Justified: City Primeval

 

Years after leaving Kentucky for Florida, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is taking his daughter Willa (Vivian Olyphant, Timothy’s actual daughter) on a road trip when an encounter with a pair of dumb criminals prompts a detour to Detroit. There, Raylan butts heads with corrupt judge Alvin Guy (Keith David) and tough defense attorney Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis). When Guy is murdered, Raylan joins Detroit police to catch the killer, who turns out to be Wilder’s client Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), the Oklahoma Wildman. Things get even more complicated when Clement enlists his drug-addled girlfriend/accomplice Sandy (Adelaide Clemens) to dispose of the murder weapon, their friend Sweety (Vondie Curtis-Hall) sees an opportunity, and a group of Albanian gangsters comes seeking revenge.

 

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit was the first Elmore Leonard novel I ever read and remains one of my favorites. It draws parallels between both criminal and cop who are ill-suited for a changing world and would be much more at home settling things with a duel in the streets. The cop of that book was Raymond Cruz (played in a cameo here by Paul Calderon, reprising his Out of Sight role), but substituting Raylan, he of the cowboy hat and shoot-first attitude, makes sense on paper. In practice, it’s an odd fit. The series as a whole definitely has its moments, but the inevitable comparisons to its inspirations (the aforementioned novel and Justified’s original, Kentucky-based run) do it no favors.

 

For starters, most of the original series’ non-Raylan cast is absent (sans a few final episode cameos), and Raylan himself often feels sidelined. This is justifiable (pun unintended) to an extent (he’s in unfamiliar territory and thus must tamp down his bravado), but the elder Olyphant’s talents feel wasted for how often he is asked to look bewildered. Whereas the original show could get quite dark, it also had uproariously funny dialogue and plenty of dumb criminals to mock. Here, we’re entreated to a fairly grim world, and while there are still pockets of humor to be found, there’s nary a Dewey Crowe in sight.

 

Even though the Justified elements feel decidedly off, the creative team (including original series director Michael Dinner) did a commendable job of contemporizing the novel. As with the book-to-show transformation of Boyd Crowder, Mansell here is a less boorish and more charismatic figure. He’s still a violent, impetuous killer, extortionist, and thief, but he’s also an aspiring musician, and Holbrook plays him with aplomb. Wilder’s character is also greatly expanded, and while the book version came across as a self-assured street-dumb lawyer playing with fire, Ellis’s take is smarter, hardier, and more sympathetic. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the show’s writing is Marcus “Sweety” Sweeton. In both book and show, he’s a bar owner with criminal connections affiliated with Mansell and reluctantly caught between him and the police. Here, however, he’s also a veteran musician, a father figure to Carolyn, and a man who sees all the angles. Curtis-Hall gives him both a palpable sense of regret and a quiet dignity. For as strong as these performances are, however, Vivian Olyphant and Joseph Anthony Bird (as Sweety’s partner), struggle at times to keep up with the more experienced cast around them.

 

If The Many Saints of Newark is the nadir of beloved series continuations (though that was a prequel), then Justified: City Primeval benefits from not leaving nearly as bad a taste in series fans’ mouths. It’s solidly made, but it does more to remind us of what we’ve missed rather than filling the void.