A tip of the cowboy hat, from one modern Western to another.
The hit FX series Justified is back in the saddle with its miniseries, Justified: City Primeval — and the premiere featured an NSFW shoutout to its neo-Western counterpart, Yellowstone.
The raunchy reference comes when a defense attorney named Carolyn (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and her friend Diane (Regina Taylor) are having dinner at a restaurant. When Diane notices US Marshal Raylan Givens is looking over at Carolyn, she says, "There's a guy across the room staring at you. You ever seen Yellowstone? I would f*** the s*** out of Kevin Costner."
Just a subtle nod.
But rather fitting of the Justified name, which is known for its wry humor as much as its sex and violence.
It's been eight years since the original series concluded its gritty six-season run, which featured the silent and strong-willed Givens (Timothy Olyphant) serving up his own brand of Wild West-style justice to the outlaws prowling the hollers of Kentucky. The revival sees Givens working the mean streets of Miami — a far cry from the rural home he fled 15 years prior. He's got a few more gray hairs now — and a 15-year-old daughter to boot (played by Olyphant's real-life daughter, Vivian Olyphant). But he's got the same hat and the same mission, and in the City Primeval, he's set his sights on some seriously dangerous game: a sociopathic desperado name Clement Mansell, AKA The Oklahoma Wildman (Boyd Holbrook).
The return of Paramount Network's Yellowstone for the second half of its fifth and final season is still up in the air — production has been stalled as showrunners attempt to truncate the closing episodes to accommodate for Costner's sudden departure to focus on his western saga, Horizon.
The two-episode series premiere of Justified: City Primeval is streaming now on Hulu.
