Raylan Givens is back — and bringing the law to a new town. Thanks to the massive resurgence of the Western genre, we're revisiting some of our favorite cowboys and gunslingers and learning where their lives have taken them years later. With two Emmy wins, universal acclaim and getting the hard-won approval of author Elmore Leonard (who wrote the books the series is based on), Justified is undoubtedly one of the most beloved cowboy shows of all time. Now, fans have another chance to join Raylan on one of his escapades in FX's new spinoff miniseries Justified: City Primeval.
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Timothy Olyphant returns to his role as the quick-drawing U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, bringing with him some familiar faces and a few new ones. The show — which has yet to premiere to the public — is already an immediate hit with critics, who praised the series for its clever dialogue and thrilling action sequences. It revisits Deputy Givens in an all-new setting, where the villains are more powerful than ever, and the stakes are even higher.
"For all intents and purposes, as far as I'm concerned, we are doing a new show," showrunner Dave Andron told EW. "Sure, we have Raylan — we knew that was money in the bank — and we have [author] Elmore's book, but we had to create this whole new world for him to be in, this whole new cast of characters. I was just trying to make sure we didn't f--- it up. We understood that we ended the show really well the first time around, so we didn't take the plane back up lightly."
How to Watch Justified: City Primeval
Justified: City Primeval premieres on FX on Tuesday, July 18. The limited series will contain eight episodes, which will be released every Tuesday following the premiere. If you can't catch the live release, you can stream new episodes the following day on Hulu.
Hulu is available at $7.99 per month. You can also upgrade your subscription by bundling Hulu with Disney+ and ESPN+ for $12.99 per month. Note that both of those options include ads. If you want to binge Deputy Givens ad-free, upgrade to Hulu (no ads) for $14.99 per month.
What is Justified: City Primeval About?
While the protagonist may be the same, much about this spinoff series is different from the original Justified. For starters, it's based off of an entirely new Leonard book: the 1980 crime novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit.
Funny enough, that book doesn't even feature the character Deputy Givens. But Andron and fellow showrunner Michael Dinner loved the novel so much they decided to find a way to make it work.
"It's kind of a gem in Elmore Leonard's collection," Dinner also told EW. "This is kind of the granddaddy for Raylan's character, in a way. We didn't intend to reboot Justified, we didn't intend to pick up where we left off, but we thought it would be interesting to, what I call, 'do a mashup.' What if we took our character and dropped him into the middle of this story, and yet pay homage to a character that was in the book and also do service to the book? It wasn't so much trying to recapture the past, but to recapture the feeling that we had working together in the past, so we took Raylan and put him into this story."
So rather than pick up where the Justified series left off, Justified: City Primeval finds our protagonist in an entirely new place and an entirely new group of people. According to the show's official description, Deputy Givens has a "chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway" that results in him going to Detroit — and toe-to-toe with his new nemesis, "a violent, sociopathic desperado" who's known as The Oklahoma Wildman.
In addition to the Wildman (whose real name is Clement Mansell), Deputy Givens must also face the villain's attorney, Carolyn Wilder. While she's intent on doing her job, she "finds herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well."
"You're not going to recognize anyone — the world, the relationships," Olyphant said in an interview with EW. "I just don't think you're going to see what's coming. On one hand, I really missed the cast from the original series; and on the other hand, I was so in awe and honored to work with the cast on this one."
While a lot of other elements remain largely unknown — including the true fate of Deputy Givens — it's clear that Justified: City Primeval is set to be a thrilling, action-packed ride you won't want to miss.
How to Watch Justified
If July 18 is too long to wait, or you're just looking to revisit some old favorites with Deputy Givens, you can binge the entire original series on Hulu. All six seasons of Justified are available to stream on Hulu, with both ad-supported and ad-free options.
