your friends. Hello, welcome back from the prestige TV podcast feed. cue up the Brad Paisley. I'm Joyner Robinson. We are here to talk about

Justified, not just justified in general, but a Hall of Fame episode of Justified. Here to join me are two experts. It's Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin. Hi, Chris. How are you doing? I'm doing great.

I'm just a Harlan boy in a Lexington world, you know? And Mal, how you doing? Chris, can you go back to the part about you reading? Oh, no, not the best line the whole episode. She got it out quickly. We're here to talk about the season

two finale, Bloody Harlan, and we are here to induct it into the Prestige TV Hall of Fame. I actually don't know at this point what all is in the PrestiHTV Hall of Fame. We don't do enough ceremony around this. Yeah, there should be like a ticker tape parade, probably, something like that.

At least some apple pie moonshine in a jar to celebrate vacation. What color would the blazer be that we give people when they get inducted. Oh, ringer green, right? Yeah. Oh, right.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A bright, cheery, lime green blazer who wouldn't want that to wear around with pride. Yeah, I think there's a lost episode in there.

There's a succession episode in there. You know, just the good stuff. Like Justify. Are there like 11 curb episodes in there, too? Probably. We are here today, of course, in advance of the premiere of Justified City Prime. The reboot sequel, question mark series, Reborkwell that is coming to FX on Hulu today, July 18th as we're taping this.

We'll be back later in the week on this feed. Rob Mahoney and I will be covering the two-episode premiere of City Prime Evil. Chris and Andy will for sure be talking about it on The Watch, and Mallory will be dreaming of it nightly. So, you know, this is only the beginning of the Ringers' justified coverage. There's also a lot else going on in the prestige feed. There is, Van and I will be covering the Apple show, Hijack, coming up this week. And then I hear tell, there's a little mini,

the OC rewatch happening. You might want to tune in for that, but it is, believe it or not, the, what is it? It's like the 20th anniversary of the premiere of the OC in August. Joe, add me to the Hijack Group shot. Okay. You're in.

Idris is in there. It's a great time. I'm really excited to talk about this episode, Bloody Harlan. We didn't have much debate over which justified episode. Talk about a little minor debate. I tried. I tried to just play both sides a little bit to hear it. Like, let's just play it.

Let's just have the meeting. That's what I did to borrow a bellism. Always take the meeting. You take the phone call. You bring your guys together. Uh-huh. Yeah. Your runner up was what, Chris?

I had a couple that were more of the story of the week episodes. So I can't actually remember which ones I'd thrown out there. One was the one with Stephen Root as the judge. But there were a couple that I threw out just because I think some of Justified's pleasures are old-fashioned in its compact contains storytelling. And obviously Bloody Harlan is more of a culmination of a season-long arc. I think my other candidate was Decoy, which is a season four episode and is my favorite. And it works really well as like a contained almost action movie episode.

But it's hard to deny the poll of season two of Justified and it's hard to deny this finale. This was a discussion was a false parlay. Like we were only going to end up in one place and it was here. At the table. I wonder what Justified fans would have thought if we zagged and had done something different than Bloody Harlan. There was nothing else to do with a number of candidates that were actually valid and that maybe we'll have the pleasure of doing at some point. We were all going to vote to start here. I don't think we can withstand the Margot Martindale hive.

I think they would have come for us. That's true. And I don't think we would have survived. They're very online. The season two finale of Justified, the culmination of what is largely considered one of the best seasons of television ever is something I'm really excited to talk about. But I wanted to start sort of bigger and talk to you guys about the legacy of Justified itself. And something we had been talking about a little bit off pod was this idea that like, though the three of, of us consider justified a pantheon show, it is not often mentioned in the same breath as the

likes of Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, blah, but I was looking at the ratings. And other than the final season of Breaking Bad, which is, you know, its own bananas phenomenon, the ratings are comparable between all of these shows. So I guess, Mal, I'll start with you, like both, why do you think Justified's a Pantheon show and why do you think it doesn't get included in the conversation as much as maybe we think it should? Why is it a pantheon show? I mean, we could spend four hours, four days, four months, just talking about that. It's like, I think, you know, Chris has used the word both today already and in our texting leading up to this pod, which we've been anticipating for so long.

Pleasure? Like, that feels like the best way to sum up the experience. I was thinking, especially on the heels of revisiting Bloody Harlan, sincerely and truly one of the best episodes of television of all time, inside of irrefutably one of the best seasons of TV of all time, that justified overall is very much like Mags' apple pie, like a glass of that apple pie. We're like, there is this unbelievable warmth and comfort and familiarity. You take a sip of it or you dip back into a justified episode

and there is the feeling of like returning home to that thing that you crave and long for, even if you don't totally understand why. There's the tie to something that is like rooted and almost enmesh in your DNA, right? Just that base level of a thing you want and need. But then there's also like, in addition to the sweetness, there's the spice. There's the danger inside that glass and inside a season of justified. And like it might be the ultimate wallop at any point.

