SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details of the August 29series finaleofJustified: City Primeval.
Timothy Olyphants return to the role of U.S.
Marshal Raylan Givens inJustified: City Primevalcompleted its eight-episode limited series run tonight on FX.
Paul Calderon and Timothy OlyphantChuck Hodes / FX / Courtesy Everett Collection
The episode closes with Givens not answering the cell phone call to focus on his daughter.
For the moment, anyway.
It ended with Mansell crushing the mobsters leg in a mechanical steel door.
Boyd Holbrook and Regina TaylorChuck Hodes / FX / Courtesy Everett Collection
Givens comes to let Mansell loose for a final standoff.
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Givens has his own issues.
It comes down to the mano a mano showdown, only it goes wonky.
When Mansell appears to pull his weapon, Givens obliges with three well placed fatal shots.
Only to find that what Mansell was slinging is a cassette tape with his mediocre musical tunes.
But it is clear that her heart is with Raylan, and he is right there with her.
And then comes that one last Boyd Crowder surprise.
Crowders prison escape is pure Boyd, and he doesnt let us down.
It certainly gives the sense the story of Raylan Givens isnt over yet.
MICHAEL DINNER: Well, Ill give you the medium story.
I think theres a difference between Clement and Boyd Crowder.
People are always comparing villains.
Boyd Crowder, as Raylan said inJustified, when we were 18, we mined coal together.
Theres a familiarity there, the yin and yang.
What we didnt want to do is rebootJustify.We were trying to parachute Raylan in theCity Primevalstory set in Detroit.
Dave Andron, when we first sat down, we decided were going to do this together.
Tell me what you think.
There were three hurdles.
The first hurdle was, Tim was one of our partners.
So Tim said, well, yeah, if he wants to do it, itd be great.
And the next hurdle was Walton.
We all feel like we stuck the landing with him some years ago.
We described what we were thinking and he said, that might be kind of fun.
He was really busy at the time doing a Jonathan Nolan thing.
So we wouldve had to fit it in to a really small window.
We wrote the pages while we were writing the pilot.
And he read the pages and flipped out and said, well, this would be a ball.
So thats how it all started.
Youre not going to build sets.
Two years ago I shot in an empty prison in Pittsburgh.
And we shot that great bridge since hes escaped from prison.
The film commission said, its your lucky day.
They were going to demolish the bridge in a couple weeks.
We pivoted and thats how it all happened.
DEADLINE: You kept it close to the vest.
Walt has been a fantastic poker player.
Hes been a really good poker player.
If we get that reaction from people who are watching tonight, itd be awesome.
And the call comes in from the US Marshals office because Boyd Crowder has escaped prison.
Is that where you are going, with Raylan not yet hanging up his gun?
This was the second act of his life, and there could be a third act.
Look, if theres not, I feel really good about this.
We did this to have a good time.
And its really, does it fit in FXs plans or not.
Were not allowed to talk to FX.
And in a way thats kind of the third act of Raylans life if we decide to do that.
I mean, the second act is to get him to put on that badge.
And the third act is to pick it back up again or pick up the gun again.
Look, theres certainly a drama set up.
So theres certainly a story to be told if the stars align.
This has been my favorite season, and there were plenty of good ones.
DINNER: That makes me feel pretty damn good.
And some people think its kind of mean.
It was written around 1980 and a lot of people think its kind a crown jewel of his stuff.
It was so much fun to go back into what I call the Elmore Sandbox.
Then we gotGet ShortyandOut of Sight, and it was like, oh thats how you adapt Elmore Leonard.
Just stick to what he wrote and use his dialogue.
You guys have honored his spirit here.
So many of his great lines.
DINNER: Well, thats one of the few we didnt steal from Elmore, Ill tell you that.
But look, the thing is about Elmore is what Scott Frank learned a long time ago.
And it starts with that Elmore had a great ear.
He writes great characters, and then you better know how to make it your own.
By the time he got to the end, he said the whole book glowed green.
Here, you guys made changes borne of necessity.
In theCity Primevalnovel, the hero is Raymond Cruz, who took on the Oklahoma Wildman Clement Mansell.
How did that become the plan?
We finishedJustifysix, seven years ago and years after that, Elmore Leonards son Peter took over the estate.
He asked me if he would doCity Primevalas a series.
I said, sure.
The rights situation was convoluted.
It had almost been made into a movie a couple times before, once by Quentin Tarantino.
Some of the rights belonged to MGM, some belong to the estate.
He said, Hey, are you familiar withCity Primeval?
I said, well, yeah.
I asked Tim to wait till I was back in a week.
Lets talk about it when I get home.
Im not saying its a dumb idea, but itd be very complicated because of the rights.
So thats how it started.
Dave Andron and I decided to partner up on it.
Our original intention wasnt to rebootJustified.
That was the first act of Raylans life, and we felt we stuck the landing.
Could we parachute Raylan into this story?
