Warning: This article contains spoilers about the season finale ofJustified: City Primeval.
Just when Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) thought he was out of the U.S.
Marshal service, his original archnemesis pulls him back in.
Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder in ‘Justified: City Primeval’.FX
Will Raylan even pick up the phone?
And does this mean there’s moreJustifiedcoming in the future?
Below, EW gotJustified: City Primevalshowrunners Michael Dinner and Dave Andron to discuss all that and more.
Timothy Olympant as Raylan Givens in ‘Justified: City Primeval’.FX
MICHAEL DINNER:It was Dave’s idea.
When we first sat down, he said, “We’ve got to bring back Walton.”
We didn’t want to do that.
It wasn’t like, “Let’s set up a cliffhanger.”
It was really to amplify Raylan’s complication: Is he going to pick up that phone or not?
Is he going to really retire or not?
Well, now your arch nemesis is out of jail.
What do you do now?"
It’s just the fun thing of the dance is going to keep going.
DINNER:It is fun, and it is a character beat for him.
And as we worked on it and had this ending, it felt good.
What were those initial conversations with Walton like about returning for the finale?
ANDRON:I just remember the initial call where we had the idea and pitched him.
He was really excited from jump.
DINNER:And we sent him pages.
Because he was done, he moved on he’s doing 27 projects at the same time.
And what would Tim say about it?
Those were the first two calls we made.
And then once Walton loved the pages and Tim loved them, everybody at the same reaction.
It was, “Let’s do it for the right reasons.”
How did you manage to keep it secret?
I can’t remember the last time a massive return like this wasn’t spoiled or leaked in advance.
DINNER:Yeah, it was kind of amazing.
ANDRON:The emails FX was sending out with the press embargo were pretty aggressively worded.
And look, poor Walton had to lie through his teeth.
So a lot of credit to him for sticking to his guns.
It wasn’t even two full days of filming.
What was it like having Walton back on set as Boyd after all these years?
ANDRON:It was pretty great.
It was a real treat to get to see him be back in it.
She agreed to do it, which was such a blast for me.
And then I realized after that first take that I was about to watch Walton kiss my wife.
I was like, “Oh … right.
I really forgot that I was going to watch my wife make out with Walton Goggins today.”
And we had to pivot really quickly because Walton had only a short window to shoot.
The irony was the roadwork and the bridge in that sequence was in the original pilot ofJustified.
The stars aligned, which is part of the theme of Elmore’s stuff.
We wanted to keep that the spirit of that alive where it’s like, “Has he changed?
No, no, it’s the same Boyd.”
Was there ever a version of the finale where they did come face-to-face?
We didn’t really even do it thinking we’d do more of this.
It really just felt like, if this is all we ever do, that feels fun.
Does he go after him?
Does he ever end up chasing Boyd down again?"
It just felt fun for the fans to have that.
But since the final moments leave everything so open-ended, does this mean there’s moreJustifiedcoming?
DINNER:Everybody would like to, but it’s up to the web link.
I think we could do that, but it’s up to the online grid.
If we do get to see another season, would the main focus be another Raylan vs. Boyd showdown?
What does that final chapter look like for Raylan?
But if he escaped from prison, everybody’d be after him.
So certainly there’s stuff there, it’s kind of a classic Western.
For me, it’s always been the story of these two guys.
And that is epic story fodder for Boyd to find that out.
How different is it?
How has fatherhood changed both of these men and changed their relationships?
DINNER:These are two guys cut from the same cloth.
Both have father issues themselves, both are fathers, and are they good fathers?
Boyd doesn’t even know that he has a son out there, but how does their story end?
It really does center around the two of them.