And you never know when you're going to sit down with justified which of those sensations you're going to get. And often you get the same from both of them from the same character or the same relationship, right? like obviously Rayland and Boyd and their dynamic across the entire series is the ultimate example of that. Like this entwining of this deep history and these tendencies and these desires and where that road can come to a fork and you can make different choices that lead you in a different way, but how you're always kind of pulled back. Like very much that Gatsby boats against the current idea, right? And so it is just like this rich mythic text that is incredible. incredibly performed. I mean, we are all huge. Timothy Oliphon stands on this show, but the cast overall, especially in season two is just remarkable. And the history between the key figures is endlessly, endlessly rich. It's fun. It can be poppy. It's violent. It's surprising. But it's also like deeply poetic and tragic. It's just wonderful. It is truly one of the great shows of the century. I don't know why more people. I won't even attempt to, answer the second part of your question because I frankly don't understand why I don't understand

why more people don't feel that way about it. And maybe they do and they just don't talk about it that way. But it's easily, easily a Hall of Fame show. Chris, it's up to you to explain to me why more people are talking about justified. Well, I wonder whether or not it's like when it came out. I was looking at, you know, I was thinking about how this show to me and this season in particular in some ways is the platonic ideal of television. It's the bones of old TV. It's seasoned writers, writing into ad breaks. And obviously that was to sell you toothpaste, but it also gave you a rhythm to the show that you knew.

You kind of had, the viewer had it baked into their TV watching DNA, but you had to know that you were writing to this moment and writing to this moment. It's still so funny to watch these on Hulu and it cuts to black every 10 minutes. So it has the bones of old television with the sprinkle of what was coming.

So this is before House of Cards comes out. before streaming really takes over. And I think the three of us, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners, have know the experience now, of watching a show that's inexplicably 56 minutes long, you know? And you're sitting there and you're kind of like, this just seems like a pointless scene that they included

to fill out the episode, or this episode feels like an episode that they did that was scraps from the old episode and not quite wanting to get to the finale yet or whatever. These really poorly paced, poorly plodels, kind of, you know, like floating in the ether episodes of television. And then you watch Dustified and you start it.

And then you look at the time remaining and it's almost over. Like it zips by, it has so much professionalism to it. And I think that it's the mixture of like this old with the like, oh, but you can tell a season long story that's like part Southern Gothic, part law and order and part comedy. And people will respond to it. And, yeah, I mean, like, most TV shows today would chop their hand off to get 3 million viewers on a Wednesday watching their cool crime show. And I think what's so what a lot of people love, especially about this season, it's the satisfaction of a show clicking into place and understanding what it's best at.

Because a lot of when you recommend people watch Justified, you often have to explain that the first season isn't really what the show winds up being. It's a case of the week show in its first season. There's something wrong with there. There's deep pleasures in season one of Justified. There's a lot of great stuff in there. But in season two, they lock into a couple things. They lock into a season long Big Bad, and we'll talk about Mags Bennett,

widely considered one of the best TV villains of all time, right? They lock into, they sink in even deeper into that thing that Mallory was talking about, that like that inescapable, suck of Harlan on Raylan Givens. And the way in which I've done a couple half and quasi full rewatches over the last couple years, I just sometimes

sink into a justified rewatch. And one day I'm going to fulfill my plan to do a super cut of all the times that a character goes, says some version of like, Raylan Givens is I live and breathe. But that's old TV bones. I realized this because I didn't rewatch anything when I did Bloody Harlan.

and I was like, it's been a few years since I watched season two. Yeah. But every single character is like, Dewey Crow, is that you? And it's like, oh yeah, that's Dewey. And then that's Doyle. And then like half of the dialogue is like reminding viewers

who might be like not constantly checking in on the show who people are. And yet they do it with like the artistry that that makes it invisible. The idea that this show, and this is something, speaking of like when the show came out, this is something we've bemoan all the time with the streamers

maybe being a little bit readier to pull the trigger on a show that is still finding its feet the idea that shows don't have the time to become as solidly themselves as they might otherwise be and justified had a...

I mean, not that the first season was a flop, but it had a second season to really figure itself out. And another pleasure of justified in general is like, are the ebbs and flow of what work. Because, like, season two widely consider the best. I think season four is the second best, and then, like, you have to

like navigate three or warm people off five, and then you're in the home, the end run with six. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like, I love that it's kind of all over the place in its quality, and yet at the same time, the core pleasure, which, again, the show figures itself out, winds up being

this story of Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder, two men who dug Cole together, circling each other for eternity, two sides, of the same coin, et cetera, et cetera, in a show where Boyd Crowder, Wong is supposed to die in season one. You know what I mean? And it's just sort of like, again, TV as a medium

should always be pliable and reactive to chasing what works, both character-wise and story-wise. And in the mix with all of that, you get the pleasure, the pure pleasure, to go back to that word, of the Elmore Leonard dialogue. It's so wild to think about this era and think about Boyd, Jesse Pinkman, and Omar, all nearly being written out of the shows

that they wound up almost defining. And I think eventually Boyd Crowder winds up swallowing the show a little bit more than he, you know, we would have preferred, but we are in perfect calibrated balance here in season two, and that's why it's such a joy. Mal, do you want to talk about Max Bennett and what makes her, like, such an iconic figure? Oh, my goodness.

