Justified: City Primeval (1 Viewer)

[ChristopherG]

Timothy Olyphant to return as Raylan Givens on new 'Justified' limited series

FX is moving forward with <em>Justified: City Primeval</em>, a new adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel.

ew.com

Let's hope this turns out better than the return of Dexter....

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Let's hope this turns out better than the return of Dexter....

All signs are promising. It sounds like they're adapting City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit pretty faithfully, except swapping in Raylan Givens for Raymond Cruz. Cruz was already very Raylan-esque, so that's not as major of a change as it might sound, and the novel is well-regarded by Elmore Leonard fans.

Michael Dinner was the producing director on "Justified", so the fact that he's back directing this is another huge confidence booster.

The only thing that would have made me happier would have been Graham Yost back as showrunner. That being said, he is listed as an EP on the project and Dave Andron did write 17 episodes of "Justified".

I love that it's in continuity with "Justified", and the time that has passed since "Justified" ended is baked into the story.

 

[jayembee]

All signs are promising. It sounds like they're adapting City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit pretty faithfully, except swapping in Raylan Givens for Raymond Cruz. Cruz was already very Raylan-esque, so that's not as major of a change as it might sound, and the novel is well-regarded by Elmore Leonard fans.

Michael Dinner was the producing director on "Justified", so the fact that he's back directing this is another huge confidence booster.

The only thing that would have made me happier would have been Graham Yost back as showrunner. That being said, he is listed as an EP on the project and Dave Andron did write 17 episodes of "Justified".

I love that it's in continuity with "Justified", and the time that has passed since "Justified" ended is baked into the story.

It's funny that I noticed the press release about this yesterday on The Futon Critic. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had realized that I'd never gotten around to watching the last season of Fargo, so I queued it up on Hulu, and was surprised to see Olyphant pop up as a not-quite-Raylan-esque U.S. Marshal.

Thanks for the info about the book. I was a bit confused because I've read all of Leonard's Raylan books (Pronto, Riding the Rap, and Raylan) and I was wondering if another one got published posthumously that I didn't know about. The title didn't sound familiar, but it appears to be a relatively early title that I didn't have a copy of (I see it's also in one of two Leonard omnibuses -- the one that I don't have).

Anyway, I loved Justified, and am eagerly awaiting this new limited series.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Additional casting:

• Aunjanue Ellis (Undercover Brother, Ray, The Help) as "formidable Motor City native Carolyn Wilder, who has every intention of representing her client, Clement Mansell, even as she finds herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well."
• Boyd Holbrook (Logan, "Hatfields & McCoys", "Narcos") as Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, "a violent, sociopathic desperado who’s already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once and aims to do so again."
• Adelaide Clemens (Silent Hill: Revelation, "Rectify") as Sandy, Mansell’s girlfriend.
• Vondie Curtis Hall ("Chicago Hope", "Marvel's Daredevil") as "Sweety, a local bar owner and musician who has been known to run a scam or two."
• Marin Ireland ("Sneaky Pete", "The Umbrella Academy", "Y: The Last Man") as Maureen, "a Detroit cop."
• Norbert Leo Butz ("Bloodline", "Mercy Street", "Fosse/Verdon") as Norbert, "a Detroit detective."
• Victor Williams ("The King of Queens", "The Affair", "Sneaky Pete") as Wendell, "another Detroit detective."
• Vivian Olyphant, Timothy Olyphant's real life daughter, as Willa Givens, Raylan's 15-year-old daughter

Production begins this week in Chicago.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Entertainment Weekly has a nice feature piece on the "Justified" revival, premiering sometime in Summer 2023. Some highlights:

