Justified – It’s like your family, just with extra bullets

Dr. Phil, eat your heart out. The second-season finale of Justified made your show look like camp counseling.

Even though the show’s hero is a U.S. Marshal, the FX drama has never really been a crime story. It’s about the relationships between people — specifically, family relationships. Season one gave us the parallel tracks of two sons and their fractured connections to their less than reputable fathers. In season two, we’ve seen the tale of three families at war with each other, and we head into season three with two characters poised to start their own family.

“Bloody Harlan” saw the struggle between the Bennett and Crowder families reach its breaking point, and with it, the longstanding feud between the Bennett and Givens clans also came to the fore. While Boyd (Walton Goggins) tried to broker peace with Mags (Margo Martindale), Mags’ son Dickie (Jeremy Davies) shot Boyd’s girlfriend Ava (Joelle Carter), after he’d already murdered Raylan’s Aunt Helen.

As if that wasn’t enough, Loretta (the magnificent Kaitlyn Dever) sought revenge on Mags for killing her father, which sent Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) after the young woman. By episode’s end, Dickie was arrested, his brother Doyle (Joseph Lyle Taylor) was dead, and a devastated Mags made peace with Raylan before she committed suicide, leaving Boyd an opening to reclaim control of Harlan County for the Crowders.

None of the families on Justified would ever be considered model, but watching how they intertwine and conflict has made for compelling drama over two seasons and twenty-six episodes. It works so well because it’s easy to understand the underlying feelings and motivations that make up those connections and collisions. My father is not a career criminal, but I grasp the anger, frustration and pain that comes with Raylan’s broken relationship with dad Arlo (Raymond J. Barry, who also played Lilly Rush’s father on Cold Case). Mags’ decision to commit suicide is both heartwrenching and perfectly understandable, when we’ve seen all season how her family is everything to her, and yet she’s seen two sons die, one get arrested twice, and been spurned by the girl she wanted to raise as her own. I’d certainly feel crushed and more than a bit responsible if my family utterly collapsed like that. The specific stories on Justified are great drama, but I think we can all understand the emotions and thought processes that comprise them, if not outright identify with them.

In all the adult drama, one of the best scenes was Loretta’s confrontation with Mags, and her subsequently having to be talked out of shooting the other woman by Raylan. As we talked about last week, Raylan’s been easing off on that trigger finger of his, and it made perfect sense now. How ironic and yet perfect was it to see him, the man known for shooting bad guys with little provocation, talking her out of taking a shot that would shatter her life? It was clear that he didn’t want to see Loretta led a violent path that he knew too well. The scene was bittersweet; although Loretta chose not to kill Mags, we knew that she had no family to speak of anymore.

Winona (Natalie Zea) also revealed early in the episode that she’s expecting. Barring a miscarriage or other setback, Raylan will enter season three as an expectant father. I can only wonder how that will change him, and in turn, change the show. We know he can’t really leave Lexington, or there wouldn’t be much of a series, but it goes without saying that he’ll want his son or daughter to be able to have a life better than that which he and the other residents of Harlan County have accepted for themselves.

Bolstered by its usual exceptional acting — Martindale and Dever deserve awards consideration, and I maintain that the question is when, not if Olyphant will win an Emmy – Justified‘s second season told us a heartwrenching tale. Some families were destroyed, others were put back together, and we’re going to see a new one emerge – but all came to be through hard self-discovery and with painful consequences. As brilliant as it has almost always been, Justified may be the best family-centric drama on television. At least, don’t call it a crime drama. It’s always been much, much more.

Clacked by Brittany Frederick
on May 05, 2011 @ 10:00 EST5EDT