Justified: City Primeval, Episodes 6 & 7: It is hard to buy the Raylan Givens from Justified and compare it to the one in City Primeval considering how much of a fish out of the water the writers are trying to show him as. But the show also remembers that Raylan has an unhealthy belief in authority when it suits him and that authority could be of any sort. As Episode 7 finally rolls around, we see Raylan finally choosing to become the best version of himself, but in the ensuing crossfire of the impending finale, more than the Oklahoma Wildman, it is Detroit itself that might prove to be Raylan’s undoing.
Justified: City Primeval, Episode 6 “Adios” Recap:
Carolyn brought up the events of the Woolworth Sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963, which very much hammers home to Raylan that justice and the letter of the law aren’t the same. Strangely, this is being hammered home to Raylan Givens, of all people, but let’s chalk that up to Carolyn being unaware of Raylan Givens’s cowboy activities. The legalities of the sit-ins aside, they were just and necessary, and thus Carolyn would like to use Judge Guy’s book in the same manner – by utilising confrontation. The fact that she says that while pulling Raylan closer and asking him about the magnitude of her choosing to trust him isn’t lost on him. The fact that he is wearing a tank top doesn’t hurt either.
Raylan takes Carolyn’s information about her friend and professional rival’s name, Diane, on the page of Judge Guy’s book and proposes a sting operation to Maureen. Maureen immediately deduces that he is sleeping with the lawyer, which, mind you, is understandable considering who Raylan Givens is portrayed by, but it is slowly becoming harder to claim any of the competencies of the Detroit Police Department. The audience is with Raylan on this one; Clement can’t be lucky so many times. Thus, Maureen and Raylan try to convince Diane to turn for them and help them nab Clement by convincing Diane to pay to have her page torn containing information about the bribes the pair had taken to cover up unwarranted killings by the DPD.
On the other end, Burt Dickey is understandably annoyed. His Stanley Garlick had been “misappropriated” by Clement Mansell in the last episode, and now he is itching for payback. He thus hires an old hitman (?) named Lonny to get the artwork. If killing Clement solves the problem, all the better. This leads to Lonny ending up at Sweety’s, and Sweety ultimately runs helter-skelter from Clement’s place and meets with Lonny to effectively hire him to kill Clement Mansell. This leads to a classic case of crossed wires when Carolyn calls Sweety with the news that Sweety shouldn’t be seen anywhere near the vicinity of Clement Mansell today as there are events that might take place that would take him out of the equation for good.
This presents a problem for Sweety, as on the one hand he successfully manages to convince Clement to meet with Diane at the park for the drop; on the other hand, now Sweety has to fervently call Lonny to drop that plan. But that was all moot. Clement meets with Diane, as planned; the cops move in to arrest, with Clement uttering the line “Goddamn Marshal, some might say we are in love” (very Markham of him); and Lonny had been moving to stab Clement in the park but walks away the minute the cops reveal themselves. But that isn’t the only twist in the tale, as Clement is searched and found to be clean, and we, along with Raylan, are fuming as Raylan voices, “Am I seriously watching this man walk away now?”
So who is at fault here? Even though Maureen tries to rein in Raylan, reminding him to play by the book, her being squeaky clean points fingers here, as well as full marks towards the corruption-inducing tendrils through every section of the police department. Raylan’s dialogue: “There was something fishy about this particular kerfuffle, and I’m struggling some to figure out what it was. Some combination of this dead judge and this alleged book and this particular shitbird is maybe making people act in ways they otherwise wouldn’t” is just gorgeous Elmore Leonard twisty wordplay, completely selling the confusion throughout.
The result of all this kerfuffle, though, is Clement finally coming to Sweety’s bar, finding Lonny and Sweety together, forcing Lonny to call his employer, and as his employer picks up the call, shooting a bullet straight through the ear. But it is still sad and perhaps heartbreaking to witness Sweety going out in a hail of glory, finally telling Clement to “fuck himself” by effectively asking whether his final hour would consist of listening to his shitty cover songs. It matters little because Clement Mansell’s love of rock and roll is as Detroit as Sweety’s melancholy at being “something”, In a town so known for its music that its identity becomes intertwined with its tunes, perhaps it is apt that the last act Sweety does to defend himself is search for the gun behind the jukebox; the same gun that Carolyn had asked Trannell to hide, inadvertently sealing Sweety and his bar’s fate. At the very least, we know Carolyn will mourn him, but we also know Raylan’s patience can only hold for so long; sooner or later, the “shootout” that the Oklahoma Wildman wants is coming, and the result won’t be pretty.
