Justified: City Primeval, Episodes 1 & 2: In a show filled with famous dialogues and quote-worthy banters, one of the dialogues distinctly worth remembering was in Season 4 of ‘Justified’, when Raylan Givens unloads a bullet clip from his gun, throws it on the face of the recently punched Wynn Duffy, and states with his traditional deadpan nature – “Next one’s coming faster.”
While the line wasn’t entirely prophetic because it took over 8 years for Givens to finally return, “the next one” did arrive, as Olyphant now returns in the fold as Raylan Givens, the sarcastic, dry, and charming US Marshal whose wit and attitude had been one of the few defenses against the myriad of unique antagonists he faced in the run of the original show. But now he is in a different environment, both within the era and the town he is ambling or driving towards.
Because Detroit is a much different beast from Miami and especially Harlan, perhaps that is why the book being adapted (City Primeval) is an Elmore Leonard novel sans Raylan, but the show retrofits to make sure Raylan is involved. The show thus becomes two characters (Raylan and Clement Mansell) from entirely different worlds, both literally and visually, crossing over and confronting each other. At the very least, the viewers are in for a treat (both Justified and non-Justified fans).
Justified: City Primeval, Episodes 1 & 2 Recap:
Episode 1 – City Primeval
When we last saw Willa Givens, she was a little kid playing ball, while Raylan Givens wore a black hat and is currently stationed in Miami. Fast forward to the present and we see Willa (Willa Olyphant), now a hard-headed but dispiritingly flat teenager, being driven by her father, Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), to a camp of unruly youth — purposefully quicker because it would be better served to reach early. The conversation between the two of them ranges from dry banter to sometimes light hostility, almost like Givens is escorting a prisoner (prisoner duty is still the shit detail, decades later, even after a six-season run at Justified, huh, Raylan?). It is also interesting that Willa’s character seems to be enough of a handful that her mother, Winona, is currently out of the country with someone Willa concisely calls “the ‘stache.”
But Willa’s asking, “Why can’t I stay with you?” sounds like a daughter’s honest plea to spend time with her father, a question Raylan is unable to answer because a pickup truck suddenly crashes into the back of Raylan’s sedan. The two felons try to carjack the Givens, with one of the guys even directing a sexual remark at Willa. Big mistake, and honestly, this is just a bad day for them. Because in typical Raylan fashion, he takes his shotgun out of the trunk, fires it, punctures the tyre of the pickup truck, and threatens to haul them in with the sternness of a guy who just had his first cup of coffee. Learning that they are wanted felons in Detroit, Raylan hauls them out there, with stops in between for coffee and breakfast (a cold drink and fried chicken for the handcuffed prisoners in the back seat, window cracked open) and with Willa in tow because she missed the drop-off time at camp.
There is an old-school charm to Raylan Givens and an old-school honor code that had already been out of date in the original series, perhaps even more so here. His handling of the eccentricity of the hometown villainy had been a mix of politeness and yet utter cynicism and callousness. Thus, he would haul these prisoners inside the trunk, take his sweet time getting to Detroit, and when grilled in the courthouse, be poked (expertly so) by lawyer Carolyn Wilder (Anjanue Ellis) at the courthouse of Judge Calvin Guy (Keith David). The poking kind of contextualizes how the funnier elements of Raylan’s interrogation and expectation of contrition from criminals might not be as funny when seen through a post-2015 lens. But Guy does not allow Wilder’s grilling to go any further. Instead, he is irritated by Givens’s snarky remarks against Wilder and his questioning whether Guy’s behavior would not invite further assassination attempts (that remark made me laugh out loud), as well as Willa’s loud giggling at watching cat videos in the courthouse, which pushes him to throw the Givens in jail.
It may be entirely possible that Judge Guy was miffed at his assassination attempt that morning, though the question of whether he was miffed by the assassination attempt or whether his brand-new Cadillac got blown up when he tried to self-drive via mobile is up for debate. But his car got blown up by a couple of racist militia men because Guy was charming and smarmy enough to sleep with their mother (shades of the eccentricity and weird humor of ‘Justified’ are still very intact). Raylan is thus roped in to solve this case by a guy because, as so eloquently put, “perhaps an angry white guy is needed to bring in another angry white guy.” He is partnered up with the RPD and is contrasted with his wise yet humble self (somewhat) against the more arrogant and gung-ho members of the RPD led by Norbert (Norbert Leo Butz) and Maureen (Marin Ireland).
