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“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

DUHN-DUHN!!!”

That was the monologue that opened every single episode of Law & Order. That was the premise; straight forward and uncomplicated. For 20 years, Law & Order served as the template for how to do a crime procedural on ‘90’s TV. It wasn’t just a police procedural, but a legal drama as well. The first half of the program concerned the police investigation of a crime (usually murders.) In early seasons, viewers would follow the cops as they investigated the occasional rape, kidnapping or political corruption case. The second half of the story concerned the prosecution of the bad guys. Created by veteran TV producer Dick Wolf of Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice fame, Law & Order was the perfect animal for ‘90’s network crime comfort food.

I first encountered Law & Order in 1995 at around 2AM. I was in my dorm room at UNL, wide awake as I suffered the ravages of Non-24 Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder. I was eating cold Domino’s Pizza and channel surfing when I came across the show on A&E right at the beginning. The opening monologue hooked me.

The plot of the episode concerned an apartment building superintendent who was murdered during an apparent break-in. As the show unfolds, it becomes evident that the guy’s son killed him. The son claims that the father was abusive and he killed him in self-defense, but the cops uncover the fact that the kid is actually guilty of parental abuse.

Parental abuse!? Who the hell ever heard of that? I’m sure my mom felt as if she was being subjected to parental abuse every time my brother fired up Guns N’ Roses on his big basement speakers, but that’s a far cry from being beaten to death with a hammer, which is what the son did to the father in the story.

So the cops finally arrest the kid, but then the D.A. has to convince a jury that he was actually the abuser, not his dear dead dad.

I loved the idea that one group of characters would appear in the first half of the show, then another group would carry the ball home for the finish. So, I got hooked. Every night at 10PM, I had a date with Law & Order. It didn’t matter if I was hanging with the guys on the dorm floor, or having Lil’ Ryno tended to by a frisky cafeteria worker. Whatever the case, Law & Order was on.

L&O was quintessential network fare, which was why it was right for syndication. There was no ongoing story to follow with climactic cliffhangers to keep the viewer coming back week after week. It didn’t matter if you jumped in at season one, or season 14, or mixed the episodes up in a blender. With a few exceptions, the narrative of each episode stood alone. It was also the textbook example of a plot-driven show. The stories almost never followed the personal lives of the characters. Viewers would have to rely on random bits of dialogue or conversations to gain insights into the minds and hearts of the protagonists.

One might wonder how a show can last for 20 years and maintain its freshness. Actually, it can’t. L&O ran a creatively uneven spread. But a lack of source material wasn’t the reason. Part of the gimmick of the show was its self-proclaimed, ‘ripped from the headlines’ angle. Each case the cops and lawyers dealt with involved situations based on real events. “Extended Family,” was based on the Michael Jackson abuse charges. “Nullification,” was based on the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. “Apocrypha,” was a fusion of the first World Trade Center bombing and the Branch Davidian cult. There was a major three-part series in the seventh season based on the most famous news event of the ‘90’s, O. J. Simpson. And those were just the high-profile cases.

Despite what pundits on both sides of the aisle claimed, L&O had no political axe to grind. The cops and prosecutors chose targets of all political stripes and ideologies; from gun manufacturers to environmental terrorists, from pro-life murderers to anti-death penalty activists, from radical fundamentalist Muslims to radical fundamentalist Christians. The only constant political message L&O sent over its 20-year run was that extremists are bad.

More interesting than the show’s formula were the revolving door of cast changes that occurred over the 20-year life span of the series. In the debut season, stars included Michael Moriarty as crusading ADA Ben Stone, George Dzundza as Sgt. Max Greevy, Steven Hill as DA Adam Schiff and, long before he was Mr. Big on Sex and the City, and long, long before he was Julianna Margulies’s wayward politician husband on The Good Wife, a relatively young Chris Noth as Det. Mike Logan.