And there were certain difficulties with that.
It was an adaptation.
It was foreshadowing with how Raylans death dance with Clement Mansell worked out.
Was that foreshadowing deliberate?
We wanted to see to it that that character was given his due, that we werent just stealing.
He shows up at the ex-wifes door, and then Raymond meets up with Raylan in this bar.
And so in a way, its kind of the Greek chorus in the scene with Raylan.
DEADLINE: We revealed that Quentin Tarantino was in talks to direct some eps here.
What happened and how close did he get to doing Kokomo the fourth episode with the Albanian mob?
We were a week to two weeks away from him starting to prep.
We thought, well, that would be kind of fun if he wanted to do it.
He was a huge fan of the show, a huge fan of Elmore.
So I called him, Dave Andron and I spoke to him.
He really wanted to do it.
In fact, between the third episode and the fourth episode we had, it was Quentin.
And anyway, so we were all ready to go, and he was about ready to prep.
And then I got the call that for some personal reasons, he couldnt do it.
So it wouldve been fun, but he did get close.
He read a number of the scripts and especially the script that he was going to do.
But you’re free to only do so many things.
Now, a few things about this season.
Raylans precocious daughter Willa was just adorable, and natural in scenes with Raylan.
Turns out the actress is named Vivian Olyphant and this was art imitating life.
We thought also that was interesting because hes divorced.
He thinks hes a great daddy.
Hes not so great.
Actually, times running out for him.
We thought, oh, this could be trouble.
And we read her and were kind of taken with her.
And there you go.
She had this contest on the set where she had a vote, a tally being taken.
Who was your favorite Olyphant?
She claimed she won by a landslide.
He was trying to get a rise out of Raylan, and, mission accomplished.
Raylan seemed different this whole season.
Impatience for all the bureaucracy and crap that goes on, tired of the manhunts.
It takes him a while to get back to the thing you love about him.
Hes the gunman from the Old West, caught in the contemporary world of Miranda rights.
What qualities did you venture to make different in the Raylan we knew from the series?
DINNER: Well, we like to joke that the audience expects him to shoot one person per episode.
Look, this is a slower burn over eight episodes.
And that was really deliberate.
He is, as I said, kind of a walking anachronism.
But the stakes are raised in the world in which Raylan lives right now.
But certainly the world has changed.
So he slowed down from where we saw him.
He still can pull a gun, but has he lost a half step?
Maybe theres more at stake for him.
He has a daughter that he has a couple years to connect with her before shes emancipated.
Thats different for him.
And so thats how we pick him up in this show.
And its ironic, we dont really see him put anybody down until that last episode.
DEADLINE: That final confrontation with Clement Mansell was so unpredictable.
How did you know that he was going to kind of rise to the occasion?
He was such a quirky guy.
DINNER: So a couple things.
Elmore used to write these characters that lived in the gray zone.
His protagonists are good at what they do, but they live in the gray zone.
Raylan had an itchy trigger finger, and most men are not very self-aware.
But the antagonists that he created also were in the gray zone.
Even though Sweety was the real deal, and Mansell basically stunk.
He was just a great bad guy who is funny at times and really terrifying in others.
And we met with him and talked to him, and we felt like he would be really interesting.
And I think hes really terrific in it.
DEADLINE: When youve had Walton Goggins and Margo Martindale among others, the bar is high for villains.
Did you consider many others?
DINNER: You start to cast pie in the sky, its a limited series.
Who do you think you might get?
And also youre trying to worry about how do you make this work within the budget you have?
I think he was the first person we made an offer.
Boyd had been doing very well on features and was right on the edge of breaking out.
Hed just doneIndiana Jones.
He was the first person we went after and he wanted to do it.
And there you go.
I looked at the Wolverine stuff and I did wonder, did he have enough?
Could he mind the humor?
Could he be wild enough?
And I think the answer came back as we started to work.
And then we started talking about this role, which was smaller in the book.
And in a way, he and Carolyn [Aunjanue Ellis] are Detroit.
They represent Detroit in this story.
And so we started talking about actors and making a list, and Cami said, what about Vondie?
Man, he looks like hes lived a life.
So many strong scenes.
The reveal that Sweety was her surrogate father after hes killed, was just heartbreaking.
She just seems real to me.
And we didnt want to go conventional.
Raylon was married before to Winona (Natalie Zea).
Weve seen Raylan with women inJustified, but weve never seen him with someone like this.
Someone whos so formidable she is kind of a match for him.
We see her in that first scene in the courtroom, dismantle him on the stand.
We havent seen him go through that before.
Shes just a powerhouse.
That scene is not one youve seen before inJustified.
Its a really organic and very real scene between these two people.
And with Raylan, this short two ships passing in the night relationship develops with her.
The only thing that she liked in the house is that bathtub.
And then says to Raylan, youre leaving, arent you?
I just think its pretty honest and raw.
