To tantalize us about the upcoming season 3 of the consistently excellent ‘Justified’, FX has released three new thirty-second teasers. While I remain excited and impatient for the January premiere, the teasers also created some seeds of concerns for me about the show. What all three clips individually and in sum failed to do was convey the theme of the season. Who is the main bad guy and why?
The first teaser shows Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) leading a group of armed men spreading out and searching the woods and finding Raylan Givens’ (Timothy Olyphant) hat. Boyd and his crew could be hunting Raylan, or they could be trying to rescue him. When it comes to Boyd and Raylan, either scenario is entirely plausible.
The second teaser shifts the scene to an urban setting and shows Raylan and Boyd separately getting ready for a gunfight. Are they preparing to fight each other or a common enemy? Seconds later, when they come out shooting it’s revealed they are on the same side. That indicates that whatever inevitable differences these two essentially co-dependent heroes/anti-heroes have, they are — unsurprisingly — at some point in the season going to be on the same side.
The final teaser shows Raylan blowing away a bottle of Oxy (aka “hillbilly” heroin) on a porch of what looks like a backwoods shack. He then leans back, gun in hand, and pulls his hat down over his face.
I think in the second teaser there’s a brief glimpse of this season’s main bad guy, but there’s no information provided to provide any sort of sense of context about him. This is where the seeds of concern start to get planted for me about what’s going to happen next. Who is the main bad guy? Where does he come from? How does he fit into the rich and detailed tapestry and history of Harlan county? What are his motivations?
One of the show’s superlative strengths in the first two seasons has been its consistent depth of character and characterization. Season 1’s main bad guy was Bo Crowder, Boyd’s father. The second season’s arch-nemesis was Mags Bennet (played by the amazing Margo Martindale). Both of them had deep connections to Harlan county, and their complex motivations, histories and resulting conflicts felt completely organic.
Maybe I’m asking for too much detail too soon, but I would like to be able to fill-in-the-blank of the following question: “Season 3 of ‘Justified’ is about _________.” I just hope it isn’t ultimately going to involve some generic “bad guy” without a rich connection to Harlan County.
All that said, I will be certainly be eagerly watching the premiere nevertheless.
Will you be watching?