Dzundza left the show after the first season because he was unhappy working in NYC while his family lived in Hollywood. Actor and opera singer Paul Sorvino (of Goodfellas fame) took over as Sgt. Phil Cerreta. Sorvino wasn’t any happier and left during the show’s third season.

That’s when the legendary Jerry Orbach entered the scene as Det. Lenny Briscoe. Yup… The dad from Dirty Dancing classed up the L&O set. I’m disgusted with myself that I know this tidbit. I’d rather get caught wearing panties with my friend Ross’s face engraved on the bum than admit that I know anything about Dirty Dancing.

World-weary, wise-cracking, recovering alcoholic cop Briscoe was a calming influence on the younger, volatile Logan. According to all reports, Orbach was just as much of a soothing presence to his fellow actors on the turbulent set. Even in interviews, you can tell that he’s one hell of a nice guy.

Beginning with the fourth season, the network powers that were delivered an edict that estrogen be infused into the traditionally all-male cast. S. Epatha Merkerson took over the reins from Dann Florek’s grizzled Captain Cragen as Lt. Anita Van Buren. Long before she starred on Crossing Jordan, Jill Hennessy took up the role of Clair Kincaid, becoming the first of many women to fill the second chair in the courtroom on the ADA team. It wasn’t a coincidence that Hennessy was easy on the eyes, as were her many successors.

Florek was lucky. Six years after he was unceremoniously let go from the Mother Ship in favor of identity politics, he was hired to play the same character of Don Cragen on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Richard Brooks, who played Paul Robinett, the original series’ first and only African-American ADA, was not so fortunate. He was let go at the same time as Florek, but only reappeared later on the Mother Ship in occasional guest spots. Neither of the characters were given a proper on-screen send-off.

On the other side of the aisle, Michael Moriarty reportedly was no picnic to work with. He left the series at the conclusion of the show’s fourth season after a very public dispute with real life Attorney General Janet Reno and First Lady Tipper Gore over censorship of violence on TV. The character of Ben Stone resigned in a fit of guilt after one of his witnesses in a criminal trial was killed by the Russian mob.

Sidebar: Moriarty may be a nut, but he was right about Reno. Law & Order had very little on-screen violence. The subject matter could often be heavy with its hot button socio-political themes, but even by ‘90’s network standards, the show was not bloody or gratuitous by any stretch.

In season five, The Mother Ship delivered another major upgrade in the person of Sam Waterston as ADA Jack McCoy. Ben Stone had been rooted in righteousness and a puritan’s love of the law, but Jack McCoy was a different animal who played the game primarily to win. His methods were often more extralegal and ruthless than those of his predecessor. He also had a very Clintonesque habit of bedding down his female assistants; a fact that came back to bite him later more than once.

Many long-time fans of the series would agree that the show’s fifth season represented the best cast mix of the entire 20-year run; Briscoe, Logan, Van Buren, McCoy, Kincaid and Schiff. But, as the L&O gods would often decree every season or two, chemistry did not insure endurance.

At the end of season five, Chris Noth demanded a salary bump during his contract renewal negotiation. Wolf refused, so Logan was history. In the most colorful exit from the series, Logan punched a homophobic politician in the face during a clash with an angry mob.

Sidebar: Thanks largely to the burgeoning internet, the popularity of Mike Logan’s character endured through reruns and fan fiction. To that end, Logan received a TV movie three years after his departure. Its title was, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie. Six years after that, he began a semi-regular stint on Law & Order: Criminal Intent after Vincent D’Onofrio kept having nervous breakdowns over Bush, the Iraq War, Dick Cheney, etc. Logan lasted for two seasons before he quit the force in disgust; a very Loganesque thing to do.

After his first series partner was ejected from the Mother Ship, Briscoe received a downgrade in the personage of Benjamin Bratt as Renaldo ‘Rey’ Curtis. The character was too straight-laced and vanilla to be interesting. Meanwhile, Hennessy left the role as Jack McCoy’s partner and romantic interest in the sixth season climax when Clair was killed by a drunk driver in a car accident.

