Justified: City Primeval: Backstabbers
July 26, 2023 6:55 PM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe
Raylan and the Detroit Police round up some promising suspects, provoking Carolyn's ire; Mansell and Sandy move on the Albanian mark; things with Willa reach a breaking point.
ah, one of those episodes of TV where nothing really happens but everything is set up for some cliffhangers where something is promised to happen. Not a fan of these kinds of time fillers! But I guess they wanted to devote some time to saying goodbye to nepobaby Willa. I didn't think her performance was that bad but I'm wondering if she'll return in any way to make the character worthwhile, or if that's it for her and they could have contrived some other motivating reasons to explain why Raylan has ended up in Detroit.
posted by dis_integration at 7:29 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 7:29 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’m pretty sure we’ll get more Willa but I sure hope not. The rise of Action Dad media is one of my least favorite current trends and Justified doesn’t benefit from it. It doesn’t help that every time she’s on screen I catch myself wondering how two extremely charismatic people managed to produce the blandest human being ever; it’s like she’s Bizarro Zendaya.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:41 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:41 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think a lot of it is that Willa is WAY underwritten. Feels like a quarter of her lines are variations on "please spend more time with me, Dad," and there's almost nothing about her as a person. The closest we got was seeing her with the cop's kids, the briefest of glimpses that there is something more to her.
And, yea, on top of that Vivian Olyphant isn't exactly knocking it out of the park.
posted by Frayed Knot at 9:50 AM on July 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
And, yea, on top of that Vivian Olyphant isn't exactly knocking it out of the park.
posted by Frayed Knot at 9:50 AM on July 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
Timothy Olyphant is delightful and he seemed chuffed to work with his daughter, and I want to like "Willa", but it's not working at all. The acting isn't good, but it doesn't necessarily mean she's a bad actor — she's making bad choices and the director is letting her. My guess is that she's trying to play Willa internally but nothing's really coming through to the surface. It doesn't help that she mumbles.
I love Justified. I've always liked Olyphant. But this show is really lifeless.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:12 AM on July 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
I love Justified. I've always liked Olyphant. But this show is really lifeless.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:12 AM on July 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
Lifeless is exactly the right description. Everything seems so bland and cookie-cutter and generic from the main villain to the villain's girlfriend to their mark to the connected barkeep with a musical history to the gung-ho male cop to the tough but understanding female cop. I haven't read the book and I don't know if these are the characters that were in the novel, and maybe they were more original when the story was originally written, but by now they're just interchangeable cogs in any cop/lawman story, and they just aren't working for me.
The best things about the original Justified was that the best villains had a sense of place, of belonging. They were part of the milieu. What we're getting in this is a bunch of characters that could be (and seemingly have been) just dropped into a set of circumstances (that don't really make a lot of coherent sense). They're just there, going through the typical bad-guy and good-guy motions. This isn't a bunch that really requires Raylan's presence at all. He's pretty much superfluous to the story because it's a role that could be filled by anybody from Walker, Texas Ranger to Barney Miller (okay, that's a bit of a stretch because is crosses genres from comedy to drama, but I'd still be willing to bet Barney would acquit himself pretty well if dumped into a similar situation).
I'm not saying Raylan can't work outside of the holler. I'm sure he could, but there is nothing in this show that is really about him. Sure, there has been talk about cops his age in the field because they didn't get prompted or because they don't know anything else and will die on the job, but Raylan himself doesn't seem to be contemplating his fate. I guess he's struggling a bit with the being a dad while being a marshal thing, but even that just seems like a bit of a surface itch, not a bone-deep existential dread.
Willa was so badly written "it doesn't feel like stainless steel to me" and so stupidly portrayed and the actress' delivery is so whiny and immature that I have no desire to see the character back again. (I mean, did she ask to see the bad of her dad's supposed work colleague? I'm guessing not. You can't tell me somebody raised by Marshall Givens wouldn't have some tiny clue about how law enforcement operates and basic safety procedures, even if she's in a bratty rebellious mood.)
Don't get me wrong, the show isn't so bad that I'll stop watching. I'll likely stick it out until the end. It's just that watching it leaves me longing for a much better show--a show this could have been. Maybe I'm wrong, and it will turn into a much better, more logical (how did Mr. Baddie find Raylan's hotel?) show in the remaining episodes. That would be a nice surprise.
posted by sardonyx at 9:33 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
The best things about the original Justified was that the best villains had a sense of place, of belonging. They were part of the milieu. What we're getting in this is a bunch of characters that could be (and seemingly have been) just dropped into a set of circumstances (that don't really make a lot of coherent sense). They're just there, going through the typical bad-guy and good-guy motions. This isn't a bunch that really requires Raylan's presence at all. He's pretty much superfluous to the story because it's a role that could be filled by anybody from Walker, Texas Ranger to Barney Miller (okay, that's a bit of a stretch because is crosses genres from comedy to drama, but I'd still be willing to bet Barney would acquit himself pretty well if dumped into a similar situation).
