2 Episodes in...Justified aka "Tim Olyphant is Pissed"

As you can see from the picture above, Tim Olyphant is pissed about something. After two episodes we don't really know what it is but it appears he doesn't like bad guys.

FX has released a number of good series in the past few years - Rescue Me (seasons 1 and 2), Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Sons of Anarchy (season 1), the too quickly canceled Starved, even the narrow minded and hopelessly going nowhere series The League - all of these shows brought something interesting, funny, and well produced to TV.

Justified is a well done show with a charismatic and interesting lead. The show is about a U.S. Marshall who is forced to leave Miami and return home to the backwoods of Kentucky due to an altercation in a hotel (a very memorable first scene in the first episode). Timothy Olyphant plays the Marshall Raylan Givens and channels a few parts Clint Eastwood (both Dirty Harry and The Man with No Name), a few parts Bruce Willis in Die Hard, and many parts Seth Bullock from Deadwood. Olyphant's roll in Deadwood was a sheriff who wanted justice and control, so much so that he wasn't human. The Givens character is a better version of Bullock, one that anyone could identify with.

The first episode moved briskly and introduced a white supremacist played superbly by Walton Goggins (who has an impressive IMDB resume). While the show doesn't appear to have a central storyline, only a central theme, hopefully the white supremacist character returns to a main role. The watchability of this show is very high mainly because Olyphant is doing his best work. The writing is good enough to keep the series moving. Hopefully the episodes centered around various Marshall duties (prisoner transport, manhunts, witness protection) can stay fresh.