Two things that should have happened a long time ago happen on new show Justified. First thing: a decent adaptation of Elmore Leonard source material which, Out Of Sight aside, has never happened. Second thing: a credible starring role for Timothy Olyphant. He brought the glower and the vengeance to Deadwood but, unfortunately, close proximity to Ian McShane tended to render him invisible. Now, he's front and centre in Justified, playing Leonard's deputy marshal Raylan Givens who wears a big hat and speaks with a quiet voice when he's informing someone he's about to shoot them.
Pilot episodes are deceptive and treacherous. Money, time and care are poured into them. The first episode of Justified is especially worrying because it's one long dose of awesome. It kicks off in Miami with an intimate and typically low-key stand-off between Givens and a local gun-runner. It ends up with the bad guy spurting blood from various holes. The Deputy Marshall, whose signature defence of his old west approach to police work is "I was justified in shooting", is dispatched back to his home town of Lexington, Kentucky. This former mining community is now crawling with crystal meth-addicted rednecks, patriots with armouries in their basements, conspiracy nuts and – in the first episode – a former acquaintance of Givens who now heads up a neo-Nazi group. Watching Olyphant with his big hat and his quiet manner out-gun, out-quip and generally manhandle the local thug population is a pleasure. He doesn't adopt the "look-what-a-cool-dude-I-am" demeanour which grievously blighted previous Leonard adaptations, naming no names (John Travolta in Get Shorty. John Travolta in Be Cool). My only qualm? The pilot not only has the expected attention to detail but it's also lifted entirely from the Leonard novella Fire In The Hole. Will my high expectations collapse when the show's writers have to dredge up original material? Hope not, but I'm sticking around to find out.
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