Definitely the weakest season so far for me. Raylan is on autopilot for most of the season, going around doing the bare minimum of smirking, squinting, tipping the hat, and putting his hand on the holster.
Too many filler plots that go nowhere, the whole foreign wife arc seems like a fever dream by the end of the season, just like Ava's stint in the prison where they try to show her getting "hard" but all of it is just one deus ex machina after another, none of it feels natural or meaningful. Once again, we hear a lot about Boyd being so good at what he does while 90% of his schemes fail for plot reasons to maintain the status quo, and his "empire" has been two loyal but mostly useless dudes in an empty bar that they don't even bother populating with extras anymore.
Also, they really did go and try to copy the best season with the same exact setup: Raylan vs. a family of criminals, a strong yet stupid "dragon", a child that needs to be saved from the family's bad influence, a smarter female figure, etc. It could have worked again if only they'd trimmed the fat and focused on fewer plotlines. It does work much better in the back half of the season when most of the useless plots are over and the focus is clear, I really enjoyed Raylan going into berserk mode that involved his wits instead of his gun/fists.
On a more general note, binge-watching shows gives you a pretty clear perspective of what's just good and what's great. I've been mostly enjoying Justified, it's decent for all its faults but it almost feels like a remnant of those 2000s shows that spent 24 episodes per season doing very-very little and mostly stumbling about the same "comfort zone" maintaining the status quo.
Shout by JasperKazaiVIP 2BlockedParentSpoilers2022-08-21T23:54:03Z
Well, this season was better than S4 as I said earlier, and it also didn't seem to drag on like S4 did. (My god, it felt like S4 lasted forever.) But it wasn't all that great. The Crowe story mixed with Boyd's story was ok at best. Raylan felt like he was in the backseat for this season, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Boyd's story alone was not enough to fully carry it all. Everything about Ava in prison was straight fucking garbage. On one hand, I'm glad that part's over, but on the other, I cannot believe it just ended like that. Why the hell waste our time with that shit when you just write her out of it in the end?
Decent setup for a final season. It's stupid and funny how Raylan has threatened/been threatened with moving back to Florida, and it just keeps getting put off or postponed.