Sidebar: Clair’s fate was eventually addressed in the eighth season episode, “Under the Influence,” when McCoy goes overboard in the prosecution of a drunk driver.

And so it continued. They eye candy portion of the entertainment was filled over the next 14 seasons by the likes of Carey Lowell, Angie Harmon )pre-Rizzoli and Isles), Elizabeth Rohm, Annie Parisse and Alana de la Garza. Bratt left the series after the ninth season and enjoyed a fling with Julia Roberts and a moderately successful movie career. Briscoe got an upgrade in the form of Jesse L. Martin as Det. Ed Green. Green wasn’t quite as cool as Logan, but a latent gambling addiction and better street smarts made him more entertaining than Curtis.

Steven Hill, the show’s most veteran actor, lasted 10 seasons before he called it quits. He was replaced by Dianne Wiest as D.A. Nora Lewin. She lasted two seasons. Then, producers made their biggest casting blunder. They took the series title too seriously and pandered to the right. In the wake of the election of George W. Bush, as well as 9/11, they decided that the show needed an injection of good ol’ southern conservatism. It came in the form of Fred Dalton Thompson as D.A. Arthur Branch. You remember the late Fred Thompson? He ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008. That’s actually why the actor left the show after the 17th season. Branch premiered in the 13th season and Thompson stuck out like a Viagra trip gone wrong. Branch’s folksy-drenched dialogue seemed as if it had been penned by Colonel Potter or Matlock! He was not at all believable as a New York City district attorney. Angie Harmon’s character of Abbey ‘hang ’em high’ Carmichael was a believable conservative character. Branch was merely a walking cliché.

In another major loss for the show, Briscoe retired at the end of the 14th season. Jerry Orbach announced that he had been battling cancer for years shortly after he exited the show. In December of 2014, Jerry Orbach passed away, and the entire L&O universe took a moment of silence and shed a tear. He was replaced in season 15 by Dennis Farina (of Crime Story fame) as Joe Fontana, but it was another downgrade. No one could fill Briscoe’s shoes.

No series can last 20 years and maintain its peak. When Law & Order: SVU came along in 1999, it seemed that the Mother Ship took a hit in quality. The reasons were obvious. The best writers and producers from the Mother Ship were transferred to what would prove to be the first of five spin-offs in a budding franchise. For those of us who remained loyal to Big Mama, the results were telling. Briscoe’s wisecracks got lamer. The dialogue lost much of its East Coast zing. The plots, which had always stripped true crime for parts, became more transparent in the theft of their source material.

I quit watching regularly in favor of more complex fare such as 24, The Sopranos, The Shield and Deadwood. Yet, I would often have dinner at Audra’s apartment. She would make beef stroganoff or parmesan chicken and we would marathon a few L&O reruns on TNT. Audra always got annoyed with me for eating all of her Oreos. Thank God she didn’t prosecute me for theft.

This tradition lasted until 2007, when I left Nebraska for Denver. But every May, I would wait to hear that the original series had been canceled. Every May, it survived.

In the show’s 18th season, the Mother Ship was rejuvenated. Jack McCoy was promoted to interim D.A. in the wake of Branch’s departure. Linus Roache came on board as ADA Michael Cutter, with de la Garza continuing as Connie Rubirosa. The dynamic between McCoy, Cutter and Rubirosa was a nice reset for the series, with McCoy flip-flopping and assuming the role as the curmudgeonly mentor/authority figure and Cutter as the sometimes rebellious assistant. Bowing to pressure from serialized competitors, writers infused the 19th season with political intrigue as McCoy ran for a full term as D.A. and also ran afoul of the governor.

On the cop side, Jeremy Sisto became Ed Green’s ex-military partner, Cyrus Lupo. Their bond lasted for 14 episodes, until Green became the suspect in a murder and eventually quit the force after clearing himself. Anthony Anderson played an Internal Affairs investigator who dogged Green at first, but ultimately, transferred to the precinct in the wake of Green’s departure and fell in as Lupo’s partner.

