It's funny to think back to 2009. I had heard that the FX network was working on a new show about a federal lawman in Kentucky. "Oh great," I thought. "Another chance to make people in Kentucky look like back wood hicks again."
But color me surprised. When "Justified" premiered in early 2010, I immediately feel in love with the show. I shouldn't have been surprised since it was from an Elmore Leonard short story. I love Leonard as a writer. He writes great crime stories that rely heavily on atmosphere and the complexity of characters usually trying to prove their worth in one way or another.
"Justified" is no different. The main character, Raylan Givens, is one of the coolest cats on television. The criminals he usually comes up against are of the typical Leonard variety. Dumb or inept people who try to live up to the mythic legend in their own minds.
But besides the often great and funny and often dramatic stories that happen on the show, one thing about "Justified" has always stuck with me the most. It's a theme that I have noticed go on with many of the characters.
I noticed it in the first episode, "Fire in the Hole." After Raylan, who is working in Miami, has shot a big time mobster in broad daylight, he is told by his boss that he is being reassigned to Kentucky in order to lay low. The look on Raylan's face is almost one of sheer terror. Raylan is from Kentucky. Harlan, KY we eventually learn. Raylan tries his best to convince his boss to not transfer him, but Raylan has no choice.
As the series as progressed, Raylan is a man who always tells people that he wants to get out Kentucky and move on up the law enforcement ladder. But his actions say otherwise. Relationships, friendships, even his new baby that was spotted for the first time in the season five premiere Tuesday night, have all fallen by the wayside of Raylan's sense of duty to his job and to honoring his deep ties to the people he knows in Kentucky.
Examples of this have included the tenuous relationship Raylan has had with Boyd Crowder, a man he grew up around in Harlan. Boyd is unique in that although he is a criminal, Boyd is a self-taught intelligent man. He has had desires, much like Raylan has, to find peace in himself and to always move beyond his present situation. But also like Raylan, his sense of loyalty to his roots has more often than not hurt him.
Another character on the show that was face with the dilemma of loyalty to ones past was Mags Bennett. The season two villain was the marijuana growing matriarch of the Bennett family. In the middle of season two, Mags realizes that an opportunity has come to her in the form of the Black Pike Coal Company. The company wants a very sizable portion of land that just happens to belong to Mags. Mags realizes the money that she gets from the company can set her and her children up for a very long time.
Even then, when she sells the land, she regrets it immediately. She is secure financially, but to her, the thought of living anywhere else is unthinkable.
Raylan, Boyd, and Mags dilemmas in trying and failing to escape their roots is what I think makes "Justified" unique among the many crime shows on television. It is something that we can all relate to. No matter who you are, we have all wished we can get away from wherever we came from. Whether it be our family, the city we grew up in, the friends we grew up knowing, or even a trauma that happens to us early in life. As much as we can wish it may not be there with us, it is always there.
Mags eventually came to this realization. Raylan and Boyd are slowly getting there, but from what we can tell, they just keep on denying it to themselves. I always think it is fitting that most of the seasons of "Justified" have ended on a Brad Paisley song titled, "You'll Never Leave Harlin Alive." It's a beautiful song but one that has a lot of meaning for the characters. They trace their bloodlines to that area of Kentucky, but that no matter what, they just can't get rid of their roots no matter how hard they try.
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