Raylan’s investigative skills allow him to discover a trapdoor leading to an underground tunnel where the militiamen had been hiding. Chasing them down, the RPD finally tracks the leader (after sicking the police dog on one of the other perpetrators, forcing him to talk) to the mother of the militiamen, where he finally hides in the closet after pushing his mother inside. Raylan tries to sweet talk (more like weary talk) and almost manages to let him open the door before Norbert kicks the door down and pushes him down the stairs. Raylan’s assessment at that moment, “I don’t think that was necessary, but okay,” is quite correct, but Norbert’s response, “This is how we do shit in Detroit,” sounds eerily similar to “This is Chinatown.” The neo-noir vibes are strong in this one.
But “High Noon” in Detroit cannot be complete without the corresponding Frank Miller in the equation, and thus we are introduced to the devilishly handsome, extremely narcissistic Clement Mansell (man listens to his cover tape of “Seven Nation Army” in the car he steals), quite capable of seducing and manipulating the casino waitress Sandy to his beck and call and convincing her to seduce the new high-roller at the casino, an Albanian gangster who has a chain of hot-dog stands. Mansell is also somewhat a man out of time, still listening to cassette tapes, to the extent that he hijacks the Mustang because it had a tape recorder in the dashboard or feels depressed because he is unable to experience the thrill of robbing someone, as his victims would prefer “Venmo-ing” him instead of using hard, cold cash.
He is the opposite and yet similar to Raylan in many ways, though his unpredictability does remind you a bit of Quarles (Neal McDonough) from Season 3 of ‘Justified’. Mansell is also the vehicle the writers utilize in connecting and expanding the world of Detroit; his gun is hidden at the top of the air duct in the bathroom at the saloon of former musician and current owner Marcus “Sweety” Sweeton, heavily implying that there is a shared and chequered past. Sweety, on the other hand, also shares a close connection with Carolyn, who apparently took on the case of the felon against the “marshal” as a favor to Sweety, as well as meeting up with her ex at that bar and turning his pleas down, but is still rattled at her ex’s veiled threats.
While Raylan and his daughter enjoy dinner at a restaurant and Willa sends out a drink to Carolyn Wilder with Raylan’s name attached (that Yellowstone joke was timely yet hilarious), at the casino, Mansell follows the yellow Corvette housing the gangster and his present moll, Sandy. However, when Judge Guy and his assistant Rose come in the middle of the chase between Mansell and the gangster, Mansell’s temper gets the better of him when he misses the turn. Instead, he turns back and starts chasing the Judge’s Cadillac TC, managing to dent the back of the car. Rattled, Guy tries to shut the engine down and hide in one of the lanes. Thinking they are safe, he drives the car in neutral towards the highway, but Mansell crashes his SUV into the Cadillac.
As Guy tries to take his gun out of the dashboard and points it to fire at Mansell, Mansell quickly draws and empties the slug of his gun, to Rose’s horror. Nonchalantly, he walks up to Guy’s side of the car and checks his coat, finding a red diary with a list of names on it. Finding it interesting, he pockets it before urging Rose to show him Guy’s mansion. It is baffling to Mansell how a guy like that could have so much money without being connected or having a drug business (racism delivered so casually and effortlessly, you are convinced his being racist or sexist will be the least of this character’s concerns), and when Rose finally tries to run away at a red light, he chases after her and shoots her in the face.
Raylan’s plans for a road trip with his daughter, Detroit, being a pit-stop of 24 hours, goes down the drain as he is called in to investigate the murder of Judge Guy and Rose. What is interesting is the revelation that Rose had been an informant for the RPD, as they had been investigating Judge Guy. So was the red notebook a bookkeeping tactic for Guy to keep tabs on his illicit partners, or was Guy too roped into the informant business? But in classic neo-western fashion, Raylan Givens is roped into the concerns of a town where he had no interest in staying beyond a night, and the meeting between Mansell and Givens promises to be interesting, if not electric.
Episode 2 – The Oklahoma Wildman
The thing about these six-episode miniseries is the usual removal of fluff or streamlining of plot threads that would have spread out over 13 episodes. Thus, the flashback to 2017 kind of shows how streamlining an entire flashback sequence, which would have taken an entire episode or two, is dealt with within 15 minutes. It connects with the first episode by showing how the three characters, Clement Mansell, Sweety Sweton, and Carolyn Wilder, are connected. Back in 2017, Sweety had been a member of the criminal gang named The Wrecking Crew (after the 1960s music group). Sweety used to be a magnificent bass player before getting hooked on drugs and crime. The Wrecking Crew (led by Mansell) go around robbing drug dealers, and Sweety being the only black man in the group, was Mansell’s way into having an infiltrator within those organizations.
