With Raylan Givens set to return in the upcomingJustified: City Primeval, showrunners Dave Andron and Michael Dinner provided information on the character’s comeback.
Justified, the adaptation of famedcrime writer Elmore Leonard’s Raylan Givens stories, saw Givens reassigned home to the coal country of the fictional Harlan County, Kentucky, from a swank gig as a US Marshal operating out of the far more glamorous Miami, Florida. While there, Givens not only dealt with his father but a boyhood companion, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), his best frenemy whom Givens eventually put away at the end of that series' 7-year run.
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Now, ten years after those events, Givens is again being uprooted from Miami, this time to Detroit, the real-life collapsing American urban center and theCity Primevalof the title. Givens finds himself in Detroit going after a criminal, Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), who’s already gotten away from Detroit’s police force. Enter the criminal’s lawyer, Carolyn Wilder (Aunjunue Ellis), and the triangle that will see the course of the season out in a typically violent Elmore Leonard fashion. The showrunners toldEntertainment Weeklythat getting to take onJustified: City Primeval, a vaunted Leonard book that evenQuentin Tarantino tried and failedto take a crack at, drew them to the project. It was a call to the producers from Olyphant from the setof Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, where he and Tarantino discussed doing it as a season ofJustified, that got Andron and Dinner salivating.
TheJustified: City Primevalshowrunners also said they will address how the general public perception of law enforcement has changed since the original series. While Givens still has his rigid moral code, his eyes are more open to what’s going on around him. They will also address the Boyd Crowder-sized hole in the series that Goggins not being present leaves behind. Not only is Givens dealing with his own demons in a more upfront manner, but he’s also got Boyd Holbrooks' Mansell—someone the team describes as one of Leonard’s best villains—to fill those big shoes.
When dealing with Detroit, a far cry from Harlan County or his adopted Miami, Raylan Givens is going to have his hands full inJustified: City Primeval. Fans are undoubtedly excited to see how Givens handles these matters.
