‘Justified: City Primeval’ review: Raylan Givens’ rockin’ road trip
It isn’t until nearly the end of the second episode of “Justified: City Primeval” that Raylan Givens threatens to kill someone.
Maybe our favorite deputy U.S. Marshall has mellowed in the years since he left the hills and hollers of Kentucky for Miami.
In the new eight-episode limited series — debuting on FX July 18 and on Hulu the next day — Givens is portrayed by Timothy Olyphant, who inhabited the memorable character in the neo-Western crime drama “Justified,” which ran for six seasons on FX in the first half of the 2010s and was an adaption of some of Elmore Leonard’s novels that featured the character.
In the slow-starting but ultimately largely enjoyable “City Primeval,” based largely on Leonard’s 1980 novel “City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit,” Raylan is a little thinner and a lot grayer.
“City Primeval” sees Raylan on a road trip with his 15-year-old daughter, Willa (Olyphant’s daughter Vivian Olyphant). Trouble has a way of finding this man, and find him it does, bringing him and Willa to Detroit, where the Marshall finds himself ensnared in a case.
This first chapter feels a little forced, and you wonder if not having “Justified” showrunner Graham Yost — a TV veteran who’s credited as an executive producer — in that same role here will hamper the series. However, co-showrunners Dave Andron, an EP on “Justified” and the creator and showrunner of FX’s recently wrapped “Snowfall,” and Michael Dinner, who has worked on myriad series and directed the first episode of “Justified,” find their footing quickly enough.
Without question, you lose something by losing Kentucky, the place where Raylan grew up and fit like a glove, even if he didn’t fit in with all the criminals he’s known for years. That said, the Motor City setting does infuse “City Primeval” with a different flavor if not quite a different energy.
And speaking of criminals, Rayland soon enough makes an enemy in one: Boyd Holbrook’s highly combustible Clement Mansell.
Like Rayland, he’s an outsider, having grown up in Oklahoma. But he’s taken to Detroit, right down to its music. He records covers of songs by The White Stripes, apparently with the hope of breaking into the music world. As a local cop comically puts it, he’s a “Jack White wannabe (expletive).
More importantly, he has a short fuse and isn’t bashful about killing, with a double murder he commits becoming responsible for keeping Raylan in town.
As a result of the slayings, Clement gets his hands on a circuit court judge’s much-rumored little book, chock full of dirt of the criminal variety of many of Detroit’s movers and shakers.
Clement finds a partner in an extortion enterprise with a Motown fixture, Marcus “Sweety” Sweeton (Vondie Curtis Hall, “The Recruit”), a bass player-turned-bar owner. He sees the book as a great opportunity to cash in, but we know the calm and measured gentleman will clash with the wild Clement.
Both men are represented by defense attorney Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis, “Lovecraft Country”), a lifelong Detroiter who sees Sweetie as a father figure and Clement for the maniac he is.
Although Rayland and Carolyn clash in court in the series’ first episode, Rayland quickly becomes concerned for Carolyn, who assures him she can protect herself. (He isn’t so sure.)
Another woman with reason to fear Clement is his girlfriend, Sandy Stanton (Adelaide Clemens, “Under the Banner of Heaven”), who nonetheless can’t resist his charisma. And to be fair, despite all his faults, Boyd never becomes violent with Sandy when she angers him, a strangely pleasant twist on the expected from Andron, Dinner and the series’ other writers. That there is a humanity to him, however limited, makes him a more compelling villain.
On the murder case, Rayland works with a trio of Detroit Police Department detectives: Maureen Downey (Marin Ireland, “Sneaky Pete”), Norbert Bryl (Norbert Leo Butz, “Bloodline”) and Wendell Robinson (Victor Williams, “King of Queens”). You expect Rayland to clash with any or all of them — especially Norbert who tells him the cops here will show him how things are done in Detroit — but they all (mostly) play nice.
At the end of the day, “City Primeval” is about the conflict between Raylan and Clement, cop and killer. And although Clement isn’t quite as interesting as Raylan’s arch nemesis from “Justified,” Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), the man — as portrayed by the talented Holbrook (“Vengeance,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) — does possess the necessary gravitational pull to be a worthy adversary. It’s fun that he takes an immediate liking — if we can call it that — to Rayland, even if the feeling isn’t exactly mutual.
As for Rayland, he continues to be a magnetic character. The writing contributes to that, of course, but most of the credit goes to Olyphant, who’s as smooth and steady as ever in the role. (This isn’t exactly breaking news, but the actor seemingly was born to play a marshall, as he has on HBO’s acclaimed “Deadwood” — as well as its 2019 reboot, “Deadwood: The Movie” — and in the “Star Wars” universe via “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett.”)
FX has asked reviewers to go very light on plot details, so we’ll say only that the series goes in some predictable directions but with a surprise thrown in here and there.
“City Primeval” never reaches the heights of “Justified” at its very best, but that’s a very tall order. It’s pretty easily one of the better reboots of this recent reboot-heavy period, and that’s enough.
It’s been great to see you again, Raylan Givens. Don’t you go being a stranger, now.
‘Justified: City Primeval’
What: Eight-episode “Justified” spin-off limited series.
Where: FX and Hulu.
When: First episode airs at 10 p.m. July 18, with new episodes coming on subsequent Tuesdays and streaming on Hulu the day after the FX debut.
Rated: TV-MA for graphic violence, explicit sexual activity and crude/indecent language.
Info: FXnetworks.com.