Justified: City Primeval

The original Justified is one of my favorite shows of all-time. I wasn't expecting Justified: City Primeval to be as good as the original (not much is) but I was hoping it would be good enough and it absolutely was. It did not disappoint. I'm excited to see where this is going to go but so far the one thing that I do know is I can't stand the daughter. Having said that, besides hating the daughter, Justified: City Primeval is one of the best new shows of the year. This takes place 15 years after the original ended and Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is now a Marshall in Florida until a case brings him to Detroit to chase a violent sociopath (Boyd Holbrook). While no one is going to be a better adversary than Boyd Crowder (played by the amazing Walton Goggins), Boyd Holbrook is also a great actor and makes the character a worthy villain for Raylan. The writing and acting is what makes this show so special. While not as good as the original Justified, this is a worthy sequel as it's gotten nothing but great reviews by just about everyone. I read that this is only a limited series back for just this one season but with the way it ended they have to bring it back for at least another season but that ending is what everyone was waiting for. I really hope they do do another season because this show was terrific and you can't have enough Justified in my opinion.

Sometimes you come across a show that's just perfect, and while it must be tempting to capitalize on its success, it would probably be better to let it be. Because how do you compete with perfection ?

I never bothered to watch "El Camino", because I didn't feel that "Breaking bad" needed a sequel, so maybe it was good or maybe not. I don't know and I'm never gonna find out.

But here we are. A new chapter in the Raylan Givens story.

As expected it doesn't in any way come close to the original. The strenght of "Justified" was grounded in the multitude of great characters surrounding Oliphant and Goggins, and that it took a cop show and turned it into an epic rural saga.

Goggins made his villain a man you despised and loved at the same time. A bad guy with a multilayered personality.

Sadly Damsell is no Boyd Crowder. He's just a bad guy to the bone, and "City Primeval" is just another regular " catch a killer" cop show.

That being said it's not bad. Raylan is still a cool guy and I actually couldn't help myself enjoying it.

But while I rated the original 10, this deserves only a 7.

Worth a watch though.

It's a good thing the writers are currently on strike; that means you can get new ones when the strike is over! The way they wrote the character Willa is horrible . Please send her back to Florida or whatever.

Vivian, if you read this, please know that this is just your first gig. You have your dad's smile, but you were miscast into this role that is setting you up for a lot of criticism. I can't wait to see you in roles that actually make sense.

The good part of this show is that it still has Timothy Olyphant doing Raylan. There are also some really good supporting actors in this show. I have hope that this show will get better and "justify" itself.

What used to make Justified great was the excellent and charismatic villains along with witty repartee dialogue between Raylan and said antagonists, with some good action and plot twists sprinkled in. This series has a less compelling villain who is quite obvious in his machinations and struts around in his white briefs far too often for my taste. He's hardly ever on screen with Raylan so the dialogue is minimal.

We also get some side characters who are inserted for little reason like his supposedly 15-year-old daughter Willa, played by Timothy Olyphant's real life daughter who is 20 and it shows. She can raise her voice an octave but we still have eyes. The writers do her no favors, she just plays the usual bratty and disobedient teen girl trope that is seemingly in every show now, and doesn't move the plot forward in any way but rather acts as a drag on it with distracting annoyance.

The love interest for Raylan is so far off from Ava Crowder or Winona Hawkins that it just doesn't come across as believable. Raylan is probably out of almost every woman's league but in this case it's really a bridge too far.

Neither the plot nor the dialogue are all that clever. Raylan gets in a few quips but it just seems like they stole the lines from the original Justified and repurposed them here. It's great to see Raylan on screen again and Sweety (Vondie Curtis-Hall) is also a lot of fun to watch so I still give this a 6, but when they're off screen it's a 3 or 4. Were they justified in making this show? Mostly not.

I love all things Timothy Olyphant, the original Justified and I love the Raylan Givens character. What I can do without is the Willa character. I find her to be annoying and unnecessary. I know it's only 2 episodes in, but she's added nothing to the show at all, except teenage disobedience. This character is an obvious ploy and someone we're supposed to care about when she's abducted or otherwise harmed. Maybe the impetus for Raylan to break a law, become angrier, show vulnerability, etc. Either way she's irritating and the least the writers could've done was make her character likable. I'm still gonna watch because of Mr. Olyphant and the rest of the cast, but I really hope her character has less screen time.