Part cop procedural, part western, Justified revolves around a modern day lawman who wears a cowboy hat. This quirk aside, there isn’t much about Graham Yost’s crime drama which is remarkable, with Elmore Leonard’s pulp fiction adapted into a run of middling crime-of-the-week investigations. It’s tempting to give up during the first half of season one, with the show getting by on Timothy Olyphant’s swagger as the US marshal who’s transferred back to his rural Kentucky hometown after a shooting which he claims was – you guessed it – justified. Things do improve, however, when later episodes afford more focus to ongoing arcs, particularly those involving Walton Goggins as a criminal who may, or may not, have reformed. Apparently, seasons two and three are much better.