• The revival picks up 10 years after the original series ended, Givens has spent the decade in Miami balancing his responsibilities as U.S. Marshall and part-time father.
• The genesis of the City Primeval adaptation becoming a "Justified" revival happened on the set of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, when Quentin Tarantino and Timothy Olyphant were chatting about the novel.
• It took a while to straighten out the rights issues, because the rights to Raylan Givens were owned by the Elmore Leonard estate and the rights to City Primeval were owned by MGM, which had tried to make the book into a movie.
• "Boyd Crowder had kind of an amoral code, but he still had a code. I'm not sure that Clement Mansell, the bad guy in this, does at all. And that makes him really dangerous. It's a pretty formidable antagonist for our protagonist."
• "Some old characters do show up, but that's one of those things the audience is going to have to get their head around: It is a pretty new cast. It's a new group of cops that are around him. It's cops in Detroit, not marshals in Kentucky, and it really is a standalone Raylan story, just with a few old friends sprinkled throughout."
• "This story's kind of a three-hander; it's about Raylan, Clement Mansell, and the third character is this woman defense attorney, Carolyn Wilder, who in some ways is kind of locked at the wrists and ankles, not by her doing, to Clement Mansell."
• Just as Harlan County was a major character on the original "Justified" run, the city of Detroit is a major character in this.
• "In fact, we were horrified when Tim was like, 'I'm going to put my daughter on tape for the role of my daughter.' And we were like, 'This is a no-win. This is brutal. If it's not good, what are we going to do?" And she was great. They had a ball doing it, and it was a lot of fun. It took about eight minutes on set for her to say, "Dad, stop. Don't give me notes. Don't tell me what to do.'"

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Wild:

 

[Philip Verdieck]

I will look forward to this.

I am late to the Justified parade. We just finished watching S2 (Bennet clan, moonshine & grass).

I have really enjoyed it. I have come to really appreciate the acting of the Boyd Crowder guy. The dialog lines are just fantastic and his interchanges with Olyphant are great.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

First (brief) glimpse of footage from "Justified: City Primeval" in this FX on Hulu promo:

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Premieres Tuesday, July 18 with its first two episodes at 10 PM on FX and Hulu.

Teaser trailer:

 

[Alex...]

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Sounds like Natalie Zea isn't involved in the "City Primeval" revival.

I would have liked to see Winona briefly, but given that her character is Miami-based, and the majority of this story is Detroit-based, the production probably couldn't justify (no pun intended) her salary for what would amount to a cameo or two.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

First two episodes premiere tonight at 10/9c on FX:

Not sure if they'll be available on Hulu at the same time, or if they won't be available there until tomorrow morning.

 

[jayembee]

^ Kind of late, here, but according to the schedule at The Futon Critic, the episodes were on Hulu starting at midnight. Oddly enough, they don't (yet?) list Hulu airings for the other episodes. I've set my DVR to record off FX just to be safe. Haven't watched last night's eps yet.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Some non-spoiler thoughts about the first two episodes:

• This show has a very different visual palette from the original series. Whereas that show was shot in California during a drought, with lots of oranges and browns, this show's color leans heavily toward the greens and the grays.
• Like most shows that originate on linear television these days, there is no credits sequence, just a title card.
• Raylan Givens feels like exactly the same character. Neither the writers nor Olyphant have lost a beat.
• But the show around him is very different than the original series, darker and gritter with more explicit violence and a lot more foul language. The show's Detroit is a very different environment than Harlan County, with different dangers and complexities. It reminds me a bit of the Detroit scenes from Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Out of Sight.
• Olyphant's daughter was different than I expected as Willa Givens. She is quite tall, and a bit boyish looking, but she speaks with this soft, girlish voice. Willa makes for a nice foil for Raylan without being too precocious.
• The incident that brings Raylan and his daughter to Detroit is just about the most Raylan thing ever.
• Boyd Holbrook makes for a worthy adversary as Clement Mansel. Most of the "Justified" villains had at least some redeeming qualities. Clement is just 100 percent pure sociopath, with no remorse and little in the way of impulse control.
• The pacing feels a lot more brisk than the original series. The first two episodes felt like the first quarter of the story, so eight episodes will probably be the right amount without anything feeling rushed or dragged out.

