Justified
If "Slaughterhouse" is what you're going to call your season finale, after building up to a major bloody showdown all season, you'd better be able to justify it. Thankfully, we're talking FX's Justified here, and when does it ever not live up to expectations?
Even before he completely went off the rails ...
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Justified
[WARNING: The following story contains major spoilers from the Season 3 finale of Justified. Read at your own risk.]
It wouldn't be a Justified finale if things didn't get bloody.
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After an episode-long manhunt for Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough), the loose cannon Detroit mobster took Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) hostage and stormed Noble's Hollow...
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Timothy Olyphant
Send questions to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!
Question: I'm really surprised by the lack of comment (here and elsewhere) on this season of Justified. It had a lot to live up to after that near-perfect second season and (in my opinion) has been maintaining the standard extremely well. I haven't enjoyed TV-show dialogue this much since The West Wing went off the air.
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Desperate Housewives
Sifting through the proverbial critic's notebook, a quick look back at some of the week's more memorable TV happenings:
Let's start with the death we didn't see coming: By which I mean HBO putting down Luck. With only two episodes to go in its underwhelming (though beautifully acted and shot) first season, the show was abruptly canceled two episodes into production on a Season 2 that probably shouldn't have been green-lighted in the first place. The reason wasn't ratings, which were dismal, but the third accidental death of a horse on the set (two died during Season 1). Which is...
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Joelle Carter
Cheers to Joelle Carter for breaking bad (in a good way) on Justified.
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Her character, Ava Crowder, opened the FX drama by gunning down her abusive husband, Bowman. Two and a half seasons later, she's evolved into a Bonnie to her ex-brother-in law Boyd's Clyde. This week, she gave shelter to an abused prostitute — and proceeded to lure her pimp, Delroy (William Mapother), into a trap and shoot him down.
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Timothy Olyphant
Let's raise a glass of "apple pie" moonshine in honor of the dearly departed Justified villain Mags Bennett. Margo Martindale's Emmy-winning portrayal was a huge part of what made the Southern-fried FX drama's second season such a thrilling ride and will no doubt be a tough act to follow. And executive producer Graham Yost knows it.
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"I would be lying if I said we didn't consider that," Yost tells TVGuide.com. "It gives you some pause that people responded so ...
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Timothy Olyphant and Margo Martindale, Justified
[WARNING: The following story contains spoilers about the Season 2 finale of Justified. Read at your own risk.]
Justified's second season finale, "Bloody Harlan," certainly lived up to its name. But even though there were shootouts that claimed the life of...
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Justified
Season 1 of Justified ended with blazing gunfire and a staggeringly large body count. So the big question is: Can this season's finale — promisingly titled "Bloody Harlan" — provide the same nail-biting action, shoot 'em ups and who's-hurt aftermath? "It matches it in terms of drama and shock," says Joelle Carter, who plays plucky widow Ava on the gripping neo-Western. "While I was reading the script, I was screaming."
According to Carter...
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Timothy Olyphant
To hear Timothy Olyphant tell it, playing speak-softly-and-carry-a-big-Glock Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens on Justified is like shooting fish in a proverbial barrel. "I hesitate to say this, but I find the acting to be a piece of cake," he confesses. "Good writing is always pretty easy to do. Bad writing is hard to act, hard to memorize, hard to figure out what the f--- you're doing. When it's well written, it gives you a lot of room to play."
It's clear to the nearly four million Oly-fans who tune in to FX's adaptation of crime-novel mastermind Elmore Leonard's work each week that everybody involved is having a blast. "Elmore doesn't know how to write anything that's not cool," Olyphant raves of the Get Shorty/Be Cool/Out of Sight author. "When it really cooks, it's just a great job."
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Justified
Justified returns Wednesday to FX with another heaping helping of deep-fried drama. Picking up mere moments after Season 1's finale — which saw U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) let his childhood friend-turned-church-bombing loose cannon Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) chase after an assassin who had just killed Boyd's father — the show wastes no time pitting Raylan against The Bennetts, a new clan of nemeses. But while Raylan carefully navigates the briar patch of bad blood that has existed between the Bennetts and the Givenses for generations, he also has to sort out his increasingly complicated sex life. (And, yeah, he'll occasionally fire that sidearm of his.) If you didn't watch the first season, here's why you need to get on board...
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