Justified…Yeah, I Think It Is
We watched the premiere of Justified with a great amount of hope. A show created to demonstrate some of the interesting and dangerous realities of small town life. Set in Kentucky, it would do for several states in the region.
Frankly, I hope that those who watch come away afraid to ever travel here. It isn’t that bad, certainly not everywhere, but there are roads you don’t drive down. There are people you don’t mess with. And there are occasional bloody gun battles in deserted rural church parking lots over drug deals gone bad.
Thankfully, we spent little time in Miami for the backstory and quickly got into to the barns, the old iron bridges and the abandoned vehicles — as well as the incredible fields and country sky I love so much.
I’ll be interested to see how dirty and how real they want to get with the show. Because, yeah, television viewers, not everyone lives in a spotless home worth 200K. A lot of people live in broke down trailers with family castoffs for furniture and a raging meth habit to help them through facing twelve hour factory shifts. No matter how much you may think life is light and lovely, when you have to work long and hard for less than just enough to get by, sometimes you need help to make it through the days.
Of course, they play to the sexy barefoot country girl stereotype. There are some pretty ones, no doubt, but sorry, you don’t see a woman like that here without a menthol in one hand and a Mountain Dew in the other. And almost never without a passel of kids. The prettier the girl, the younger she had ‘em and the more there are.
The actors should be aware that not all “Southern” accents are the same. There is quite a lot of variety. The writers should understand that, regardless of what the phone companies would have you believe, I don’t think you can depend on a cell signal everywhere in the country. And it is definitely a cautionary tale where, as in life, you probably shouldn’t turn right just because the GPS suggested you do so.
Justified has a lot of potential and I hope it can carry through. Walton Goggins is always a treat to watch.
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