Sidebar: Jesse Martin left the show amicably in order to revive his theater career. Did you guys know that theater is a big thing in New York City? I mean… Besides Hamilton.

And that’s how the series stood for its final two seasons. The cast was fresh, had good chemistry and brought back some of the old spark from the glory days of season five.

Reportedly, NBC gave the Mother Ship the axe in favor of Law & Order: L.A. Three spin-offs weren’t enough, and a sacrifice had to be made. After all, the CSI franchise was giving NBC quite the competition. Wolf tried to convince TNT to take the series, but they refused. So, Law & Order tied Gunsmoke as the longest running scripted dramatic series to that date. There was no grand finale. But for a subplot involving Van Buren’s cancer diagnosis, no loose ends were tied up neatly or left dangling. The show went out the way it came in, with McCoy and company battling the NYC teachers’ union to catch a murderer. Some villains never change.

Sidebar: When it was all said and done, the Mother Ship spawned five spin-offs. They were, in order of appearance:

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – 1999-Present
Law & Order: Criminal Intent – 2001-2011
Law & Order: Trial by Jury – 2005
Law & Order: L.A. – 2010-2011
Law & Order: True Crime – 2017

COMING SOON:

Law & Order: Organized Crime
Law & Order: Hate Crimes

I’m not making that up.

Sometime before Thanksgiving, I ran out of books to read and needed something to watch with dinner, so I just randomly played, “Conspiracy,” (season 3) in the name of all the ‘election fraud’ jugheads out there. I’ve been binging ever since. The beauty of it is that I could binge from now until June when the pandemic will be over and I’ll never watch the same episode twice.

Despite its formulaic nature, I really enjoy this series. Some of the plots are standard cookie-cutter procedural fare. The better stories are those with some legal, political or philosophical quandary at the center. Many of them hold up very well today, despite the fact that the final episode is 10 years old.

Out of the 456 episodes, I have compiled my top 10 favorite stories.

You will notice two things:

One is that none of the episodes that make my list come from past the seventh season.

The other is that, despite the minimal amount of character arcs in this series, the episodes that tend to attract hard-core fans like myself always centered around some personal aspect of one of the characters.

So, here we go.

“DUHN-DUHN!!!”

10. “Aftershock”: (Season 6)

This was the only experimental episode of the entire series that broke format. It proved to be as controversial as the Fly episode of Breaking Bad or Tony Soprano’s infamous black screen.

A man is executed by lethal injection for raping a woman and beating her to death with a tire iron. Briscoe, Curtis, McCoy and Kincaid make the mistake of watching it. The execution has a profound impact on all four of our heroes. Briscoe has lunch with his estranged daughter, then falls off the wagon after years in recovery. Curtis picks up Jennifer Garner in the park and has an affair. McCoy goes to a bar, gets drunk and reminisces about his abusive father. Kincaid agonizes over the morality of the death penalty with her father.

The episode’s shocking climax occurs when Clair goes to the bar to pick up a drunken McCoy, who has already left. She gives Briscoe a ride home instead and is killed in a car accident.

9. “Coma”: (Season 5)

Larry Miller is great at playing bad guys. Maybe you remember him from Patch Adams. In this one, he plays a husband who may or may not have shot his wife and made it look like a carjacking. While the wife hovers between life and death in a coma, McCoy must decide whether or not to order a risky operation that will either kill her or save her life.

8. “Indifference”: (Season 1)

Even for jaded viewers of crime shows, nothing makes your skin crawl like child abuse and murder. This one features an upper class family with a monstrous father who sexually and physically abuses his family. When dad gets done with the kids, mom starts in. It hits the fan when the little girl doesn’t wake up from Kindergarten nap time.

Note: Based on the Lisa Steinberg case.

7. “House Council”: (Season 5)

It starts as an investigation into the murder of a juror who may have been bribed while deliberating over the case of a mafia don. Things get personal for McCoy when his old college buddy turns out to be a mob lawyer. This story helps explain McCoy’s win-at-all-cost mindset.