I mean, I guess we start once again with the quality of the performance and the quality of the dialogue because Margo Martindale brings to life not only the substance of the language, but the rhythm of it. Like to get back to that supercut idea of a really given as they live and breathe. It was, so I rewatched the very first episode of the show. And then I rewatched the first episode of season two. And it was kind of amazing to see. like the mirror moments and the rhythm moments and overall, season two, while like elevated and just perfect,

is in a miniature, everything that works well about the show overall, including like the rhythm and bookend inside of the experience. You've got the We Doug Cole together as the bookend to the show overall. You've got the Apple Pie as the bookend to this episode. But what is that like that moment

between Raylan and Mags? Well, it's another version of the thing we got with Raylan and Boyd in the very beginning of the series when he shows up at the general store for the first time. And they're not even sincerely look there for the Bennett family business

at that point, right? They're looking for the pervert. And right away, you can feel with mags. Not only like the affection and the history, I think the word that we'll use second most on the pot after pleasure

is history. Those will be the two, like, core pillars of the discussion. but the reverence, the reverence that her sons convey and express, the reverence that you feel throughout the entire area, this little sliver of Kentucky, and then the way that that sliver has like spread and spread and spread across the land as she has built this empire, the way that you come to feel that.

And I love with Mags how there's this element of like, that also feels very emblematic of ambition of justified overall, the very intimate family dynamic. And then like what is lost, along the way and how do you seek to preserve that as you spread and grow and your ambition becomes the driving force in your life? Like, how do you balance those two things, right? So as we build toward the final stretch of the season and everything that happens in Bloody Harlem, but even before with like the decision to give up Dickie, right, before the finale.

And then the final sit down like with Loretta and then with Raylan, you have all of this always in every conversation with Mags. This is a person that people fear and you feel supremely that they have a right to and a reason to and that they should. But there is this like maternal matriarchal and like almost like Titan of industry element to everything that she's done too.

And I think the other thing about Mags is just whether you can ever tell if she's being honest, right? And that gets into the Black Pike plot of the season, but that also gets into every single conversation that she has not only with like a nominal foe like Raylan, but somebody like, Boyd, who is like a rival, but also the respect, like, that they have for each other.

I love that moment late when she's like, basically, I didn't have the measure of him and has to concede that, but it's inside of a quest to take him down. She's just full of nuance and, and, and, like, might, might, you know, but all of that is paired with a homemade glass of moonshine that makes you feel like you're in your own kitchen with your kin. Like, it's just the best. When I think of great TV figures or great TV villains, like she's one of the first people that pops into my mind up there with like Tywin

Lannister instantly. It's just like an instant gut association. I think what the show does so well is that it's not just on her shoulder. She's surrounded by, you know, a lot of other figures this season. Chris Ryan, do you want to join me in honoring Dickie Bennett as an incredible television character? Yeah, I mean, I think that what television does so well, especially shows that they get a couple of seasons to run,

they get to find their footing like you were talking about, Joe, and find their accents and their voice, is they can identify people and see something in them that maybe no one else saw. You know, so you get Margot Martindale as essentially Alice Warrington. You know, you get her in this incredible heavy role, and then they see Jeremy Davies,

who people probably have a passing relationship with in a couple of you know David, like an early David O'Russell movie he'd been on Lost at this point but you would never look at him and be drug freak Harlan gangster with a limp and they see it in him somehow.

And I remember when it actually is something that when this first aired I was like, Jeremy Davies as like a Kentucky like low level ratso-rizzle gangster? I don't know. And when you go back now, you're like,

Oh, actually, like, this seems like a career-defining performance for him, you know? This is so much different than him in Saving Private Ryan or in so many different, you know, things that he did. But this is, this is like the thing that TV does is it just will see a shade of somebody that maybe you never, no one else saw. I love that Dickie Bennett, like, Adrian Brody in Succession wishes he understood Layers the way that Dickie Bennett layers his, like, various grubby article. clothing in this. But like the thing, again, is history with these characters because, like, what is so satisfying?

Because we'll get Big Badd later and justified, like, quarrels or some others that are, like, are just meeting Raylan, or just coming to town, the Detroit flavor, all this sort of stuff, the Dixie Mafia, et cetera, et cetera. Shout out win. Yeah, exactly.

You can't spell Winnebago without the win. But, like, the history, The idea of the Hatfield-McCoy-esque relationship between Raylan's family and the Bennets is, and again, they try to replicate it later with the crows unsuccessfully. And it's just sort of like it's lightning in a bottle. It's perfect. The idea to Mallory's point of like these legends looming large in the holler, and it's not just Mags as a legend looming large, it's the Marshall.

And they sit down at a table. and they have two glasses of apple pie, and they both have, like, bullets in them as they're sitting down on this table, having a glass of apple pie, and only one of them gets up after. Like, that's, it's mythic is what justified is building in this finale here.

It's just incredible. What's the Doyle line? Like, this bullet's been on its way for 20 years. 20 years. Yeah. Like, it's like, that's, it's so much bigger than the show. It's honestly so much bigger than the Elmore Leonard conception of this character.

