Justified - A Fan Writes

Those who regularly read this blog will know the esteem I hold TV shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men in. If Star Trek fans are Trekkers (apparently they hate the term Trekkie, but every time I read about an obsessed fan that's the way they're described0 oops, just took a tangent and ruined the rhythm of my joke, I'll start again. If Star Trek fans are Trekkies what's a Sopranos fan, a Soppy? Are Mad Men fans Maddies or Addies? Who knows, who cares.

The two show that are holding my attention to the point of obsession at the moment are The Killing - being a fan does that make me a Killer? - and Justified.

I'm now on episode thirteen of The Killing and watching the episodes count down is already making me nervous. What will fill the yawning gap?

What's worse is that I picked up the box set of the first season of Justified after reading how good it was and now I'm onto the second series set and counting down towards the finale. I'm watching the show like a civilian, loving the whole thing. But I'm heading towards a double whammy of quality drama deprivation.

Timothy Olyphant as Deputy Marshall Raylan Given

I think Justified pops up on one of the UK satellite channels somewhere but if you, like me. enjoy the Southern take the great Elmore Leonard brings to crime fiction this show is a must, so forget trying to catch up on TV, go out and buy the box.

Justified tells the tale of Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) , a Deputy Federal Marshall in the good old wild west sense of being a Marshall. He's a man in a cowboy hat who's quick on the draw, quick on the quip and no slouch with the ladies, m'am.


In the first moments of the first series,  Raylan kills a Miami fugitive in a ‘justified’ shooting, and gets shipped out - and back home - to rural Kentucky. Once there, he's reacquainted with people from his past - his shady childhood friend Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) and old flame and Boyd’s sister-in-law Ava (Joelle Carter). He's faced with the task of tracking down a modern-day mix of white supremacists and drug runners, whilst managing to exude a laid back, effortless cool with the promise of a gun in his holster that he's not afraid to reach for.


What the series does is constantly surprise. Just when you think you know where any scene or conversation is heading it veers away and heads off into new territory. Most importantly watching the show feels like reading an Elmore Leonard book.  Leonard's style is conversational, laid back, you hardly see the plot points for the humour but when something big happens men die, things explode, ends are tied up.

And series two is even better.

Does any of this rub off onto my writing? Well, the subject matter of the two shows doesn't but stylistically there are things to learn from both. I just need to work out how I can introduce a man in a stetson as a lead character in a British series  - and get away with it.