6. “Bad Faith”: (Season 5)

The first of two episodes in this list to center around Mike Logan. When a cop buddy of Logan’s commits suicide, the trail leads to the dark side of Logan’s childhood when he must confront a pedophile priest.

5. “Corruption”: (Season 7)

Curtis gets suspicious after a questionable shooting by a shady cop, who also happens to be a friend of Briscoe’s. When McCoy goes after the crooked cop, he accuses Briscoe of being dirty in order to save himself from a head-hunting anti-corruption task force.

4. “Mad Dog”: (Season 7)

It’s the classic L&O scenario of individual civil rights versus the protection of society. McCoy pushes the envelope when he pursues a post-Rocky Burt Young as a serial rapist and murderer who is released on parole after the body of a young girl is found in her basement.

3. “Helpless”: (Season 3)

This is one of those episodes that was shocking on the Mother Ship, but is just run-of-the-mill on SVU. Carolyn McCormick had a recurring role throughout the series as police psychologist Elizabeth Olivet. In this one, she goes from consultant to victim when she is raped by her gynecologist. It’s particularly disturbing, because Olivet captures the rape on tape.

Note: The actor who plays the sadistic OBGYN is Paul Hect. Many of us blind folks know him as the narrator of audio books. Many old-time radio fans will remember him from the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Carolyn McCormick is best known to us blind folks as the lady who narrated the audio book versions of The Hunger Games trilogy.

2. “Confession”: (Season 2)

The second Logan-centric episode. Mike’s first partner Greevy is due to testify in a racketeering case when he is shot down in the driveway of his home in front of his family. Does Logan eventually catch the shooter? Of course. He even extracts a confession from the killer. Problem is, he does it at gunpoint, which makes the confession inadmissible at trial, much to Stone’s fury.

Note: There’s a reason that Logan is the favorite junior partner of the series. The scene when Logan hears the screams of Greevy’s wife over the phone as she witnesses Max’s murder, punctuated by Logan screaming, “MARIE!!! MARIE!!!” have never been matched for dramatic value.

1. “Sanctuary”: (Season 4)
If you had to pick one episode that encapsulates all the good things about this series, this one is it.

It starts with a young black boy being killed in a hit-and-run. The driver is a wealthy Jewish man who is subsequently given a slap on the wrist and sent home. Race riots then consume the city, resulting in an innocent white man being dragged from his car and beaten to death. The ensuing trial is fraught with racial tensions as the defense lawyer offers a justification based on mob psychology.

Note: This was one of Ben Stone’s final episodes and features another clash with his best nemesis, Public Defender Shambala Green (Lorraine Toussaint.) It was based on the Rodney King riots and the killing of a truck driver by Reginald Denny.

And, that does it. This entry was about as long as the series. HEY! I forgot about Milena Govich! Does that speak more to my bad memory, or her forgettable character?

What? You guys want me to talk about Elizabeth Rohm’s exit line, “Is this because I’m a lesbian?” No way! I’d rather break out the webcam and model the Ross panties.

My friends, it is truly a time for thanksgiving in America. I say that with the full knowledge of the fact that this year has rendered us more than our share of dark days. Yet, we endure.

Yes, I am thankful. I am thankful to be living in a country that is bringing us a vaccine for the worst pandemic we have seen in a century. With all due deference to those of Chinese descent living within our borders, and for the millions of innocents living in true oppression under the yoke of the Chinese Communist Party, I declare unto you that China brought us this virus, and the good old U.S.A. is going to kick its microscopic ass straight to hell where it belongs. This in spite of a president, a congress and local officials of all political stripes who do not take mitigation as seriously as they should. I believe that the vaccine, spawned from American ingenuity that emerged from a health care system that incentivizes creativity, will mark the end of this grim chapter in our lives.