It's, you know, you start to get into, like, not to get too crazy, but that's like you're thinking about it the way Faulkner thought about towns and families, you know? Like that's what they're drawing from. And to combine that kind of way with just like absolutely like every page has dialogue that pops off the page and that you're going to like write down and be like, oh, I got to start integrating this into my everyday conversation is such an achievement. I think it was already in the glass, not the jar, is maybe one of the second, like, I think that's the second most. famous line from Justified after we dug Cole together. And what I love to Chris's earlier point, when I love, like, looking up this episode, I did what I always like to do, which is like, who wrote this, who directed this, and like, what else is on their CV?

And Fred Gollin, who's a name I recognize because he's like, he's a Yost guy, like he worked on Silo, like he's following Graham Yost around his various projects. And Michael Dinner, like, these are working TV writers and directors and not super mega stars that have gone on to make future films or, oh, they directed this very famous episode of television. Like, this is kind of the crown jewel of their achievement. And it is an incredible achievement. So, but I love that. That it's just sort of like this, this was an era when you could just have like, oh, yeah, the guys who do the work. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's like this, this like false notion that like after this point in TV history, like the geniuses came to town. And they were like,

oh, like Nick Pizzolado is going to show you how to really write television. But you were the guy saying that, to be clear. I know. I didn't look. That was you. Mistakes were made. Nikki Piz had it. I stayed by it.

I stayed at it for a minute. You did. But I think that there was this notion that like, oh, the otors have come to town to, like, really revolutionize. It's like, you know what, man, Michael Dinner is just as good as anybody shooting TV, you know? And he's still doing it now with City Primeval. It's just like, it looks awesome. It moves. It has pace and sense of space.

It's like everything you want from entertainment. And it's just, yeah, like, did some of them also make, like, L.A. law or, you know, episodes of television that people probably forgot about? Yeah, for sure. But, you know, Joanna, your point about the Yost family tree, I bet it's got, like, a lot of, like, really strong branches. And that that is something that Baller and I spent, like, a large percentage of our silo coverage talking about. the Yost family tree. Let's talk about foils for a second, because we've been talking around it a little bit,

but I think no show has ever done this better. That's what I think. I agree with. I care so much about the relationship between Rail and Givens and Boy Crowder and this idea that Raylan as a lawman is always, this is from the very beginning of the show, it starts with them shooting someone,

and the question is, was it justified? Like, can you as a lawman justify this move that you made? How close are you to the outlaws, who you dug Cole with? Like, the answer is a razor's edge. She's going to walk away from Boyd in this episode and let him shoot Dickie, right? And, like, I didn't pull the trigger, but I won't, you know, I won't be upset that he did. I'll sleep like a baby. Yeah, exactly.

So, like, so you have, you have that. And something, like, I was, Chris is, Chris Ryan is definitely the real Leonardologist on this episode, though. I have definitely read my share of Elmore Leonard, but I was, I was looking back through the adaptations of various Leonard's stories. And, you know, the 90s was like a heyday of Leonard's stories. You have, like, Jackie Brown or out of sight. You know, I'll get shorty. Like, all this stuff.

It's very cool and Tarantino-esque and whatever to enjoy Elmore Leonard. But one I always forget is 310 to Yuma, which is, like, one of my favorite, you know, the more recent remake is, like, one of my favorite films. And that is another perfect foil story, you know. And so I was just wondering, Mal, if you could talk about this idea of like Boyd and Raylan his foils. And then also like how Loretta sort of enters and complicates that as like a child version. Like, Raylan's like, she's going to go back because that's what I would do.

And this idea that he's like trying to save himself in trying to save Loretta. Right. Oh, boy. Two just two great prompts. This is such a fun show. to talk about. I think all three of us feel that way about Boyd and Raylan and that that question of foils and mirrors.

Like, I think another great macro aspect to Bloody Harlan and to season two overall is like the way that they talk about like Pike coming in and cutting off the top of the mountain and the slurry sliding down and consuming the town. It's like, that's already what Harlan is for Raylan. You know, he tries time and time again to escape. How does this finale open? It's with him asking, telling Winona that they're going to go to Glinkgo,

asking Art to go to Glinkgo. Like, he's trying to get out, but there's this... One last job, man. Yeah, exactly. That lasts in three more seasons. Yeah. aspect to it. It's really hard to, like, sum up.

We could do an entire season of podcasts about Raylan and Boyd and still not probably properly capture what makes their relationship so dynamic and so magical, because I think it's just as much about the things that they share. You know, Joe, like, we often like to talk about, like, what is a villain reveal about the hero, right? And I think that this is something that, like,

justified in the wire really share. There's that kind of, like, if I'm recalling correctly, and I'm definitely paraphrasing this, there's the, when I took a class in college on the wire, we learned that one of the ways that Simon pitched the wire was, like, we don't believe in good versus evil we renounce the theme. And that I don't think totally maps on to justify, to be clear, because I think there are objectively, overtly,

vile and evil people in the justified universe who Raylan is constantly trying to stop and who we as viewers abhor, right, who do terrible, like, despicable things. But with Boyd-Railin, with that central relationship, or with the Bennets, with Mags inside of this season, you have constant moments, not only where, where that shared history is called upon, but where the characters are reminding each other of themselves,

