1. the opening credits are incredible. basically just a montage of all things kentucky, they are brought to life by badass music provided by t.o.n.e. z and the bluegrass gangsta rap group gangstagrass (get it?!?). i never thought i'd hear such a bizarre mixture, but it totally works and reflects the show's dixie mafia environs.
2. i never saw a cowboy i didn't like and timothy olyphant as raylan givens is the best one i've seen since steve mcqueen. he has that perfect mixture of charm and self-righteousness, not to mention a flawless quick-draw and an ass that was meant to be encased in a tight pair of wranglers. raylan, won't you be my 
3. the crux of the show is the push/pull relationship between raylan the lawman and boyd crowder the criminal (portrayed by the inestimable walton goggins). raylan shoots boyd early on and his near-death experience causes him to find god, though you never quite know if he's sincere or not. a snafu on raylan's part gets boyd released from prison and the marshal spends most of the season trying to put him back there. arrests and gunfights aside, the two men clearly like each other and you can't help but hope they end up on the same team.
4. i lovelovelove westerns!! and it's nice to see one set in modern times, replete with all the old gunfighter cliches. stetson wearing, gun toting lawman? check. ridiculous amounts of 
5. raylan has two women chasing after him, one is the shotgun wielding country girl ava crowder (nemesis boyd's sister-in-law) and the other is classy dame winona hawkins, his ex-wife. both are bombshell beautiful and tough as nails and raylan can't seem to pick between them. not that i can blame him!
6. there have been a slew of rad guest stars, including the surprisingly buff travis wester aka harry spangler from spn. there have also been several of olyphant's co-stars from deadwood and naturally, the justified-deadwood-supernatural connections have me hoping that a certain jim beaver may eventually show up. make it happen tv people!!
7. mostly the story follows the greater arc of the marshals versus the dixie mafia. but there are a couple of stand alone episodes that are pretty darn good. the above cap is taken from one of these, a strange story intertwining the worlds of thoroughbred horses and obscure art. the jars are full of ashes of all the hitler paintings a collector has bought and destroyed. (and yes, the guest star is robert picardo, the leprechaun from the faerie episode of spn. whee!)the new season starts tonight and i cannot wait! anti-heroes and kentucky accents ftw!!
No comments:
Post a Comment