You’ll never leave Harlan alive, says the song, but Raylan Givens managed it. The Stetson-wearing deputy, protagonist of the inexcusably overlooked crime drama Justified, made it out after six seasons of chasing outlaws through eastern Kentucky’s hills and hollers. A decade later, the hat is back. Good news: it still fits.
If you haven’t watched Justified, then you haven’t seen Timothy Olyphant in the role he was born for. First appearing in a series of Elmore Leonard novellas, Givens is the “cowboy marshal” whose Old West approach at today’s US marshals service gets him into as much trouble as his quick-draw artistry gets him out of. His long-awaited return adapts Leonard’s 1980 story, City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, across an eight-part series that’s part continuation, part offshoot.
