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 3 – “Noblesse Oblige.” It contains SPOILERS for the entire series of Justified. Fire in the Hole!

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Patches
Even if we’re still too early in the season for a trip to the fireworks factory, “Noblesse Oblige” still had a lot going on. Raylan and Rachel teamed up to investigate missing explosives, only to match wits (actually, that’s probably singular) with Harlan’s answer to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Choo-Choo explained the finer points of bank vaults to Ava after catching her spying for Boyd. Avery Markham demonstrated a callous disregard for both upper teeth and Federal kidnapping and terrorism statutes. And Boyd found out he was being played by Katherine Hale and Wynn Duffy before pledging to kill Markham. The look on his face did not seem to indicate his warpath would end there.

I know this is opening a huge satchel of worms (I’m going green) because everyone uses a different rubric, but it might be time to start asking if Justified is the best show on television right now. It has to be in the conversation, right? Continue reading →