themselves of each other, right? And so, like, I think the magic of it is just as much about the, like, to quote you, Joe, you know, there, but for the grace, right? Like, that idea of this is what I could have become. It's just as much about that and the moments where Boyd brings that out

in Raylan as it is, I think, about the opposite. The moments where Raylan's, like, this is still actually who I am, too. And we're really not that different after all. and the alliances, the recurring nature of the alliances, I think if you try to describe that part of Justifies and someone who had seen it, they'd actually think it sounded ridiculous,

like the number of times, time and time and time again, that Raylan will say, Boy, you're the only one who can help me with this, or they form some sort of shared pact out of necessity or urgency because it's a recurring thing. It's like the heartbeat of the show in some ways,

but it somehow always feels right, even when we know it's a mistake. and that's just magic. So, like, Loretta, one of my favorite characters in the show over the life of the show, just sensational. The thing about Loretta in this episode in Bloody Harlan, it's twofold, right? Because you have Winona telling Raylan she's pregnant. He's about to take a piss.

Like everything about that moment, the way that she tells him, the way that he receives the news. And then she just simply cannot believe that he is going to go drive into the teeth of danger again to save this other kid when he just found out he's about to have his own. It's such a great scene when she's like she's 14

and she's just basically like... It's not your problem. It's not your problem. And like it's just devastating because there's not a single part of you as a viewer two seasons in that thinks Raylon would make any other choice, right? And when he gets to be with Loretta

at the end and they're talking, we stop thinking at least dominantly about Loretta and Raylan's all. born child as the comp. And to your point show, Raylon and Loretta are the comp again, because we have to think about Arlo in his history with his own father. And when he

says, like, ask your ask yourself what your daddy would want you to do. Her response is like one of the most heart-wrenching moments of his TV. Caitlin Deaver. I wanted to be here to tell me. And like, Raylan has to think about whether he would feel that way, right? And it's just like,

absolutely, it's absolutely heart-wrenching, but just perfect. Perfect. Chris, is, is Caitlin Deaver's performance? here like an all-time like Hollywood calling card of Loretta McCready and justified? Oh yeah. I mean, it's like

I think the point that you were sort of alluding to which is like this idea that that Raylan is seeing his own mistakes being made over and over again throughout. And I think that whenever you're from a place you and you go back to that place you can see your own

life still kind of in the cracks of sidewalks or in this case and in hills. And the empathy that Oliphon communicates for her while still having all the great justified banter, you know, and all the,

all the highly artful dialogue is really effective. You know, she, she gets, and also imagine being Caitlin Deaver and coming into this show and acting against Margot Martindale and Timothy Oliphon and James LaGro and all these people who are season, season actors.

and you're essentially the emotional fulcrum of the show for the entire season. You know, like, she's the thing that is, like, the urgency of the season. Although, like, who's going to take over the weed business stuff is kind of, like, window dressing, aside from her. That history, again, I keep coming back to this word, but I love the way that it's baked in in these, like, almost petty ways. Like, it is and it isn't. Like, the fact that Dickie's wounded, like, knee leg comes from a baseball game. Like boys at a baseball game, you know what I mean? And so like the history of that.

And then for him to explain to us, as Timothy Oliphon is doing great physical comedy dangling from one leg in a tree. Remarkable. How many steps, right? Like every day he's been thinking about Rayleigh Givens, every time his leg hurts, he's been thinking about this. And he has spent all season, there's so many interactions between the two of them where Dickie is like slathering niceties. on top of this seething anger that he has for Raylan. And so for it to, like, pop off at the end here is so good. And also, like, the other little ways, tiny little ways that history is baked into conversations.

Like, when the James Legrow character, Wade Messer goes to pick up, Loretta, he calls her ready, which no one else in the show has called her that. But he's old friends with her dad. So he just calls her that. Or when Boyd goes to get info from Doyle's deputy on the bridge, the iconic justified bridge, He calls him Nikki, which like, you know, no one else calls him that. And it's just the idea like they probably went to high school together. You know, and so it's just like it's just sort of layered in there and no one has to say it. Sometimes they do say it.

We don't call together. But then there's just like all these other little moments where no one has to say anything. And like that idea of like trying to pull Loretta out of a mistake that could condemn her to something for the rest of her life comes on the heels of, the death of Raylan's Aunt Helen, who in the episode previous to this, when he's got his gun out and Dickie's crying on his knees in the, you know, in the woods, really talking about what Helen did for him. Pull him out of the mine. Pull him out of Harlan.

Saved him. And so he's like, in her memory, this is something I'm going to do. And one thing, I mean, like, if people are listening to this and they haven't watched justified in a gazillion years or only rewatched, maybe saw the system's coming and only rewatch this episode. The context from the episode before this that Winona has is seeing a tombstone in the family plot outside of, like, Arlo's house, with Raylan's name on it and an opening date and no ending date. It's just like, this show is so good. And then the episode ends with a justified staple, which is, you'll never leave Harlan alive. This is the Brad Paisley version

We've heard it in season one and then season two. They skip it in season three. The best version is the Ruby Friedman version, which plays in, I think, season four or five. But, like, you know, Devil Town and Friday Night Lights. You'll never leave Harlan alive and justified. And the way in which it's definitely too on the nose, but it doesn't matter.