I've set my DVR to record off FX just to be safe.

I checked Hulu yesterday evening, and it listed the episodes as being available 3 AM ET today, so I ended up recording them off of FX and watching them when enough of a buffer had built up to be able to skip through the commercials. Both episodes were supersized, so the recording went until around 12:30 am.

 

[jayembee]

Some non-spoiler thoughts about the first two episodes:

• This show has a very different visual palette from the original series. Whereas that show was shot in California during a drought, with lots of oranges and browns, this show's color leans heavily toward the greens and the grays.
• Like most shows that originate on linear television these days, there is no credits sequence, just a title card.
• Raylan Givens feels like exactly the same character. Neither the writers nor Olyphant have lost a beat.

That's exactly what I thought. It was like there was no gap between the end of the original series and this.

• But the show around him is very different than the original series, darker and gritter with more explicit violence and a lot more foul language. The show's Detroit is a very different environment than Harlan County, with different dangers and complexities. It reminds me a bit of the Detroit scenes from Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Out of Sight.

Well, it's been, what, eight years? And even FX had gotten freer with those things. Hell, Taboo was just two years after Justified, and for that, FX had even let through the c-word.

• Olyphant's daughter was different than I expected as Willa Givens. She is quite tall, and a bit boyish looking, but she speaks with this soft, girlish voice. Willa makes for a nice foil for Raylan without being too precocious.

I thought she seemed a bit uneven. There were times she seemed a little more mature, and some times a little more childish.

Spoiler

I wasn't sure whether, after she saw Raylan put the beat-down on Mansell, whether she was afraid of Mansell or Raylan.

• The incident that brings Raylan and his daughter to Detroit is just about the most Raylan thing ever.

Oh, was it ever...

• Boyd Holbrook makes for a worthy adversary as Clement Mansel. Most of the "Justified" villains had at least some redeeming qualities. Clement is just 100 percent pure sociopath, with no remorse and little in the way of impulse control.

It'll make for an interesting at how Raylan deals with him. The attitude toward police brutality today isn't the same as it was 10 years ago, and Raylan is going to have to have to suppress his own impulse control against a man who has none. I ready suspect that Ms. Wilder is going to have a few choice words for him in the next episode, after Mansell tells her about his latest encounter with Raylan.

I checked Hulu yesterday evening, and it listed the episodes as being available 3 AM ET today, so I ended up recording them off of FX and watching them when enough of a buffer had built up to be able to skip through the commercials. Both episodes were supersized, so the recording went until around 12:30 am.

Yeah, I had to crash out early Tuesday night, so when it came time to watch this evening, I just went with Hulu. Was surprised to see that (on Hulu) it was straight HD instead of 4K. At any rate, Hulu lists the next two episodes as appearing the day after FX, so all is good.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The scenes between Raylan and Willa were brutal this week, but I believed them. He's driving his daughter away for many of the same reasons he drove her mother away: Because he doesn't know how to turn off being Raylan Givens.

The dynamic between Wilder, Sweety, Mansell, and Stanton feels like the most Elmore Leonard part of this show. Seen from the outside, they're all allies. But Mansell scares the shit out of the other three, and Wilder and Sweety both have their own agendas.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Anybody watching this show? I’ve only watched the first episode so far.

 

[jayembee]

I've watched the first four episodes. Still need to watch last night's.

It's terrific.

 

[jayembee]

Still need to watch last night's.

I'm a day out of sync. The new episode was tonight, not last night. It's not up on Hulu for another hour, I suspect. Half to watch it later today.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Anybody watching this show? I’ve only watched the first episode so far.

Finally caught up tonight. I'm really enjoying it, but it's not quite up there with the best seasons of "Justified". It very much feels like an Elmore Leonard novel, though. There are quite a few scenes that feel more like Jackie Brown than "Justified".