'Justified' review: Timothy Olyphant's Raylan Givens returns
Timothy Olyphant, left, stars as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in the FX series "Justified." Credit: FX
"Justified" is back Tuesday night, and for Newsday's review... read on!
Meanwhile, as you know, "Justified' patriarch and great American crime novelist Elmore Leonard died last year, and Graham Yost -- who has so brilliantly brought Leonard's creation to TV over five seasons now -- wrote this about him in a tribute, and the spirit certainly lives on.
"Justified" usually has us at one -- one blood-spattered corpse, that is. But I gave up counting at around 10. This high a mortality rate is unusual for any "Justified" season opener, and if life is so cheap this early then what's the price further down the road?
But even if the dramatis personae shrinks by about 25 percent tonight, "Justified" is always about the inevitability of more casualties -- which means if "A Murder of Crowes" is any indication, expect to hit the fifty percent mark by mid-season. (The aforementioned family - Crowes - relocates from Florida to Harlan County, and Boyd is forced to explore new supply lines south of the border; it's pretty much insanely inevitable.)
But tonight's toll is too high. The show remains terrific; the production details, the writing, the quality just about peerless in just about every shot. There's beauty in every scene -- each detail inscribed with so much care that you're left with the urge to rewind just to savor it again.
Except: When you do, the body will still fall .?.?. the brain still splatter.
Why so much blood so early? Some fine character actors meet their ends almost instantly tonight -- character actors with work you know and probably cherish, but who get their turn at the camera for only a handful of scenes. You'd like them to hang around longer -- to explore a little further their degenerate souls and misbegotten ways.
No such luck. Will this be a good season? Undoubtedly, yes, and blood will be spilled. But if this opener is any indication, there's not enough fake blood in Hollywood to sate the fifth.
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