It's perfect. Come on, it was 2011. What was on the nose? Obama was president. We were living our lives. Devilton gets me 100 times out of 100 and will for the rest of my life. 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.

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allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zep bound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsening. kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9-9 or visit setbound.lily.com. I want to give Chris a moment to talk about his best friend Deputy Tim Gutterson and the way in which the marshals get to arrive in like the cavalry at the end of this. What do you want to say about that?

When watching justified, you have to allow for the fact that the bad guy is always going to say the one extra line instead of shooting Raylan and that the marshals will all. always turn up. But that moment that leads to the marshals turning up at, I believe it smags's place, right? Is one of my favorite, low-key favorite scenes in the episode is Winona and Art talking when she goes. And there's like an exchange where he's just like, if you've come to ask me about Glencoe, like, that's not how this is done. Like, I'm not going to do any favors. And she's basically like, you have, you have to go help him. Like, he's going to get himself killed. And, you know, art is a character who is essentially, like, comic relief in this show

in a lot of ways. Like, he's a variation on the angry police captain in every 80s police movie and show. But when he's just, like, sometimes you just can't help, you know, like, the idea that people are beyond helping and that there are certain motivations that are going to run deeper than self-preservation. I love that, like, as a setup for that final scene, But yeah, I mean, it's weird to be like my favorite character is this like incredibly bizarre sniper who's in like a third of the show. But it's Tim. He also may have the highest hit rate of a of a featured player in like any TV show in

terms of like when he opens his mouth. I'm like, well, I'm getting that as a tattoo. Yeah. Gold. Nothing but gold. Yeah. Speaking of, like, casting, the only other thing I think I've seen

Jacob Pitts in is like Euro Trip. And I don't think anyone has like, and that's not a movie I love. And like, I don't think anyone else has ever tapped into like what he's capable of in this show. There was, I was a recapper for Justified in like the final, I don't know,

three seasons or something like that. And I used to do a running count of Rachel lines and Tim lines in every episode because they were so low. Yeah. But those characters are so just always there, and they're used so well this season because early, like at the beginning of the season, Rachel's the one who asked him to go with her to Harlan because she talks

about the way they treat her, where they're very polite to her, but there's that like simmering racism. They call her, you know, like, Mags gives her this really polite, like, ma'am and all this sort of stuff like that. And the way that Harlan, the way that Raylan, who's like a good old boy, can talk to these people, which is why he keeps getting sent to Harlan, that in his bizarre relationship with Boyd. Or the fact that it's oftentimes his own father who's causing the problem. Exactly. And then with Tim, you get the episode early on this season where a pregnant comet has escaped or whatever.

And there's this whole sequence with Tim sniping this guy. And they're talking about the apricot, the point in a man's head where you hit it with a bullet and explodes. So for Tim to come in and snipe at the – That's poetry, brother. It's just like a payoff. Like as soon as Doyle gets hit – you don't see Deputy Tim before Doyle gets hit in that, but you know who did it.

And then when you see him, his cap is turning around and you're like, oh, shit. That moment is also, like, justified in a nutshell where it's like, it's badass. Tim's got his hat backwards. But the show focuses on Dickie screaming. Yes. And it's like,

so it's got consequences on top of, like, the sort of, like, perverse, you know, thrill people get from watching violence. on screen. Joe, you alluded to like, like for as much as we're probably talking about Faulkner and things that have been 20 years in the making and legacies and histories

and stuff, like, this season still has like banger one-off episodes and like great, like I fucking love the Gary subplot this season. It's so funny and so, but it's kind of like a weird 70s crime comedy throughout this like just absolute

loser orchestrating like robberies and when known of being with this guy. It's such a great way to use real estate and show different sides of characters is to have them do these little side episodes. Rachel's brother episode is good. Like, pretty much there's no filler on this season.

With a Chadwick-Bosman appearance in that episode, yeah, you re-watched Justified and you'll be very surprised at who pops up. But this is like, that was what was going on in television. You would just have, like, incredible actors to show up. to do, I mean, like, Bozeman wasn't quite Bozeman yet, but like, you know, to show up to do little, like, bits and pieces on Justify is just so incredible. Marri Rubin, if anyone's listening to this and they haven't watched Justify, but they just wanted to tune in to hear the pleasure of Chris Ryan's voice. What would you say to convince them to invest in 78 episodes of television? Oh, I mean, give yourself the point.

pleasure that we've been describing. 78. It's funny because we were chatting with our wonderful producer, Kai Grady, before recording about the episode total of a couple different shows, this and lost. And I think to Chris's point from earlier about the days before the true dawn and arrival of the streaming era, the count you have in your mind for like what a TV show is supposed to be, even one that feels like it's been around for a long time.

It's just so different now. If you're like, yeah, a show is 30. episodes, right? And that's it. And like, we're lucky if we get 30. When I look back and see the Justified was 78. Sometimes it shows only five episodes, Mal. That's true. Yeah. But what a five they can be, Chris. Listen to Chris's coverage of The Idol on The Watch, our sister podcast. 78 almost like doesn't feel like enough in some ways. It's like you want every single moment in Harlan with Raylan that you can possibly get. But I think it's the perfect amount. And Joe, you're just, description earlier of the uneven nature of the series is genuinely part of the joy of it.