Justified: City Primeval, Episode 7 “The Smoking Gun” Recap:
By this point, barring the finale being something exceptional, it is safe to say that Justified: City Primeval will not be one of Raylan Givens’s finest exploits. It is a shame owing to the potential, but something about retroactively fitting an 80s story into the current day and then including the character of Givens in a non-Givens story felt like a wrinkle too many.
The episode neatly bifurcates into two plot threads stemming from the fallout of Sweety’s death and the destruction of the club. Firstly, it follows Raylan and Carolyn, who are established, due to a neat flashback sequence and one of Vondie Curtis Hall’s final performances on the series, to have a fatherly bond with the man, even though she admits, due to having been a witness to the petty crimes he committed, to being a chump.
Nevertheless, Raylan and Carolyn visit Trennel, who reveals that he had managed to hide the gun that had been hidden behind Sweety’s jukebox and which could put Clement away. Raylan is “sure” that he can use the gun to put Clement away, and he takes the gun to Maureen, who is still in charge of the Judge Guy murders. Maureen asks for a day for Ballistics to run tests, during which Raylan takes the time to visit Sandy and warn her about him possessing the gun she was supposed to have gotten rid of and about the boyfriend whose leg had been broken to pieces and is now in the hospital. Sandy could succinctly only state, “I feel like I am in trouble”.
But considering Raylan had time to visit Sandy, how did Clement evade him? It turns out that Clement had been pissed about Sandy having sold off the Stanley Garlick painting (eliciting one of the most memorable lines of the episode: “Who gives a shit about Stanley Garlick?) and then broke into Carolyn’s house, which is not being surveilled because Raylan isn’t there. There, Clement runs the routine of establishing the backstory of the overbearing mother who had been taken by a tornado, a story that had been repeated in episode 3 but with slight variations here.
If the intent had been to make sure that Clement Mansell is unpredictable, maybe this changing of backstory, like multiple choices, should have been done a tad bit more frequently. However, Sweety’s death finally allows Carolyn to grow a spine and stand up against Clement, which only angers him, and he grabs her neck, pushes her against the wall, and warns that he can enter her house anytime he pleases. Boyd Holbrook, during these moments, truly shows how scary Clement can be.
Back at the precinct, Raylan is finally being made for a chump when he learns that a black Afghan vet, Darryl Woods, is arrested for Judge Guy and Rose’s murders, and the evidence is stacked against him because Maureen presents the gun that Raylan had handed over to her, claiming it to have been discovered under Darryl’s possessions. This betrayal by Maureen does unlock the gears in Raylan’s head, with him finally starting to realise that this town is more against him than the single presence of Clement Mansell.
The Maureen betrayal especially reveals how Clement can easily pass off for so long, but a further surprise awaits Raylan as Bryl Norbert appears in front of Raylan and gives him the murder weapon, saying that while it might be okay to bend the rules for criminals to be behind bars, he is not ready to bend the rules to imprison innocent people. This unexpected help bolsters Raylan, who finally hatches a plan and even promises a drink to Carolyn once this entire problem is resolved. The problem is that Carolyn had called from Toma, the Albanian’s office, and the looks of it, she had been playing a longer game than even Clement had imagined.
Now the storylines of Raylan and Clement begin to converge. Sandy had planned to escape, had taken all the money from the sale of the painting, and was planning to leave, but was called at the airport by Clement. It turns out that the actual owner of the apartment, Del, had finally arrived, and Clement threatened to hurt Dell if Sandy didn’t return the money. Sandy, scared, finally calls Raylan, who plans with her to meet Clement at Radisson’s bar. Raylan also finally takes Sandy’s phone, but not before Sandy asks to “delete some pictures first”. Sandy is like Ellen May in the original Justified, one of those female characters who is lovable and yet consistently makes all the wrong choices, but you root for her anyway.
Justified: City Primeval, Episode 7 “The Smoking Gun” Ending, Explained:
At the Radisson bar, Clement and Raylan finally meet, and Raylan puts the gun at the centre of the table. While Clement wonders whether this is a complicated ploy for him to put his fingerprints on the murder victim, Raylan informs him that this is the prelude to a big old shootout, almost reminiscent of Tommy Bucks’ shooting in Justified.
But before they could draw, the Albanians interrupted their meeting and confiscated their weapons. As Clement and Raylan are both led to parts unknown, Toma informs them that the old ways are sometimes far better. He then stops the car at the bridge, takes the murder weapon, and drops it in the ocean before getting back into the car and driving away, with Raylan and Clement both in the back seat, looking puzzled and worried. For a penultimate episode, this is a pretty good setup because now it leaves you intrigued as to how Raylan would get out of this debacle and whether he would have to team up with Clement to do it.