It’s a prejudiced outlook made all the more apparent with Mansell’s perspective in the present day, as well as showing the not-so-amicable tension between Sweety, Wilder, and Mansell. Mansell being dragged to jail by the police is preceded by him calling Sweety and threatening him to reveal his involvement in the crime as well unless Sweety can figure out a lawyer for him. Thus, when Mansell finally gets a chance to talk with his “lawyer” in jail, we see Wilder meeting him for the first time. This is Mansell keeping every ball in his court (killing all members of the wrecking crew except one), and thus he manages to walk out with a slap on the wrist due to an obscure federal statute thought of and remembered by Wilder. Again, it’s not entirely clear why Sweety and Wilder feel indebted to this guy, as it is not shown whether Wilder has been his representative for a while or whether Wilder manages to get a steady stream of clients because of Sweety. But being the big-shot lawyer that she is, this explanation does not hold water either.
As a viewer, I generally appreciate buddy cop banter, and Wendell Robinson and Raylan Givens seem to be a match made in laconic banter heaven. That is why we are invested in them following Sandy from the apartment to the bridge, where she fails to throw Mansell’s gun in the river (side note: that gun suspiciously looks like a Luger, which makes me wonder whether a gun of that type would even work in modern times), to back at Sweety’s bar, where she again hides the gun at the vent where Mansell had fetched his gun from before (managing to break her heels and put her foot inside the overflowing gross cistern). Not exactly the best plan, but Raylan’s wry smile and his optimism at seeing “her potential” do make you laugh. However, Raylan and Wendell had managed to take a paint sample from the busted fender of the car, so they were sure they had their man. Of course, it is all a matter of evidence and being able to prove this was Mansell’s doing.
Two things are notable here in this episode: one of the detectives could have easily stayed back in Deems’s penthouse and waited for Mansell to drive out and go to Carolyn’s office. But then we would not have found Raylan backed up into a corner the first time after meeting Mansell. Mansell’s pointing out that guys of Raylan’s age are still out in the field overtly means that they will be left out to pasture soon enough, which shows Mansell getting under Raylan’s skin. Having seen ‘Justified’, Givens had been a man with thick skin, but perhaps the homegrown eccentricities of Harlan are widely different from the weird hijinks of Detroit, and perhaps age, too, has mellowed Givens down somewhat. But again, it seems that the writers are trying to introduce newer curveballs to hinder Raylan’s investigation. Thus, an obvious threat to Wilder by Mansell within Raylan’s earshot gives off the energy that Mansell might not be a criminal mastermind, but he does know how to squeeze the people he has reluctantly working for him.
The second notable moment is the Willa Givens subplot of her stroll through Detroit after getting bored of being cooped up in the hotel all day. Willa is headstrong and yet has the same brand of laconic humor as her father, as shown by how she manages to bargain for a fake Rolex with only 7 dollars. Leaving aside that, though, it is weird that Mansell just walks into the hotel lobby and calls Willa’s room, and convinces her that he is Givens’s Glynco buddy. We never really see where Mansell could have dug up on him, though it is fascinating that the universe of ‘Justified’ is still referring to Tommy Bucks’s death as a monumental event. The problem here is not Willa Olyphant, though her acting leaves something to be desired. It is more about how the writers are positioning Willa as the emotional crux of Givens’ character, and the fact that it is that obvious yet drawn out is just jarring.
Justified: City Primeval, Episode 2 Ending Explained:
One thing is for certain, though: Mansell has pissed Raylan off. When Raylan finally comes to the hotel and finds Willa and Mansell at the restaurant, he is none too pleased and not ready to listen to Willa’s usual teenage snark. But in a sad twist, Willa realizes that her father is serious when he shows off his badge while Mansell ropes his arm around Willa, almost threatening to choke her out. Here’s the kicker – in the pilot of Justified, Raylan’s ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) wryly but affectionately comments to him that while he might be good at hiding it, Raylan is the angriest man she has ever known. Raylan proves it again in this episode because he hauls Mansell by the neck, drags him out, hits his nose on the revolving door, and then smashes his head on the bonnet of the taxi and punches until he breaks his nose before threatening Mansell that “next time I see you around my daughter, I will kill you.”
What is remarkable is Holbrook’s portrayal of Mansell as the psychotic criminal when he shouts back, “Not if I see you first.” Raylan Givens is rare to be rattled, and looking across at Willa in tears due to fear (maybe of Mansell and also of her father’s propensity towards violence) shows Givens rattled, and Olyphant plays that beautifully. It again proves, though, as had been proven by all the characters who had managed to get on Raylan’s bad side, that you do not make Raylan angry. He has too much of Arlo in him, whether he wants to admit it or not, but now the bigger question is, will he have an angry snap like his father was prone to having? In terms of plot, though, the question arises whether that brown notebook, which Mansell had been trying to figure out at the beginning of this episode, will have any narrative fuel. I do trust the writers, considering it’s the same team as the original show, so I might as well enjoy this western/neo-noir ride with one of my favorite characters on television.
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