It just feels like you're in a different era, but the era that preceded the one we're in now in such a seamless way. The characters are absolutely indelible. The writing is electric, the setting. It's one of the most like inextricable from the fabric of the text of the show itself. It's just a genuine treat to spend time in the justified universe. I haven't gotten to watch primeval yet you two have. I can't wait. It sounds like you've both indicated that you don't necessarily need to revisit or watch for the first time. I'll justify to enjoy that. So go ahead and dive right into that regardless, right? But then allow yourself the life enriching experience of spending 78 hours or 78 episodes with Timothy Olifon as Raylan Gibbons. Why would you not want to do that?

Why? I don't want to steal any content. from The Watch or, you know, my upcoming conversation with Rob. But, like, Chris, do you want to tease it all, like, City Primeval? So City Primeval is based on a Elmore Letter novel called City Prime Evil, High Noon in Detroit. High noon in Detroit being the operative phrase there, because it is essentially about a showdown between, like, a master lawman and a master criminal. In the book, the lawman is Raymond Cruz, who is, um, a character who shows up

in a few Elmore Lairn novels and is a Detroit police officer, but he is a part of justified city primeval, but it's obviously a Raylan story. And it's just so awesome to see Raylan as a fish out of water. It is so cool to see

this cowboy had a guy walking into smoky Detroit bars, albeit in Chicago, Detroit bars, where they're listening to Peefunk, you know, and him having to like just and talking to

Vondi Curtis Hall and Ageny Ellis and having like this blast in Detroit and I would not go to spar to put it on the the Mags Bennett level but they went scouting for Clement Mansell who's the villain in

the novel and they found Boyd Holbrook and they got pretty close. We love Boyd Holbrook. Mallory and I are like second best boyd after Boyd Crowder is Boid There's a scene waiting for Mallory that I wish I had like one of those, like, you know, the YouTube reactions of like people seeing Darth Vader for the first time?

Or like watching the Red Wedding. Yeah. I want the Mallory reaction to this scene. We can watch it together. I'd be delighted. I don't know if that would be appropriate. The three of us have a lot of shared passions. But I think it's fair to say that Boyd is on our joint Mount Rushmore.

Definitely. I can't wait. watch. I'm so excited. Yeah. And Natalie Clements from Rectify also is like they're like doing a sort of Bonnie and Clyde thing. I love her. And I would say I've only watched the first two episodes, but I would say that like, Angelois is like kind of running away with the show for me. And what is great, you know, again, not to not to steal a conversation. I'll wrap this up in a second. But like her interaction with railing, which comes in a courtroom in minutes,

does so much to establish what city primeval is interested in interrogating about the TV show Justified, because watching the TV show Justified in 2023, as we have had conversations about, like, copaganda, and as they exist in shows, something like that. Justified is sometimes a hard sell, I think, for some people who are like, I don't want to watch a cop who, like, goes out of control and shoes people and beats people up and stuff like that.

Dads everywhere right now are like, I don't. It's all I want to watch. Like, all of our dads are just like, wait, I don't want to watch that. That's a 24-7 what I want to watch. But I just think that Justified always had that on its mind from the beginning. Like, it's not like sort of mindlessly giving you that. And City Primeval really has it on its mind. But never at the expense of entertainment.

Exactly, exactly. We're not preaching anything, but we are interrogating the, the roots of a genre that all three of us absolutely love, but it's always interesting to look at it from a different angle. And the Carolyn Wilder character that she plays,

who's this defense attorney, this high power defense attorney, is in, she is also complicated and also has a lot of... Yes. Compromised a bit, yeah. Yeah, she's also compromised. And I think that that's the thing that this show does.

I mean, look, nobody, I think that justified as a series, the only criticism I would have of it is that it had so many good characters there almost wasn't enough real estate for all of them. And then I think because of the way the original kind of like move to make Boyd

almost the co-lead character over the course of the series, I think for certain things like in the Ava character and various characters to kind of reorient themselves around these sort of Raylan and Boyd access. stripping all of that away, which I think is for a lot of justified fans,

the part of the cell is like, oh, I want to see Ava and Winona and Art and Tim and these people that I like get to watch for multiple seasons. Stripping them all out cleans up the storytelling engine so much. It's like got an oil change so that you can actually watch the primeval and it's like pure justified in a lot of ways. Like it's almost a throwback because it is Leonard to like the original conception of the show.

But to watch them kind of like situate new characters around Raylan, and it's so like, it's so lean because it's just a limited series. It's actually really impressive to watch them adapt to a new way of television storytelling. And to watch without that history, without anyone ever saying, Raylan Gibbons is a live and breathe in Detroit. I'll miss that, honestly. No, it's cool. There's a Detroit coffee just calls him Slim.

Yeah. It's amazing. It's great. All right, anything else we want to say about Bloody Harley Harley before we go? Mallory Rubin. I looked to see where this episode ranked on a big project The Ringer did a few years ago, which was the best episodes, the best 100 TV episodes of the century.

And would either of you care to guess without looking, unless you looked already and know where it checked in? Is it in the top 10? It's not. Okay. That's kind of surprising. Well, I have a second reveal coming. Don't look.

