See Timothy Olyphant’s Return For A Revival Of His Best Character
Timothy Olyphant returns as an older and wiser Marshall Raylan Givens in the revival series, Justified: City Primeval.
This article is more than 2 years old
From 2010-2015, Timothy Olyphant headlined Justified, an FX series in which he played U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. In the years since then, Olyphant has had many different roles, including very fun appearances in Star Wars (good practice for his upcoming Fallout show). Now, though, he will be returning to the role of Raylan Givens for the sequel series Justified: City Primeval.
At first glance, bringing Timothy Olyphant back for a Justified sequel series seems like something of a no-brainer. He was literally the face of the original series, so it makes sense that he would be the face of the new series, too. However, fans should prepare themselves for a Justified world very different from the one they knew before.
The new Justified series takes place eight years after the finale of the original show, meaning that Raylan Givens has aged in real-time along with Mandalorian star Timothy Olyphant. Speaking of real life, Olyphant’s actual daughter Vivian plays his daughter on the show, and his character is trying to balance raising her and making the most out of life in a new city: Miami. But instead of the new series taking place in the Sunshine State, the plot ends up sending Givens to Detroit instead.
What’s going on in Detroit that concerns Raylan Givens? In Justified: Primeval City, Timothy Olyphant straps his boots back on to tackle a wild, dangerous criminal named Clement Marshall, who, with the help of his sleazy lawyer, has so far managed to avoid the long arm of the law. Givens is here to make sure the bad guys face justice, but fans of the original show are mostly concerned with whether the showrunners can do it justice with a sequel (especially with dark omens like that shooting on set).
The showrunners in question are Dave Andron and Michael Dinner, but following up on their hit series wasn’t originally part of their plan. However, one day Timothy Olyphant called the two of them to pitch his idea for a new season of Justified. The original show adapted the Elmore Leonard short story Fire In the Hole, and now that Olyphant had read Leonard’s novel City Primeval, he thought it would make for a great show in the Justified universe.
It looks like Timothy Olyphant did more than get the showrunners interested in Justified again. Once the showrunners realized the potential of mixing the familiar Givens character with other Leonard texts, they began to see an opportunity to portray Givens at three different periods of his life. Therefore, if all goes well, we may eventually see a sequel series to Justified: City Primeval.
Right now, whether fans take to the new series depends largely on the relationship between Raylan Givens and Clement Marshall. The original Justified did a great job of leveraging the tension between Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins, the actor who portrayed iconic villain Boyd Crowder. If sparks fly between Givens and Marshall the way they flew between Givens and Crowder, then we’re confident fans will tune in each week for new misadventures.
