Justified rewatch: 1x01 Fire in the Hole

[gwyn]

Okay, let's kick this off! Justified rewatch starting with that amazing pilot episode. I'll have a master post up with links as soon as we get more than one episode down, but in the meantime you can find out how to see the series if you want to join in by clicking the justified my love tag.

1.1 Fire in the Hole
Original air date: March 16, 2010
Written by Graham Yost
Directed by Michael Dinner



After the "justified" shooting of a Miami gangster, Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens is reassigned to his home state of Kentucky, where he takes on a case involving an old acquaintance he once mined coal with, who has become a white supremacist and blown up an African American church.

Please share your thoughts and reactions in comments.

Comments

I'll kick off comments

[gwyn]

It was so much fun to watch this after so much time has passed--it's been ten years! I should have started this earlier to make the actual anniversary.

I love how unapologetically Western it is--the lone gunslinger opening, except updated to include a Miami gangster who's sitting in his private outdoor table at a hotel restaurant. The dialog really showcases the Elmore Leonardness of it all.

It's funny, now, how quick the Marshals Service is to want to get rid of him and stick him in a backwater. I love meeting all his new co-workers, though, and how easily they're introduced to us--Art's exposition dump isn't even an exposition dump, and we quickly learn everything we need to know without the dreaded one character telling another character, "Oh, they're gooood."

The hyper competency of them taking on the idiot brothers who ambushed them outside the hotel was a perfect example of that--we know what we need to know about Rachel in an instant with her two guns. Art continues to be my favorite. Also my favorite moment, maybe in the whole series: When Raylan confronts Dewey Crowe outside Ava's house, and walks right up to him and grabs the shotgun because he knows he's faster than this idiot and he's sowed the seed of doubt about whether he'd racked in a load in time.

The look and feel of this is so different from the California-shot episodes, all that Pennsylvania scenery really amps up the feeling of it being set in Kentucky--it always seems like people could vanish into woods and down dirt roads and you'd never catch them. I kind of thought that nowadays, they would hit harder on Boyd's Nazi bullshit, but in this Raylan only sort of lightly mocks him. It's a great example of how far we've fallen, because in this, right after the election of our first black president, the vile rhetoric response is tossed off lightly, whereas now we have a racist administration that supports white supremacists like Boyd, and I think the show would have come down more harshly on all of it.

Loved how they introduced the iconic Ganstagrass theme song "Long Hard Times to Come" with Raylan driving up to his old town. Way before "Old Town Road," people! Justified did it first! :-D

Re: I'll kick off comments

[hafital]

The hyper competency of them taking on the idiot brothers who ambushed them outside the hotel was a perfect example of that--we know what we need to know about Rachel in an instant with her two guns.

Yes! I had forgotten that moment until it happened and then I was like -- oh yes, now I remember why I instantly knew I would love this show.

When Raylan confronts Dewey Crowe outside Ava's house, and walks right up to him and grabs the shotgun because he knows he's faster than this idiot and he's sowed the seed of doubt about whether he'd racked in a load in time.

I didn't mention Dewey in my comment, but pretty much each time he came on screen my reaction was "aw, Dewey," haha. I had originally found his character a tad on the tedious side in later episodes but rewatching I found him more endearing.

Re: I'll kick off comments

[gwyn]

It's really hilarious how weirdly attached you can get to Dewey, because he's so awful in so many ways and yet you find yourself getting to that point.

Re: I'll kick off comments

[j_pole]

I’m with both of you on Dewey. Someone described him once as “a cartoon man in a real world” and I think this perfectly explains what makes him entertaining. What's amazing is the fact that he's basically the same man in his very first scene, as he is in his last. He didn't change, our feelings about him did.