Commentary | TV Line is reporting that none other than Carla Gugino will be joining the cast of “Justified” as a reoccurring character. That is the good news. The bad news is that she will not be reprising her role as Karen Sisco.
Gugino had played Sisco, another Elmore Leonard character, in an excellent but short-lived series by the same name a few years ago. Sisco, like “Justified’s” Raylan Givens, was a United States Deputy Marshal. She was adroit at taking down bad guys one moment, then taking calls from her bounty hunter dad the next with an air of nonchalant confidence that was at once charming and exhilarating to watch.
Instead Gugino is playing Karen Goodall, an Assistant Director of the U.S. Marshal’s Service who comes down to Harlan County to help protect witnesses being threatened by singularly evil bad guys. Naturally Goodall and Givens have a past together, having worked together in Miami (as did Sisco) which is reignited in the present.
Note: Maybe since the characters share the same name Gugino is in fact playing Sisco, only having gotten married and divorced twice is now keeping one of her ex’s names. That would be fun.
No doubt Raylan’s new lust interest will provide some spice to the third season of the series about the laconic lawman who has a wild west style of dispensing justice. Ava and Winona are lovely ladies, and Ava has proven quite capable of dealing with aggressive men at the point of a firearm. But Raylan has not had the joy of hooking up with a woman who can kick butt on a regular basis until now.
No doubt Gugino will add a bit of spice to Raylan’s exciting existence, not to mention amusement for his boss, Art Mullen, who would tear out his hair over his prize deputy’s hookups if he had any left. Givens approaches his relationship with the ladies somewhat casually, though the consequences have been nothing but casual, sometimes involving gun fights with rivals or just other people who want to kill his girlfriend. In any case, a partnership with Givens and Karen whomever is going to be one made in television-viewing heaven.