Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens — there's a sight for sore eyes. Olyphant makes his long-awaited return as the Stetson hat-wearing Deputy U.S. Marshal in FX's limited series revival Justified: City Primeval. It's been eight years since the original Justified series finale, but in this week's supersized two-episode premiere, it's as if Raylan Givens never left our screens. Timothy Olyphant slips back into the wise-cracking, impossibly cool lawman with an ease that will fill that Raylan-sized hole in your heart.
That being said, the stylish and gritty Justified: City Primeval is a vastly different show than its Emmy-winning forebear. More hard rock than bluegrass, City Primeval is based on best-selling author Elmore Leonard's City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. The eight-episode limited series picks up 15 years after Raylan left the hollers of Kentucky. A run-in in the Everglades sends him chasing after a murderous madman in Detroit with his teenage daughter Willa (played by Olyphant's daughter, Vivian Olyphant) in tow. From showrunners Michael Dinner and Dave Andron (producers of the original Justified), City Primeval is led by a truly superb cast, starting with Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard) and the legendary Vondie Curtis Hall (ER). Series big-bad Clement Mansell is played with vicious appetite by Boyd Holbrook, a frequent James Mangold collaborator who most recently appeared in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Read on for a rundown of Justified: City Primeval's two-episode premiere, plus some predictions for where the limited series is headed.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Justified: City Primeval, Episodes 1-2.
Raylan Is Assigned to a Detroit Car-Bombing Case
Raylan and Willa in Detroit. (Chuck Hodes/FX)
Episode 1, "City Primeval," opens with an off-duty Raylan (and his hat) handing an ice cream cone to his teenage daughter Willa (Vivian Olyphant). It's a callback to the last time we saw the father-daughter duo in the Justified series finale, when Willa was a plucky 4-year-old. Now a plucky 15-year-old, Willa punched some girl at school and Raylan is driving her to camp in the Everglades as punishment. While transporting his little prisoner, a pair of young thugs rear-end Raylan and threaten to kidnap Willa. Raylan pulls a shotgun out of his trunk and flashes his Deputy U.S. Marshal badge. And just like that, Justified is back.
Next, we see Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook) steal a car outside Detroit simply because it has a cassette player. He slips in his own demo of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" and sings along as if years of play in sports arenas hasn't made the song totally uncool. We cut to a wealthy Detroit suburb, where Judge Alvin Guy's (prolific voice-over artist Keith David) swanky new Cadillac blows up in his driveway.
Later that day, Judge Guy presides over the case of Tyrone Power (Jalen Gilbert), one of the thugs Raylan arrested in Florida who turned out to be a Michigan fugitive. We see it play out in flashback: Raylan missed the morning deadline to enroll Willa at camp, so he hauled Tyrone and his accomplice to the station himself. Raylan is in Detroit testifying to the matter, and he brought Willa with him.
Tyrone's defense attorney Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis) goes hard at Raylan for his cowboy ways (he threatened to stuff Tyrone in the trunk). Judge Guy drops the Florida charges against Tyrone, then orders Raylan and Willa to a holding cell. The former threatened him, and the latter was laughing at cat videos during the proceedings. It wouldn't be Justified without a little farce. Afterwards, Raylan is assigned to the investigation into Judge Guy's car-bombing — at the judge's request, surprisingly. He'll be working with Detroit PD Detective Wendell Robinson (The Affair's Victor Williams).
Sandy Stanton Is Mansell's Partner-in-Crime
Sandy Stanton and Clement Mansell. (George Burns/FX)
We cut to Mansell and his girlfriend Sandy Stanton (Adelaide Clemens of Under the Banner of Heaven). They're a regular Bonnie and Clyde: Sandy honeytraps wealthy men at the D-Town Casino and Mansell robs them. They're living in the penthouse of one Dale Weams (presumably a mark); Sandy also mentions a wealthy Albanian target named Skender. While she luxuriates in the last of her weed supply, Mansell recalls the time he tried to rob a man who wasn't carrying cash: "Put the gun to his head and he asked me if he could Venmo me. I mean, I got so damn depressed I went straight to the nearest bar and just drank myself stupid." It seems cowboy marshals and robbers are outdated in a digitized world.
Detroit PD squeezed the location of the car bombers from a criminal group known as the Wolverine Militia. Raylan, Robinson, Detective Maureen Downey (the excellent Marin Ireland, Hell or High Water) and the rest of the task force raid the bombers' home. The two suspects have escaped via an underground tunnel, but Raylan finds the hidden door in the floor easily: "Things that occur to you when you grow up in a mining town," he says. Fist pump. One bomber escapes, but the other is caught and reveals that they bombed the car because Judge Guy slept with his accomplice's mother while he was presiding over his criminal trial.
Carolyn meets her ex-husband and former law partner Jamal (Snowfall's Amin Joseph) at the local bar owned by Marcus "Sweety" Sweeton (Vondie Curtis Hall). We learn that Jamal "defrauded" Carolyn, and she covered for him. Now, Jamal's worried that his creditors will sniff out more shady transactions; he asks her for money, but leaves empty-handed and lovelorn. Sweety hands Carolyn an envelope full of cash for defending Tyrone Power. Evidently, Sweety and Carolyn have had each other's backs for years.
