1x01 Fire in the Hole

The responsibilities of a pilot are many. Introduce the setting, characters, their relationships, get the plot in motion, put down any markers for the future, set the tone—all of which in under an hour, usually. It isn't surprising that so many shows eventually drift away from their pilots in style or form or only become distinctive and singular later on. This doesn't act as a roadblock to enjoyment, of course—plenty of shows have low-key or underwhelming pilots that went on to greatness. What is arresting about Justified's pilot is how fully-formed it feels, how much the craft and performances have an assurance that's lacking elsewhere. I've no doubt that this is partly due to its basis in a short story—Elmore Leonard's Fire in the Hole—that gives it a solid and conveniently episode-sized base from which to work. But it is also a testament to the confident direction and performances on show.

Timothy Olyphant is, of course, no stranger to playing hard-bitten lawmakers. The show's concept—how exactly does a man whose policing methods make him a man out of time deal with the 21st century?—is laid out at the end of the episode when Givens wonders aloud what would have happened if his mark hadn't drawn first at the episode's beginning. It's not the most original conceit but with the strength of everything else we see it does set the groundwork nicely for that question to be put to the test repeatedly. The show has an encouraging tendency to subvert our expectations about Givens; he's often portrayed as the cool, collected, old-school gunman who easily faces down aggression and isn't sidetracked easily, but he's also a man diminished, whether by his own obsessive sense of duty or his inability to see how his lifestyle affects those around him. This might sound modest when there are clearly many, many areas to explore when it comes to the deficiencies of American law enforcement but it should, at the very least, make him a more compelling if not necessarily more sympathetic protagonist.

Walton Goggins, on the other hand, clearly has a lot of fun portraying Givens' old mining buddy-turned white supremacist criminal. He manages to avoid sliding fully into a cartoon, providing enough bonhomie and familiarity with Givens to make their relationship tense and unpredictable. The conflict they come to feels rushed, and perhaps it is, but it sets up what will presumably be a long and bumpy relationship between the two men. The other members of the cast are creditable, but this is really the Givens show. I'd like to see the other characters given room to breathe and there are indications that this will be explored further—his relationships with his ex-wife, who delivers the line at the end of the episode that complicates our understanding of Givens, and his father who it's implied he has serious unresolved issues with.

The issue of whether it is ever justified to kill someone in cold blood is hopelessly complicated and will depend on a complex web of your own prejudices, background, attitude to law and order, political opinions and so forth. What provides rich basis for drama is seeing characters on screen struggle with these dilemmas and, if the writing is good enough, give us answers that we can use to probe our own beliefs and attitudes. I'm not expecting Justified to have anything really profound to say about the morality of law enforcement but if it can provide more than the cookie-cutter yeehaw attitude that so many police shows have then it'll be doing better than most.