"Justified: City Primeval" Limited Series Announced
Justified: City Primeval premieres July 18
Last night, Justified: City Primeval premiered with its first two episodes of its eight-part run, "City Primeval" and "The Oklahoma Wildman."
Spoilers "Justified: City Primeval" Grade and Discussion
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"Justified: City Primeval" Limited Series Announced
Justified: City Primeval premieres July 18
Last night, Justified: City Primeval premiered with its first two episodes of its eight-part run, "City Primeval" and "The Oklahoma Wildman."
Strong opening for the show. It's a bit surreal, though, it looks like Justified, it sounds like Justified (except people can say "fuck" now), but it's only got Raylan in it, and it's been restrained about actually referencing Justified (and the one time it does is, oddly, not one of the many events that involved people from Detroit). Keith David is always a good time, didn't know he'd be in this.
I was also very happy that everything got put on the board pretty much immediately. The ending of the first episode, where the cops were assuming the killing was part of the crime they'd been investigating earlier when it was just a freak coincidence, had me worried the show would have Raylan and the detectives chasing their tails for two or three episodes or more to burn time.
I was also very happy that everything got put on the board pretty much immediately. The ending of the first episode, where the cops were assuming the killing was part of the crime they'd been investigating earlier when it was just a freak coincidence, had me worried the show would have Raylan and the detectives chasing their tails for two or three episodes or more to burn time.
Justified was (is) my all-time favorite TV series. I have been waiting for this for a long time. Two episodes in and loving it.
The courtroom scenes in the first episode were pure gold.
The asskicking delivered at the end of the second episode evoked "Bullock style" from Deadwood. I was waiting to see some teeth on the pavement.
Raylan still has that Gary Cooper in his step.
Not so much enjoying Tim Olyphant's daughter playing Willa. Apparently she's only in three episodes, and it would be story-breaking for her to still be around much longer after the second ep.
I wish they'd used some of the original music, but what we're getting is pretty good. Miss the rest of the old gang, but having them in this series would mean having to shoehorn them in. Excellent cast.
9/10 so far.
The courtroom scenes in the first episode were pure gold.
The asskicking delivered at the end of the second episode evoked "Bullock style" from Deadwood. I was waiting to see some teeth on the pavement.
Raylan still has that Gary Cooper in his step.
Not so much enjoying Tim Olyphant's daughter playing Willa. Apparently she's only in three episodes, and it would be story-breaking for her to still be around much longer after the second ep.
I wish they'd used some of the original music, but what we're getting is pretty good. Miss the rest of the old gang, but having them in this series would mean having to shoehorn them in. Excellent cast.
9/10 so far.
Fantastic start so far. While I miss the rest of the Justified cast (especially Walton Goggins even if it would make zero sense for him to return), this show has the right flavor of Justified while standing on its own.
I'm glad they jumped over some of the obvious tropes particularly, as noted by David cgc, regarding the main crime being a freak coincidence to the previous investigation and how that would lead to Raylan and company chasing their tails. Instead, the show went head first into confronting the actual perpetrator, all the way to the classic bullish lawyer standing firm. I particularly appreciate how Raylan and Carolyn essentially acknowledged to each other what was going on but that they have go through the paces of their respective jobs. Of course, that doesn't stop Raylan from trying to turn on the classic Raylan charm...before hitting a brick wall.
That said, I wasn't happy when the show did jump right to an even worse trope: The perpetrator publicly cozying up to Raylan's daughter as a not-so-veiled threat and power move. Incredible restraint on Raylan's part to not beat the ever-loving shit out Clement right there and then...only to do a little bit of that out in the street...where, of course, Willa sees it and is naturally terrified. Admittedly, I knew this was a serious risk when it was clear before the show started that Willa would be a reoccurring character but I still worry that the show will continue to pull on this thread as the season progresses. Only time will tell if it's handled well.
