On January 20^th, FX’s Justified began its sixth and final season. Based on several Elmore Leonard works, Justified follows Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a US Marshal who is “exiled” to his hometown of Harlan, Kentucky. Raylan frequently finds himself in conflict with erstwhile mining buddy, now criminal mastermind, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), as the two attempt to coexist in a world that seems a little too small for both of them. Justified highlights the local culture and explores numerous themes, such as family, religion, history and the thin line that divides the good guys from the bad.

Join Jeff (of Slazenger1) and me in the coming months as we honor this criminally underrated drama with a series of “RayActions” to each of Justified’s Season 6 episodes. These posts will not be particularly formal, but will give us the chance to make some observations and reflect on each episode, likely culminating in a full Season 6 Dead Season Discussion after the finale.

This week’s RayAction is focused on Justified Season 6, Episode 5 – “Sounding.” It contains SPOILERS for the entire series of Justified. Fire in the Hole!

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Jeff
If Justified is going to make its final season bigger than just wrapping up the stories of our core cast, then they’re doing right by us in the guest casting department. This is the type of episode I refer to as a Guest-stravaganza (or Guest-STARvaganza, if you want to be extra clever). Sure, half of the guest stars are people we just met this season, but seriously: Mary Steenburgen, Garret Dillahunt, Sam Elliott, Mykelti Williamson, Scott Grimes, Choo-Choo (Duke Davis Roberts), Brad Leland, Jeff Fahey (so that’s what happened to Frank Lapidus), Danny Strong and PATTON OSWALT! What fun! Side Note: I smell a TV Land sitcom starring Danny Strong and Patton Oswalt as brothers who run a diner. It’s called Short Order (which is also, incidentally, a reference to the number of episodes of the show that will be produced).

Even with the welcome return of Constable Bob Sweeney, a tasing, an explosion and a death by Choo-Choo, the fuse on this episode–and perhaps the entire final season–appears to be a slow burner. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy myself, but Continue reading →