Don't look. 22. Close. It's at 19. Now, we should say this is a few years old this project. So it hasn't been updated. It doesn't include

some of the more recent episodes of, say, Succession, right? Or White Lotus. Also one of the more contentious debates we ever had. Yes. Internally. I was just going to say,

my feeling is if we update this at some point and more things move in, I don't think Bloody Harlan is an episode that would get pushed down. I actually think it would possibly move up. I think people have even more, like, reverence for it an effect for it. Do you know who wrote about this episode for us in this project? Did I?

You did. Yeah. What a trade it was to go back and see you there. See you. Why would anyone other than Chris write about that? The finger still works back then. That's like when we just did a re-ranking of the, of the Black Mirror episodes, and like we added the new episodes. And then those of us who wrote on that article might have shuffled the order of some of the other episodes because we objected to where they were. You know? I was like, I was like, this. is wildly incorrect and we need to fix something. So yeah, we're constantly tweaking and changing and updating.

Chris, anything else you want to say about Bloody Harlan? Before we go. No, I just miss TV like this. I just miss having shows that felt like the pleasure of the television watching experience was as important as like some of the more

important like artistic messages that they were trying to get across. And that like there's just definitely to me something that's been lost in the mechanics of how TV gets made that Honestly, watching hijack really brings me back to, like, oh, like a show can have like this kind of pace and this kind of momentum without feeling, you know, over frenzied or anything like that. It's really, it makes me nostalgic. And I think something that hijack does, doesn't do because, like, hijack for those who aren't watching is like a seven-hour limited series on Apple Plus about a plane hijacking where it's like, quote-unquote, told them real time.

So it's seven hours of story, seven episodes of television. But I would say, I think those episodes do that thing of the streaming era where they blur. Like, I couldn't tell you the one with, you know what I mean, about those episodes? Yeah. Whereas the justified episodes, and like, Succession did this well. But like, oftentimes, I talk about this all the time. You would get in the, in like the binge drop era or whatever. Like, obviously the Bear did it.

Obviously, Succession did it. But we lose that the one with. And we have the one with in almost every single episode of Justified. We have that distinct. this is what happened. This is who was here. This is how it played out. Margo Montendale won an Emmy, a well-deserved Emmy as playing Mags Bennett. This, you know, Kailen Deaver, this is the very beginning of her career. She's such a baby. She then got into locked into Tim Allen's sitcom jail for like a while after this. And then she's like been doing great films. But, you know,

Margo Martindale had been a working actor, you know, character actress Margaret Martin Dale for a very long time. But this broke her into another echelon and like, you know, working on the Americans. And, you know, she became this, like, person you go to for something in this level. And I would say this isn't even her, this episode isn't even her best performance. There's a thing she does in an earlier episode when her son Kuver dies where she's like beseeching Loretta to come with her, but Loretta now knows what happened to her daddy. And so, and so Mize goes from like that sweetness to.

this absolutely terrifying heartened face and I remember I was I don't know why but I was in my grandmother's kitchen watching this episode I could not tell you why I was there and I was just like

I like I gasped when I saw I was like I didn't know an actor could do that and that's the moment actually that Justified became like one of my top shows of all time was that earlier episode and then the rest of the season

it's just like bang bang bang and you know it stands the test of time anyone you ever show this season two or this episode two is like wow, this fucking top of its game television. All right. Well, I think that does, I think we did

it. Beautiful. So you're going to do City Prime Evil week to week on prestige? Unclear yet, but we'll definitely be covering at least the first two episodes this week for sure. And you and Andy will be talking about that. Yeah, exactly. So I really recommend that show for fans of the show

or for people who like Cobb Vamp on the Mandalorian, know any mean, or for people, like, watching Olafant play a lawman is never a bad time, honestly. Deadwood, whatever the case may be. Joe, do you have an update account of how many days it's been since we've seen? Cop Van, I know you keep one. You know, what's horrible is Olafon is out there doing his press for City Prime Evil, and his face is shaven. You know that I watch the facial hair, because with the facial hair's back, that means he's going to do a cop-fant appearance, but it's not back.

I was just going to say I highly recommend people read City Prime Evil the book because it's a really interesting exercise and adaptation to take a hugely important character from another kind of universe and just shove him, just put him in like for like with another hero of a novel. It's it's kind of an amazing feat of screenwriting and adaptation. Excellent. Well, like I said, we will be back with other prestige episodes this week. I don't know when we're next doing a Hall of Fame episode, but I hope that I don't know who gets the jacket. Is it Yost?

Is it Oliphant? Who gets to wear it? Do they share it? Is it a shared custody of the Hall of Fame Lime Green Ringer jacket? I think Wade Messer probably needs it the most. Maybe for this one, everyone just gets a glass of apple pie, you know? That's right.

I raise one to you both now. It was great to be piding with you two again. I miss doing this with this group. We haven't parted together since the House of the Dragon. We'll be back in 2026 when House of the Dragon returns. Well, how delightful to see you, to see my boys again, to know the mystery. Thank you so much to our producer, Kai Grady, on this, and we'll be back soon. Bye.