Mansell Murders Judge Guy and His Assistant
Raylan and the Detroit PD task force. (Chuck Hodes/FX)
Raylan and the Detroit crew catch the escaped bomber hiding out at his mother's house. Meanwhile, Mansell and Sandy head to Sweety's, and the grizzled bar owner is surprised to see Mansell back in Detroit. In the bathroom, Mansell retrieves a pistol he stashed in the ceiling. Meanwhile, with the bombing case closed, Raylan plans to stop in Graceland on the way down to Miami, but Willa wants to see his hometown, good old Harlan County, Kentucky. Nothing to see there, Raylan says.
That night, all paths converge at the D-Town Casino: Judge Guy is entertaining his young assistant-slash-paramour Rose (American Rust's Rae Gray), and Sandy goes home with the wealthy Albanian mark. When Judge Guy cuts him off in the parking garage, Mansell T-bones him. The judge pulls a gun from the glove compartment, and Mansell shoots him dead. He takes the leather notebook from the judge's pocket — probably a ledger of payouts. Then he kidnaps Rose and demands that she take him to the judge's house. She escapes at a red light and Mansell tracks her down on foot, killing her.
That night, Raylan wakes to the news of Judge Guy and Rose's murders. Maureen is distraught: Rose was her C.I. (Confidential Informant), planted to investigate the judge. The case is now a double-homicide. So much for Raylan's father-daughter road trip.
Mansell and Sweety Were Partners
(Chuck Hodes/FX)
Episode 2, "The Oklahoma Wildman," opens with a flashback to 2017, when Sweety and Mansell were partners in the so-called Wrecking Crew. They rob Sweety's weed-dealer buddies, and Mansell (the titular wildman) shoots the dealers and his own henchman, to Sweety's complete shock. One of the dealers survives and Mansell is arrested days later. Sweety hires Carolyn to be Mansell's defense attorney.
In present-day Detroit, Raylan and Robinson head to Sandy and Mansell's penthouse looking for the homeowner, Dell Weams. They got a tip that Dell's car was spotted near the crime scene last night. (Mansell was driving it when he T-boned Judge Guy.) Robinson recognizes Sandy's name: She was with Mansell when he was arrested back in 2017. She plays like Dell is out of town and claims she hasn't seen Mansell in years.
Raylan and Robinson take a sample from Dell's smashed-up car, and have a look at Mansell's case file. Carolyn miraculously had the 2017 quadruple homicide charges against him dropped, and he's left a trail of bodies "from Oklahoma to Detroit" since. They figure out pretty quickly that Mansell is likely the guy they're looking for. Meanwhile, Mansell instructs Sandy to throw his pistol (the one he shot the judge and Rose with) in the river, and Raylan and Robinson follow her. She decides to stash the gun in the bathroom ceiling at Sweety's instead.
Mansell Threatens Willa
(Sandy Morris/FX)
Carolyn invites Raylan to her office, where Mansell, her client, is lounging on the couch. She warns Raylan to back off Mansell unless he has hard proof he was involved in Judge Guy and Rose's murders. "Only two kinds of guys out in the street chasing bad guys at your age," Mansell taunts Raylan. "Ones who got passed over for the big chair, and the ones that just love it so much, they're gonna have to be dragged off. Only question is will they be breathing when it happens?"
Raylan and Robinson head to Sweety's, sure that Sandy stashed Mansell's murder weapon there. But the bar owner, who was a star bass player until he was arrested for drug possession years ago, keeps mum. He calls in Carolyn, who tells Raylan and Robinson to beat it until they can get a search warrant. Meanwhile, Mansell calls up to Raylan's hotel room for Willa, pretending to be a law enforcement officer sent to protect her.
Raylan returns to the hotel room to find a note from Willa. She's sitting at a restaurant with Mansell, under the impression he's an old friend of Raylan's. Mansell tells Raylan he heard a story about the cowboy marshal who shot a man on a Miami rooftop. It's a reference to the opening scene of the original Justified, when Raylan killed the fugitive Tommy Bucks in a quick-draw and was transferred to Kentucky as a result. Raylan drags Mansell outside and beats him senseless, which was obviously Mansell's goal. "I see you near my daughter again, and I'll f****** kill you," Raylan tells him. (It's the first time Raylan's dropped an F-bomb onscreen.) Raylan sees Willa crying inside the restaurant, having witnessed the whole thing.
Questions and Predictions
(FX Network)
- Where's Winona Hawkins? Willa said something about her mother being in the Caribbean, presumably with her current husband. At the end of Justified, Winona had remarried a man named Richard.
- What's in Judge Guy's notebook? It looks like a ledger of payouts. The judge warned the Detroit task force that he's seen some things "you and your bosses don't want to come to light." Whatever's in that ledger, it's incriminating. Mansell could use it as leverage.
- What's the relationship between Sweety and Tyrone? Tyrone had outstanding drug dealing charges. If they're not family, Tyrone is probably part of Sweety's weed operation.
- Why did Mansell want Raylan to beat him up? So that he can claim harassment and assault in the event that he's prosecuted for the murders. (Dewey Crowe pulled a similar move in Justified and made out with a cool $300k government payout, if you remember.)
- Why are Sweety and Carolyn protecting Mansell? They don't like the guy, but he has dirt on Sweety — and probably on Carolyn and her fraudster ex-husband, too.
New episodes of Justified: City Primeval premiere Tuesdays on FX and Hulu.
