End Justified the means
Justified is one of those fine, serialized TV dramas that can be hard to keep track of without a GPS navigation device. Which is a shame, because if B.C. writer Graham Yost’s witty, edgy adaptation of a typically hard-edged Elmore Leonard crime thriller were easier to find, it might have a bigger audience.
As it is, the third season comes to an end tonight on Super Channel with the kind of cracking good yarn viewers have come to expect from a series that recently broke through the clutter to an Emmy win — against some mighty stiff competition. (For the uninitiated, Justified’s first season is airing Sundays on Showcase.)
This past season introduced two new villains to the mix, played with subtlety and characteristic eccentricity by Neal Mcdonough and Mykelti Williamson. In the kind of storytelling twist Leonard is known for, the two didn’t care much for each other, which added whole new layers of complexity and meaning to Raylan Givens’ vow to serve and protect the good people of Harlan County, USA Givens is played by Timothy Olyphant, a repeat Emmy nominee and likely contender again this year.
Cynics who dismiss Elmore Leonard as a purveyor of pulp trash might expect a glorified, blood-soaked shootout in tonight’s finale, but they obviously haven’t been watching Justified if they do. What’s clever about Justified, as with a lot of Leonard’s fiction, is what’s left unsaid, rather than what’s shown in full-blown, gory detail.
Robert Quarles (Mcdonough) — the cash-strapped interloper from Detroit who assumed the back-country hicks of Harlan County, USA would be no match for his urban, sophisticated ways — finds himself overdrawn at the piggy bank and tries to cut a last-minute deal with small-town money-launderer Ellstin Limehouse (Williamson).
As a lawman and, arguably, sole voice of reason, Givens stands tall and deals with the mayhem in his own, inimitable way. A warm, lively heart beats, though, beneath that taciturn exterior. Yost has said as much (in a sit-down interview earlier this year with Postmedia News.)
“It all comes from Elmore,” Yost said. “His characters have a lot of dimensions. I don’t think Raylan is any one thing. He’s neither onedimensional nor two-dimensional. There’s a lot going on there. And Tim (Olyphant) has really dug deep to find that. There are times where the anger flashes out, if the moment touches something that has deep meaning to him, absolutely. But he always has respect for the situation, whoever the bad guy is. He’s not a yeller. Elmore’s characters don’t yell very much.”
(Super Channel – 8 p.m.)