“Justified” has long been the underrated drama of television’s Golden Age. It mixes drama and humor as expertly as “Breaking Bad” or “Mad Men” and spins season-long arcs with the best of them, but, coming into its sixth and final season, the show is still under the radar. It’s a shame, because it’s doing something that most TV dramas don’t: ending the right way.
The FX series follows U.S. marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a modern-day cowboy with barely concealed anger issues, as he’s assigned to his backwoods hometown of Harlan, Kentucky. It’s based on the crime fiction of Elmore Leonard, meaning it’s full of wickedly funny stories about how criminals are, essentially, idiots.
There are exceptions to that rule, however. Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), a criminal mastermind with big dreams and an inconsistent conscience, is the show’s other protagonist and his rivalry with Raylan is one of the show’s biggest joys. Season 6 promised a final showdown between the two, but it’s delivering so much more.
The writers seem to have stepped back, looked at the show’s greatest strengths and doubled down on them. “Justified” has always done well when it plays on the history of Harlan County and its characters, so the sixth season has brought in marijuana kingpin Avery Markham (Sam Elliot) as the big bad. He’s a truly intimidating villain with deep roots in the region, but with enough distance to underestimate the people of Harlan, making him an archetypal “Justified” villain to end all “Justified” villains.
“Justified” has built up a great cast of secondary characters over the years, and Season 6 manages to bring them back without falling prey to fan-service. Both comic relief characters like Constable Bob and major players like Ellstin Limehouse are organically slotted into the plot without overwhelming it.
It all conspires to threaten an overstuffed season — how can 13 episodes bring back old favorites, introduce a crew of new antagonists, bring series-long plots to their natural conclusion and still give a satisfying payoff to Raylan and Boyd’s conflict?
The answer comes with Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter), the show’s female lead and Boyd’s fiancé. Ava hasn’t always been well-used by the show in the past, but her central role in Season 6 grounds it. Her conflict between law and crime, or Raylan and Boyd, makes the season’s central themes of escaping the sins of the past and self-identity clear.
It’s not easy to bring a television show to a graceful conclusion — there are so many plotlines and characters to consider over seasons of television that most shows sputter it all out or play it safe. “Justified,” by remembering its strengths and sticking to its guns, is crafting a great final season.