As for the rest of the cast, somehow I didn't know Keith David and Vondie Curtis Hall were going to be in this, so I was pleasantly surprised by both of their inclusions...even if David's character unsurprisingly got his ass killed. Maybe it's just me and I haven't seen him in anything in awhile, but Hall seems much thinner than I recall. Also, it was itching at me the whole time I knew the actress playing Sandy but couldn't place her until I looked her up: Adelaide Clemens, who played Tawny in the highly-underrated, highly-underappreciated Rectify!
I'm glad they jumped over some of the obvious tropes particularly, as noted by David cgc, regarding the main crime being a freak coincidence to the previous investigation and how that would lead to Raylan and company chasing their tails. Instead, the show went head first into confronting the actual perpetrator, all the way to the classic bullish lawyer standing firm. I particularly appreciate how Raylan and Carolyn essentially acknowledged to each other what was going on but that they have go through the paces of their respective jobs. Of course, that doesn't stop Raylan from trying to turn on the classic Raylan charm...before hitting a brick wall.
That said, I wasn't happy when the show did jump right to an even worse trope: The perpetrator publicly cozying up to Raylan's daughter as a not-so-veiled threat and power move. Incredible restraint on Raylan's part to not beat the ever-loving shit out Clement right there and then...only to do a little bit of that out in the street...where, of course, Willa sees it and is naturally terrified. Admittedly, I knew this was a serious risk when it was clear before the show started that Willa would be a reoccurring character but I still worry that the show will continue to pull on this thread as the season progresses. Only time will tell if it's handled well.
As for the rest of the cast, somehow I didn't know Keith David and Vondie Curtis Hall were going to be in this, so I was pleasantly surprised by both of their inclusions...even if David's character unsurprisingly got his ass killed. Maybe it's just me and I haven't seen him in anything in awhile, but Hall seems much thinner than I recall. Also, it was itching at me the whole time I knew the actress playing Sandy but couldn't place her until I looked her up: Adelaide Clemens, who played Tawny in the highly-underrated, highly-underappreciated Rectify!
It's been a bit of a slow burn after the first few episodes, and curiously disconnected (both from the original show and just in the sense that Detroit feels really tiny and isolated to just a handful of characters), but I'm hoping last night's episode was a turning point, because things really seem to have started cooking.
I do have to comment on some of the production aspects, though. They've been really sloppy with the backdrop in Clement's apartment (and a few other sets, but that's the big one), they needed to either be more careful about how they set up the camera, close the blinds more, or just bite the bullet and CG it in more often, because they keep showing it prominently and not bothering to match the perspective so the buildings in the background look all skewed and tilted. Similarly, the backdrops for the car scenes are conspicuously muddy, slow, and out-of-sync, and the effects in the last scene of the episode were atrocious. Now, that particualr effect had been done badly on Justified, too, but that was ten years ago, and they were also usually more careful about only showing stuff of that quality in quick cuts so you didn't have time to really luxuriate in how bad it was (and they frequently did it in camera).
I do have to comment on some of the production aspects, though. They've been really sloppy with the backdrop in Clement's apartment (and a few other sets, but that's the big one), they needed to either be more careful about how they set up the camera, close the blinds more, or just bite the bullet and CG it in more often, because they keep showing it prominently and not bothering to match the perspective so the buildings in the background look all skewed and tilted. Similarly, the backdrops for the car scenes are conspicuously muddy, slow, and out-of-sync, and the effects in the last scene of the episode were atrocious. Now, that particualr effect had been done badly on Justified, too, but that was ten years ago, and they were also usually more careful about only showing stuff of that quality in quick cuts so you didn't have time to really luxuriate in how bad it was (and they frequently did it in camera).
Yeah. That trope should have died with the DeNiro version of Cape Fear.
I was a little surprised and disappointed when Raylan sent Willa packing back to her mother. That said, at least her departure ceased using her as a means to threaten Raylan because it became clear pretty quickly the show didn't know how to utilize after the initial set-up. Certainly explains why Vivian Olyphant was only ever billed as a guest star (and still managed to have more to do than Marin Ireland...).
I'm sorry to see Sweety murdered already (granted, only two episodes left) because I was loving the hell out of Vondie Curtis-Hall's performance. He was the best thing about this season outside of Raylan himself.