I write these words mindful of the nearly 300,000 souls we have lost to the virus, as well as the disruption of countless other lives left in its brutal wake. I am also well aware that we have dark days ahead of us, but I strongly believe that we will prevail together as a nation despite our divisions.

I love America. I love it in spite of its flaws. I love it more now than I did 20 years ago when I basked in a cocoon of naïve assumptions that afforded the illusion of perfection that does not exist. There is nowhere else on God’s green earth that I would care to live as a human being, nor as a blind man.

I am also thankful for an electoral system that is fair and just. Recently, our president has called the integrity of the process into question, not for any valid reason, but only due to a broadside delivered to his massive ego by the voting public. Much can and will be said about Donald Trump’s presidency over the past four years, but whatever you may think of the things he has done or not done, America has engaged in a course correction through legal and legitimate means and we will continue to move forward. Despite what the president may say or tweet, I believe America will have a peaceful transition of power come January. We will do so because of a series of constitutionally guaranteed checks and balances that many of us take for granted or poo-poo with nary a thought. And yes, I include a free press in that equation.

I am thankful for my job. Many people cannot work right now, but this year, I have been blessed by a steady income uninterrupted by the virus. Moreover, I am blessed to work in a job that I love and to work alongside three coworkers for whom I feel a genuine affection that is not professionally compulsory. I am also deeply thankful for our volunteers who have stepped up and given us their best during this crisis. They did not have to stick with us, but they did. God love them for it!

I am thankful for my friends. I am not a man with a large cadre of close, trustworthy confidants. I do not bemoan this fact. I am grateful for the small core group of friends with whom I can trust my life. Thanksgiving hugs to all of you close to me who have enriched my life. If a hug makes you uncomfortable, imagine an elbow bump instead.

I am grateful for Kylie the cat. I still miss Mags every day and will always hold her close in my heart. But Kylie has been a welcome addition to my family for three months now. I say this as she is jumping on the keyboard yet again, trying to get my attention because she doesn’t think that I’ve played with her enough today. BAD KITTY!!!

Speaking of family, I am thankful for my immediate family. I am not with them this Thanksgiving Day, but I am heartened that, with one exception, none of them have been touched by the virus or the resulting financial storm that has swept the country. This is not an early celebration. I know any one of them could contract COVID if we don’t maintain vigilance, but God willing, we will all be together at Christmas time. If not, we will try for next year.

Many of you who read this have likely been offended by something I’ve written. You may think I’m too critical of Trump, or not critical enough of America, or whatever. All due respect…go tuck into your turkey and deal! I am grateful to express this on a platform and in a country that still tolerates divergent viewpoints. Here’s hoping that we continue to live in a society that guarantees the free expression of ideas. If you didn’t like this post, I’ll see if I can get Ben Sasse to write it for me next year

Here’s to brighter days ahead. Happy Thanksgiving, America!

PS: Hey, Rona… They don’t have masks in hell. They don’t socially distance in hell. There is no vaccine in hell.

For those of you who did not accept my offer of a free trial subscription to The Dispatch, here is a sample of what you are missing.

Another snapshot in time from the incomparable Jonah Goldberg:

The Only Adult in the Room
How Mitch McConnell has navigated the Trump era.

Jonah Goldberg

Oct 28

Amy Coney Barrett makes three. Three Supreme Court justices and 220 judicial appointments in all. Regardless of your ideological commitments, it’s a monumental achievement. And if “judges” was your overriding reason to vote for Donald Trump in 2016, it’s hard to argue with the claim that your decision was vindicated.

But ask anyone in Washington who knows anything about how Washington actually works, they will tell you that while Trump’s election was necessary, it was not sufficient. The indispensable man in this regard, and perhaps of the Trump presidency, was Mitch McConnell.

Starting with his decision to refuse consideration of Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia, Merrick Garland, McConnell has been the decisive factor. That one decision arguably—I would say, probably—got Trump elected.
Of course, as I often note, Trump’s victory was so narrow that any factor that attracted even a statistically tiny number of Trump-reluctant voters can be credited with his victory.

