Best Show on TV: Justified

I keep seeing people mention it. It's on in eight minutes on FX. Older episodes can be watched here, but not all of them.

Best show on TV, I think, even though I don't watch a whole lot of it.

There have been a couple of very meh shows, but most episodes range from good to very good. But -- forget the entirety of the show. Every other episode, there's a brilliant five minutes or so, dialog so sharp and oddly funny, or a really good quick-draw. The rest of the show might be merely good, but for that five minutes, it's truly great.

Anyway -- check it out. Record it.

Below's the theme, which I frickin' love, a mix of bluegrass and gangsta rap by a group called, natch, gangstagrass.

Oh: Rayland hasn't plugged anyone for three weeks straight, which is a record for him. So the writers are "saving up" for a good shooting. (The show is semi-realistic about the consequences of officer-involved shooting, so they are somewhat more restrained about Rayland quick-drawing and killing people.)

They've got a quota -- he can only shoot every other episode, and only kill every fourth or fifth -- but they've been especially reserved lately.

So he's gonna kill someone.

Soon. I jus' know it.

But Seriously, Someone Should Get on Rayland About His Gunslinging: He's doing it wrong.

I'm not a cop and I don't have training, but I'd imagine that cops come at you all bad-ass and hard-core when they draw their guns because they're trying to intimidate you so that you don't even think about drawing on them-- by coming off as hardasses, they actually save lives. By going all steroids on you, they're discouraging actual violence.

Rayland does not do that. No no no. Quite the opposite.

Rayland just politely chit-chats, laconically touches his gun, talks up the Art of the Draw, and basically invites you to draw on him. He pretty much lets you know that he's the only thing standing between you and your continued freedom, so if you want to stay out of jail, you should probably take your chances and pull on him.

True, he warns you that he's really, really good at the draw, but, as he says in one of these soliliquys, a gun can always get hung up on the holster, or a shot could just glance off the breastbone, etc. Dozen things that could go wrong in a draw; so, maybe he's good, but you've got a chance.

So, basically, in the usual show, the idiot IA guy would be wrong about an officer-involved shooting being "bad." Here, those guys are right: Rayland pretty much is baiting people into Wild West shootouts.

But I'm not going to tell on him.

posted by Ace at 09:55 PM

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