I'm not saying Raylan can't work outside of the holler. I'm sure he could, but there is nothing in this show that is really about him. Sure, there has been talk about cops his age in the field because they didn't get prompted or because they don't know anything else and will die on the job, but Raylan himself doesn't seem to be contemplating his fate. I guess he's struggling a bit with the being a dad while being a marshal thing, but even that just seems like a bit of a surface itch, not a bone-deep existential dread.
Willa was so badly written "it doesn't feel like stainless steel to me" and so stupidly portrayed and the actress' delivery is so whiny and immature that I have no desire to see the character back again. (I mean, did she ask to see the bad of her dad's supposed work colleague? I'm guessing not. You can't tell me somebody raised by Marshall Givens wouldn't have some tiny clue about how law enforcement operates and basic safety procedures, even if she's in a bratty rebellious mood.)
Don't get me wrong, the show isn't so bad that I'll stop watching. I'll likely stick it out until the end. It's just that watching it leaves me longing for a much better show--a show this could have been. Maybe I'm wrong, and it will turn into a much better, more logical (how did Mr. Baddie find Raylan's hotel?) show in the remaining episodes. That would be a nice surprise.
posted by sardonyx at 9:33 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
I finally caught up to this last night. I went in to it pretty skeptical, because I have never seen a reboot or revival that had any of the qualities that made me love a show originally, and sadly, my skepticism has been rewarded. Justified is one of my favorite shows ever, I can’t even count how many times I’ve watched some episodes.
This is, like a lot of people have said, a generic story with stock psycho villains and supporting characters whose motivations are completely opaque. I like Boyd Holbrook but he’s just an irritating average nutjob killer, Raylan is basically reduced to just some cop trying to catch him, and no one seems to really have any relationship to the story beyond being where they have to be to move things forward.
And I was hoping people were just being unnecessarily mean to Timothy Olyphant’s kid, but wow, she really is not good (that baby doll voice makes me want to scream) and the character is a total pill. I get teenagers being shits, but a child of Marshal Raylan Givens would just not be that dumb. I’m really hoping she’s gone for good.
Man, it’s a bummer to see this be so disappointing, but I guess that’s just the nature of revivals, even when the crew is all the people who made the show brilliant in the first place.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 10:52 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is, like a lot of people have said, a generic story with stock psycho villains and supporting characters whose motivations are completely opaque. I like Boyd Holbrook but he’s just an irritating average nutjob killer, Raylan is basically reduced to just some cop trying to catch him, and no one seems to really have any relationship to the story beyond being where they have to be to move things forward.
And I was hoping people were just being unnecessarily mean to Timothy Olyphant’s kid, but wow, she really is not good (that baby doll voice makes me want to scream) and the character is a total pill. I get teenagers being shits, but a child of Marshal Raylan Givens would just not be that dumb. I’m really hoping she’s gone for good.
Man, it’s a bummer to see this be so disappointing, but I guess that’s just the nature of revivals, even when the crew is all the people who made the show brilliant in the first place.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 10:52 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think the difficulties that people are seeing are deep in the bone. The City Primeval novel was not about Givens. the producers pitched that show, and threw Givens in as a way to brand it and get more network interest. Yes, Leonard had a type when it comes to main characters, but they aren't naturally interchangeable.
So feeling like Raylan is shoehorned into a plot from another show? Yup.
posted by jkosmicki at 12:28 PM on July 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
So feeling like Raylan is shoehorned into a plot from another show? Yup.
posted by jkosmicki at 12:28 PM on July 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Hi, joining the support group for the I Hate Willa And Her Awful Baby Voice Club. Seriously, I don't normally care too much about nepo babies as long as they have talent, but she didn't even inherit a lick of it. I wouldn't have expected Tim's kid to suck SO HARD. Every moment of her voice is pain. I really hope she's not in the rest of this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:17 PM on July 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:17 PM on July 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am glad I am not alone in not being able to stand Willa's voice, her generally as a character, as well as the acting choices bringing to her life. Please let this be her last episode.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:22 PM on July 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 1:22 PM on July 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
The writing choices deserve half of the blame for Willa, really. They're giving her pretty much nothing to work with.
posted by mediareport at 2:09 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by mediareport at 2:09 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
(Not that she's shown much ability to work with a better script, just noting that the writing for her character has been especially mediocre. Hard not to see that as a product of her being shoehorned into the story, too.)
posted by mediareport at 2:11 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by mediareport at 2:11 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by Etrigan at 6:47 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]