Justified: City Primeval

Justified: City Primeval is an American neo-Western crime drama television miniseries developed by showrunners Dave Andron and Michael Dinner. The series continues the story from Justified taking inspiration from the Elmore Leonard novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit and short story "Fire in the Hole". Timothy Olyphant returns to star as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, with Paul Calderón also reprising his role as Detective Raymond Cruz from the 1998 crime comedy film Out of Sight, a film adaptation of Leonard's 1996 novel of the same name. A world premiere was held on June 1, 2023, at the 12th ATX Television Festival, and the series premiered on FX on July 18, 2023, with back-to-back episodes. It received generally positive reviews from critics.

Premise
Raylan Givens left Kentucky for Miami, where he continues working as a U.S. Marshal while helping to raise his daughter. He soon finds himself in Detroit, pursuing The Oklahoma Wildman, Clement Mansell, who has been eluding the Detroit police force.

Main

 * Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens, a Deputy U.S. Marshal
 * Aunjanue Ellis as Carolyn Wilder, a defense attorney
 * Vondie Curtis-Hall as Marcus "Sweety" Sweeton, owner of a neighborhood bar
 * Adelaide Clemens as Sandy Stanton, Clement's partner
 * Marin Ireland as Maureen Downey, a Detroit Police Department (DPD) detective
 * Victor Williams as Wendell Robinson, a DPD detective
 * Norbert Leo Butz as Norbert Bryl, a DPD detective
 * Boyd Holbrook as Clement Mansell, a violent and ruthless criminal known as "The Oklahoma Wildman"

Recurring

 * Ravi V. Patel as Rick Newley, Sandy's boss at the casino
 * Kenn E. Head as Lou Whitman
 * Vivian Olyphant as Willa Givens, Raylan's 15-year-old daughter
 * Alexander Pobutsky as Skender Lulgjuraj
 * Regina Taylor as Diane, a prosecutor
 * Joseph Anthony Byrd as Trennell
 * Eddie Martinez as Hector
 * Terry Kinney as Toma Costia, the head of the Albanian mob in Detroit
 * Yosef Kasnetzkov as Besnik Darke
 * Nick Druzbanski as Luka

Special guests

 * Keith David as Judge Alvin Guy
 * Amin Joseph as Jamal, Carolyn's ex-husband
 * Paul Calderón as Detective Raymond Cruz, reprising his role from Out of Sight
 * David Cross as Burt Dickey
 * Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder, a criminal in a Kentucky penitentiary who Raylan helped put away; Goggins reprises his role from Justified
 * Natalie Zea as Winona Hawkins, Raylan's ex-wife; reprises her role from Justified
 * Luis Guzmán as Officer Ramirez

Guests

 * Matt Craven as Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Grant; reprises his role from Justified
 * David Koechner as Deputy Greg Sutter; reprises his role from Justified

Production
The production team behind Justified announced that it was working together to develop a new series based on City Primeval by Elmore Leonard in March 2021. At the time, it was rumored to possibly be a Justified spin-off series. FX confirmed the Justified revival speculation in January 2022 by announcing that a new Justified miniseries was in development, taking inspiration from City Primeval. Dave Andron and Michael Dinner were set as the showrunners, and Dinner would direct as well. City Primeval follows a different character, so the story is being adjusted to use Raylan Givens as the protagonist instead. In February 2022, reports surfaced that Quentin Tarantino was in talks to possibly direct an episode or two as well since he is a fan of Leonard's work, having adapted Leonard's novel Rum Punch into the film Jackie Brown, along with taking inspiration from Leonard in Tarantino's other works. In April 2022, Tarantino was confirmed to not be directing the series.

Timothy Olyphant agreed to reprise the role of Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. In May 2022, just before the start of production in Chicago, casting announcements added several starring actors to the cast, including Aunjanue Ellis, Boyd Holbrook, Adelaide Clemens, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Marin Ireland, Victor Williams, Norbert Leo Butz, and Timothy Olyphant's daughter, Vivian Olyphant. Ravi Patel was also added as a recurring cast member shortly afterward.

The production was temporarily halted while filming in Chicago when four cars broke through set barricades while engaged in a gunfight. Sony Pictures Television increased security to the production, but three weeks later, filming was interrupted again when an incendiary device was thrown towards the set. The device did not explode, and no one was injured.

Release
Justified: City Primeval had its world premiere on the opening night of the 12th ATX Television Festival on June 1, 2023. It debuted FX on July 18, 2023, with the first two episodes. The series began streaming on Star on Disney+ in Australia and New Zealand beginning July 19. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD and Blu-ray on November 14, 2023.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a score of 91% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critics consensus is, "Timothy Olyphant's quickdraw charm shows no signs of dulling in City Primeval, an introspective and very welcome return for Raylan Givens." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Chris Vognar of TheWrap wrote, "Its eight episodes don't drag or sag, and the skin graft procedure of attaching Raylan to a story that was just fine without him goes off without a hitch." Marcus Shorter of Consequence said, "[The creative team] did the impossible — they continued their hit show without betraying its legacy and, more importantly, told a compelling story that felt necessary for the characters and the audience."

While Olyphant's return as Givens was broadly-praised, the show around him received some criticism. TVLine said it "may at times leave you longing for the dingy folksiness and familiar faces of Harlan County." Decider described the new setting with faint praise as a "sometimes-funny cop drama." The writing in particular was criticized, with The Guardian noting that "the pithy putdowns don’t have the hit-rate of the original" and Newsday saying "The story shambles at first, then picks up but never quite enough..." Some of the most widely-circulated reviews were negative, with Mike Hale at The New York Times writing that "a large part of the soul is missing" and Kelly Lawler at USA Today also calling it "soulless" and going on to say "it's not angering, it's just disappointing."

Streaming viewership
According to the streaming aggregator Reelgood, Justified: City Primeval was the most watched program across all platforms during the week of July 17–23, 2023, and the sixth during the week of July 27, 2023. According to the streaming aggregator JustWatch, Justified: City Primeval was the fifth most watched streaming series across all platforms during the week of August 27, 2023.