Wednesday, November 8, 2023

JUSTFIED: City Primeval Season One Returns

 

Jeri Jacquin

Coming to Bluray from FX and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is the return of a successful series with JUSTIFIED: City Primeval Season One.

Willa Givens (Vivian Olyphant) is a fifteen-year-old problem child for Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) and it doesn’t get easier when criminals steal his car. That means he can’t take Willa off to camp meaning he now has to take her at the same time he is extraditing men to Michigan. Things don’t go easier in Detroit but, Raylan gets a gig with judge Guy (Keith David) as someone is trying to kill him. Things doing go according to plan when there is a third problem involving Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook) and Skender and they aren’t going to stop.

Rayland and Detective Robinson (Victor Williams) don’t know there is a history going back to 2017 and a robbery. Interesting that the good detective remembers the woman Sandy (Adelaide Clemens) and she is off telling Mansell the cops are snooping around and Sweety Sweeton (Vondie Curtis-Hall) is also in on what is happening. Later, Willa sees what her father is capable of when he deals with Mansell his way.

Mansell tells Carolyn but the police have other plans. One of the men working for Sweety finds the gun that could cause trouble and re-hides it. Things are getting heated as there is a larger plan that Raylan is getting involves with. Knowing this, Raylan has it out with his daughter making it clear she is returning to Florida.

Knowing that he is in bigger trouble than he could imagine, Mansell has Skender’s uncle after him. Sweety has no intention of helping Carolyn, especially when he learns that Judge Guy has a notebook that could destroy a lot of people and the Albanians are on the hunt as well. Raylan is in over his head with Carolyn and Mansell starts off his blackmail schemes to get money from anyone in the notebook.

Rayland, working with detective Downey (Marin Ireland) are trying to get information about the notebook as well. Everyone wants their name off the list and will do just about anything to get it. It’s all starting to fall apart when they learn where the mysterious gun might be and everyone starts singing like a flock of birds. When it is all said and done, Raylan wants to high tail it back to Miami to continue his retirement but – when the phone rings…..

Olyphant as Raylan brings back the swagger the series became known for and he picks it up like a favorite overcoat and the fit is perfect. The one thing about Raylan the viewer can be sure of, his involvement in things is not surface but goes deep with so many twists and turns that you could get whiplash keeping up. That’s what made the series so successful and I’m thrilled to see him back in action.

Other cast include Norbert Leo Butz as Norbert Bryl, Ravi V. Patel as Rick, Paul Calderon as Det. Cruz, Amin Joseph as Jamal, Regina Taylor as Diane, David Cross as Dickey, Terry Kinney as Toma Costia, Natalie Zea as Winona, Luiz Guzman as Officer Ramirez, Matt Craven as Dan Grant, David Koechner as Dep. Sutter, and Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder.

Episodes include City Primeval, The Oklahoma Wildman, Backstabbers, Kokomo, You Good?, Adios, The Smoking Gun, and The Question.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment encompasses motion picture production for television, digital content and theater releases. The studios include Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, TriStar Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Stage 6 Films and Sony Picture Classics. To see what is coming to theaters and to home entertainment please visit www.sonypictures.com.

JUSTFIED: City Primeval is the perfect season one to binge on and, just to make things more interesting, I watched all the previous seasons prior. That made for a fun time getting to spend a little quality time with Raylan (come on, you know you love it) and remembering bits and pieces about the character that I had forgotten.

FX did a fantastic job creating this series in the first place with its memorable (shout out Goggins!!) characters. I don’t see this as much as bringing it back and picking up where we left off. There is no way that the character of Raylan was going to ‘retire’ because it is just not in his wheelhouse. Instead, he is still as good as he always was and will continue to be so, thanks to good writing, as we wait for a potential new season.

In the end - dust off your cowboy boots and hats because the handsome sheriff is back in town!

 

No comments:

Post a Comment