SERIES FINALE

The Promise

Start to finish, I think Justified is one of the best TV shows ever made. Not a single bad season with the finale  capping it all off in unexpected and beautiful ways. I’m going to be really vague about what happens because I think everyone who watches this should go into it with their own thoughts of how it’s going to end and watch how it plays out.

As you can already tell, I loved it. The obvious was to have a stand-off, shoot ’em all, everyone is dead finale. Writers Graham Yost, Fred Golan, Dave Andron and Benjamin Cavell took the road less traveled and delivered on making a finale that all others should look to for inspiration. There’s quite a few major confrontations and yes, there are shoot outs. All are fantastic scenes, but those are just a tiny portion of this incredible ride. I can’t get over how well thought out and executed this finale was.

There are a lot of call backs to the beginning of the show which bolster phenomenal character growth. Good and bad things happen. Everything doesn’t go to hell, but a lot doesn’t work out too well either. The relationship of Ava, Boyd and Raylan comes to a fantastic conclusion. I hope I can write something in my lifetime that lives up to it. The main story arc of the season finishes with a good 15 minutes of run time left. I wasn’t expecting such an extensive epilogue, but in typical Justified fashion, it was done perfectly.

The finale had it all. The villains got to strut their stuff (Boon! So good), the anti-heroes got to make us question ourselves and the heroes did their damnedest to maintain some kind of order in the chaos. Great action, amazing dialog, fantastic direction and a satisfying ending that’s true to its main characters.

I think I’ve gushed about this every week, but I’ll say it one last time with the utmost confidence: Justified has some of the best writers in any medium. There is just no denying it. Anyone who says otherwise cannot be trusted. Every scene with Raylan and Boyd together is just downright brilliant. I feel like a broken record at this point, but there is no way around it. I’m really sad I have no more dialog of them going at it to look forward to anymore. The last scene completely nails the series.

I cannot say enough good things about Justified. It’s available to watch on Blu-ray/digital now (final season comes out in June on BRD) so please, if you haven’t watched this show, now is a great time. If you have, tell others about it. Spread the word, share this amazing body of work with everyone. Justified never let me down, I’ll come back to it for years to come and use it as the bar to judge all other shows. To everyone involved in the production, cast and crew, thank you so much.