Justified Season 5 Premiere: The Finest Words Around

A good laconic, trash-talking, smart and sassy debut of Justified season 5 last night.  Among the high points -

• Raylan electing to talk to Winona and see their baby via Skype, rather than in person, even though Raylan is not very far away in Florida.  Sort of says it all about Raylan's inability to fully relate emotionally, and come to terms with the people he loves, doesn't it?  It was a quiet, very powerful scene.
• Wendy Crowe - sister of villain Darryl Crowe - catching Raylan's and everyone's eye.  A good addition to the cast and a good potential romantic interest for Raylan.
• Speaking of Darryl Crowe - he's played by Michael Rapoport - an excellent character actor in league with Timothy Oliphant, and therefore good to see.
• Boyd continuing not to take any guff from anyone, as he pursues his business of getting Ava out of prison and making his money - yes, in that order, as Boyd sufficiently demonstrates.

The strength of Justified has always been its nonstop wise-cracking dialogue - probably the best word play on television - and this was in no short supply last night.  Not only Raylan and Boyd, but even the lesser characters have no shortage of quick and cutting observations - about life, the world, our popular culture, and of course each other as they go about their police and criminal business. They're also always up on appropriate current events, as Raylan's partner in Florida demonstrates when he taunts a bad guy whose boat has not quite been revved up for its trip to Cuba about the "old lady" who recently swam the distance.

So we've got alligators in Florida, drug dealers in Detroit, and who knows what else joining our customary vortex in Kentucky on Justified this year, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Justified 4.1: Literate Boyd Quotes Asimov and Keynes




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