Review: 'JUSTIFIED' 2.1 - "The Moonshine War"

Mosey on over to Obsessed With Film, where I've reviewed the season 2 premiere of FX's JUSTIFIED, which finally made its UK debut on 5USA last night. Marijuana! Man-trap! Gasoline!

The first season of FX's Justified was consistently entertaining, but only really found its voice when it started focusing less on crime-of-the-week plots and more on the ongoing story of violent bank robber Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) and his reprobate daddy. It wasn't the first show to change tact this way, as TV shows increasingly discover that audiences (especially cable audiences) enjoy watching one big story unfold over multiple episodes, rather than be fed a constant run of disparate stories that are resolved in an hour. A healthy balance is key, and Justified found equilibrium in the latter-half of its inaugural year. So it's a relief that the season 2 premiere, "The Moonshine War", spends most of its time setting up another ne'er-do-well family for US Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) to grapple with for 13 weeks, in a confident and assured opener to what promises to be another engrossing trip to Harlan, Kentucky...

A reprise of the season 1 finale's dying moments opens the premiere, with Raylan fending off Miami drug cartel bad guys with the help of frenemy Boyd, during a small-scale shootout in a remote hut, before dovetailing into a coda that wraps up loose ends from last year. Primarily, the Miami gangster who's been out to avenge the death of one of his men (whom Raylan shot in the pilot, resulting in his transfer to hometown Harlan), is dissuaded from continuing his vendetta, in scenes that felt like showrunner Graham Yost washing his hands of last year's ideas. It's a palette cleanser, before the new season's allowed to move on. Continue reading...