I sure wish Adelaide Clemens had more to do. After the first couple of episodes of intrigue, Sandy has fallen off to simply "Isn't this enough money to flee to Aruba already?!"
I'm sorry to see Sweety murdered already (granted, only two episodes left) because I was loving the hell out of Vondie Curtis-Hall's performance. He was the best thing about this season outside of Raylan himself.
I sure wish Adelaide Clemens had more to do. After the first couple of episodes of intrigue, Sandy has fallen off to simply "Isn't this enough money to flee to Aruba already?!"
This whole series is falling kind of flat with me. It just lacks a certain something present in the original show. I guess what it really feels like is that we are spending ten episodes of TV to mop up a crazy punk Raylan would have plugged and walked away from in one hour of the old show. It's like he has no mojo or swagger at all here.
His daughter better find a damn day job. Worst bit of nepotism-driven miscasting I've seen in a while.
Another case of a 1-2 episode story painfully stretched into a 10-hour miniseries arc.
His daughter better find a damn day job. Worst bit of nepotism-driven miscasting I've seen in a while.
Another case of a 1-2 episode story painfully stretched into a 10-hour miniseries arc.
I think there was no small validity in showing Raylan, as a father, was not going to keep his kid in danger and that was a welcome deviation from the "keep the kid around despite the imminent risk for 'reasons'" trope.
I think the point is that Raylan, as a fish out of water, understands he can't get away in Detroit with what he got away with in Harlan.
What I'm seeing is that Raylan has come up on a criminal that he can't anticipate, and it's pissing him off.
When he shoots a bad guy, it's in an armed conflict. It's "justified." This time the dude never seems to be armed when Raylan is around to call for a showdown.
ETA: Except for the time when the Armenians showed up. Raylan was about to shoot Manzell in the balls.
I don't know- the Detroit cops around him all seems way harder-bitten and hard core than he ever was in Harlan.
This series started out with Raylan doing to the carjackers the type of stuff Raylan always did to guys like that in Harlan and getting his ass handed to him in court for it. That set the tone for the entire story.
That courtroom scene might have been the high point of this series so far.
"I wanted Chick Fil A mother fucker!"
"I wanted Chick Fil A mother fucker!"
What the fuck was that?
Show's over, so I added a poll to the thread, but I haven't voted yet, because what the fuck was that?
Show's over, so I added a poll to the thread, but I haven't voted yet, because what the fuck was that?
Why would you make a sequel like that, that's all but independent of the original, and then in the last fifteen minutes just turn it into a direct continuation of the original that would make no sense at all to the new viewers that it's apparently been aiming for? Hell, it doesn't make sense to someone who watched the show, it's like it was written by someone who got told about what Boyd's whole deal was second-hand. It's Avengers-movie Boyd, just the high points, no lead-character nuance.
I was delighted when the brought back all the Miami marshals for the retirement sequence, and that gave me some hope that they'd had to budget their existing characters and saved a surprise for the end (which they did, but not the one I was hoping for). I yelped in delight when Winona actually showed up, not even a phone cameo, actually in person and everything. And that seemed to be that, it gave the show some size, it explained what had been the intent with Raylan's arc and why this was a story worth telling, how he got burned out on it all. And then fucking cartoon Boyd just pops out of nowhere to chew some scenery and fuck up the ending of the original show. Were they planning to do another miniseries where Boyd and Raylan have a rematch, or did they genuinely thing this was a better ending to the original Justified than what we already had, so much so they just had to plug it in to the ostentatiously unrelated miniseries they just shot?
Up until now, City Primeval reminded me of those old movie sequels where the only thing that's carried over is the lead character's name and who's playing them. In the Heat of the Night to They Call Me Mister Tibbs to The Organization would be a prime example. This fan-service ending, in the worst possible sense, is just so weird considering that up until the second we hear David Koechner's voice, it seemed like they were going out of their way to be as clear as possible this is absolutely not a seventh season of Justified. Muddle-brained and misconcieved, I have no idea what they were thinking unless the secret backstory of the project is that they really wanted to do the full-on reunion/rematch story, but Walton Groggins was unavailable for when they'd be shooting it so they decided to build up to it and grabbed a Leonard novel off the shelf.
I'm also pretty annoyed at how many loose ends were just dropped, like Raylan's suspicions that Clement was more than just lucky (was he even carrying when Raylan shot him, or did his spidey-sense kick in again and make him leave his gun behind?), the investigation into the dirty cop. The miniseries was padded and had a bunch of wheel-spinning, there's no excuse for rushing the ending, especially not to tease an entirely different story with some false ambiguity. Frankly, I think it damages Raylan's characterization that whether or not he's finally out for good or if he's still addicted to crime-fighting is whether or not the ratings justify (no pun intended) making another installment.
I was delighted when the brought back all the Miami marshals for the retirement sequence, and that gave me some hope that they'd had to budget their existing characters and saved a surprise for the end (which they did, but not the one I was hoping for). I yelped in delight when Winona actually showed up, not even a phone cameo, actually in person and everything. And that seemed to be that, it gave the show some size, it explained what had been the intent with Raylan's arc and why this was a story worth telling, how he got burned out on it all. And then fucking cartoon Boyd just pops out of nowhere to chew some scenery and fuck up the ending of the original show. Were they planning to do another miniseries where Boyd and Raylan have a rematch, or did they genuinely thing this was a better ending to the original Justified than what we already had, so much so they just had to plug it in to the ostentatiously unrelated miniseries they just shot?
Up until now, City Primeval reminded me of those old movie sequels where the only thing that's carried over is the lead character's name and who's playing them. In the Heat of the Night to They Call Me Mister Tibbs to The Organization would be a prime example. This fan-service ending, in the worst possible sense, is just so weird considering that up until the second we hear David Koechner's voice, it seemed like they were going out of their way to be as clear as possible this is absolutely not a seventh season of Justified. Muddle-brained and misconcieved, I have no idea what they were thinking unless the secret backstory of the project is that they really wanted to do the full-on reunion/rematch story, but Walton Groggins was unavailable for when they'd be shooting it so they decided to build up to it and grabbed a Leonard novel off the shelf.
I'm also pretty annoyed at how many loose ends were just dropped, like Raylan's suspicions that Clement was more than just lucky (was he even carrying when Raylan shot him, or did his spidey-sense kick in again and make him leave his gun behind?), the investigation into the dirty cop. The miniseries was padded and had a bunch of wheel-spinning, there's no excuse for rushing the ending, especially not to tease an entirely different story with some false ambiguity. Frankly, I think it damages Raylan's characterization that whether or not he's finally out for good or if he's still addicted to crime-fighting is whether or not the ratings justify (no pun intended) making another installment.
Show's over? There are two episodes left, aren't there? (One after today, I suppose.)
Nope, only eight episodes.
Well, the pacing makes more sense, then. Last week it felt like things were coming to a head. I'll finish it out with the wife when I get home from this trip, but even before seeing the end I'm ready to brand this whole thing a stinker.
I figured there was no way Clement would stay sealed up in that makeshift prison because the miniseries would not, could not end on that note, no matter how dark it was for Raylan.
So of course they had to fall back to the most classic of all Justified tropes: Dumb fucking idiots getting themselves murdered for no godsdamn good reason.
The remaining Detroit plot made sense and I wasn't even all that surprised when Marin Ireland's underserved Maureen got away with being dirty, but that whole thread did feel like a bit of a cul de sac. Oh well. Big shrug.
I was blissfully surprised when both Matt Craven and David Koechner appeared but it was for a good reason: To set-up Raylan's decision to call it quits. And I was good with that decision. It felt right. After all the shit he's gone through, he deserved a happy ending and with Willa. And then, praise be, Natalie Zea returned, too! Just in time for Winona to deliver one last emotional gut punch...but I agree with her, I'm glad Raylan finally found a good reason to quit, for Willa's sake.
And yet, that wasn't the end. Godsdamn motherfucking Boyd returned. I knew the possibility of his return was the longest of shots because it wouldn't make any sense for him to return. And as David cgc already pontificated, it doesn't make sense. Thematically, dramatically, and or any kind of sense for the purposes of this miniseries.
But you know what? I don't care. I was just so damn happy to see Walton Goggins chew up the scenery once again. I can only assume the epilogue is a deliberate set-up for a manhunt, especially considering the otherwise random appearance of Juan Guzmán.
Because maybe Raylan doesn't actually deserve a happy ending.
So of course they had to fall back to the most classic of all Justified tropes: Dumb fucking idiots getting themselves murdered for no godsdamn good reason.
The remaining Detroit plot made sense and I wasn't even all that surprised when Marin Ireland's underserved Maureen got away with being dirty, but that whole thread did feel like a bit of a cul de sac. Oh well. Big shrug.
I was blissfully surprised when both Matt Craven and David Koechner appeared but it was for a good reason: To set-up Raylan's decision to call it quits. And I was good with that decision. It felt right. After all the shit he's gone through, he deserved a happy ending and with Willa. And then, praise be, Natalie Zea returned, too! Just in time for Winona to deliver one last emotional gut punch...but I agree with her, I'm glad Raylan finally found a good reason to quit, for Willa's sake.
And yet, that wasn't the end. Godsdamn motherfucking Boyd returned. I knew the possibility of his return was the longest of shots because it wouldn't make any sense for him to return. And as David cgc already pontificated, it doesn't make sense. Thematically, dramatically, and or any kind of sense for the purposes of this miniseries.
But you know what? I don't care. I was just so damn happy to see Walton Goggins chew up the scenery once again. I can only assume the epilogue is a deliberate set-up for a manhunt, especially considering the otherwise random appearance of Juan Guzmán.
Because maybe Raylan doesn't actually deserve a happy ending.
Resurrecting this as I've finally seen it. I had a load of other stuff on the go when it came out and then promptly forgot until I was looking on Disney+ the other week and was reminded it existed!
Anyway despite it not carrying anything over beyond Raylan (until the last episode) I really enjoyed it. Boyd Holbrook ain't exactly Boyd Crowder, but I thought he was a great villain all the same with a ton of charisma. Liked the cast, though I'd agree Marin Ireland was a trifle wasted. Like others I'm glad Willa didn't stick around too long, I was a tad worried at the start she was gonna be in the whole thing! Would have liked more Adelaide Clemens too, for, reasons...
And then that ending I know it don't make a heap of sense but who cares, it was great to see Walton Goggins again. They must have something in the pipeline? As @The Nth Doctor says, hiring Luis Guzmán for just a couple of minutes work doesn't make a lot of sense.
Yes I would have liked more call-backs to the show, and I'd loved to have heard the show's theme, and yeah I think I expected Raylan to be more of a fish out of water in Detroit than he was, and yes Mansell's death was a bit of a let down, but you know what, Olyphant is so damn good as Givens than none of that was enough to dent my enjoyment.
Anyway despite it not carrying anything over beyond Raylan (until the last episode) I really enjoyed it. Boyd Holbrook ain't exactly Boyd Crowder, but I thought he was a great villain all the same with a ton of charisma. Liked the cast, though I'd agree Marin Ireland was a trifle wasted. Like others I'm glad Willa didn't stick around too long, I was a tad worried at the start she was gonna be in the whole thing! Would have liked more Adelaide Clemens too, for, reasons...
And then that ending
I know it don't make a heap of sense but who cares, it was great to see Walton Goggins again. They must have something in the pipeline? As @The Nth Doctor says, hiring Luis Guzmán for just a couple of minutes work doesn't make a lot of sense.Yes I would have liked more call-backs to the show, and I'd loved to have heard the show's theme, and yeah I think I expected Raylan to be more of a fish out of water in Detroit than he was, and yes Mansell's death was a bit of a let down, but you know what, Olyphant is so damn good as Givens than none of that was enough to dent my enjoyment.
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