Mathematically, if only the people who were excited about voting for Trump had cast ballots for him in 2016, he would have lost. Remember: 7 percent of Trump voters told Pew that they would be disappointed if their candidate won. So you can point to Jim Comey’s press conference, or to Hillary’s refusal to campaign in places—most famously, Wisconsin—as the decisive factor. Heck, weather alone could explain it.

But holding all those other things constant, I think Trump’s decision to outsource his list of nominees to the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation was essential to putting together a coalition that could pick the lock on the Electoral College. Of voters who said the Supreme Court was “the most important factor” in their decision, 56 percent voted for Trump. Meanwhile, 26 percent of Trump voters surveyed by the Washington Post said that the Supreme Court was the basis of their decision. I don’t think the real number is that high, but even if it was a tenth of that, it would mean the Supreme Court won the presidency for Trump.
And if Mitch McConnell hadn’t made the decision he did on Garland—whether you think it was outrageous or courageous—Trump would have lost.

And yet for the first two years of Trump’s presidency, McConnell was Public Enemy No. 1 in MAGA World.

Night after night, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, and the rest hammered McConnell as a Deep State stooge, an establishment fossil, an indefensible obstructionist of the glorious MAGA agenda. “So, Sen. McConnell, my message to you, if all you’re going to do is whine like a 10-year-old and complain and make excuses and blame the president for your failure after eight months of him now being in office and you having the House and Senate, guess what, it really is time to drain the sewer and swamp,” proclaimed Hannity in one typical jeremiad.

“The fact of the matter is, McConnell and [Paul] Ryan—they look like troglodytes that somehow have survived eons, and they have, if you will, been Darwined [sic] out, but just they and the conference don’t realize it,” explained Lou Dobbs. Hating McConnell became the organizing principle of Breitbart.

But no one was more committed to destroying McConnell than Steve Bannon. He told the New York Times in 2017, “Mitch McConnell has to go.” When asked whether McConnell would be majority leader in 2018, Bannon replied, “I absolutely do not think he will be majority leader. … It’s not my personal mission, but it’s an objective. … And I believe it’ll be done before this time next year.”
At this point the narrator should have intruded to say, “Actually, it was his personal mission.” Bannon soon organized primary challenges to every single Republican senator (except for Ted Cruz—who, by the way, famously refused to endorse Trump in 2016) in an explicit attempt to strip McConnell of the majority leader job. He cobbled together a ragtag cadre of MAGA gargoyles to take out incumbent Republican senators (as well as some House candidates, including the anti-Semite goon Paul Nehlen, who lost to Paul Ryan by 70 points). The most infamous of these candidates was Alabama crank and mall-cruiser Roy Moore. To McConnell’s credit, he made it clear that even if Moore won, he would be shunned by the party.

Bannon’s failure was as complete as McConnell’s success.

Governance is for grownups.

McConnell has his critics, and some make perfectly defensible points. But here’s what I admire about McConnell: He’s a grownup and an institutionalist. The two things go together. It will win me no points with populists to say this, but populism often manifests itself as childishness. “Childish” has a slightly different connotation than “childlike.” Childlike conveys sweetness and innocence. Childishness is defined by a refusal to accept the rules. Childish people are quick to take offense. They are the Veruca Salts of the world, who want it now. They don’t care about the rules, and they think manners are for other people. They are reluctant to listen and eager to shout. Childish pranks are their own reward, and consequences for their actions are always unfair. Grownups think about consequences. They remember mistakes and adjust for them.
Children think serious arguments are unfair obstacles to wish fulfilment. As the great populist William Jennings Bryan said, “The people of Nebraska are for free silver, so I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.”

McConnell is a rare creature in Washington, particularly in the Senate: a man who isn’t president and doesn’t want to be. He is where he wants to be. Sure, he is an ideological conservative, but he’s also an institutional one. He opposed campaign finance reform because he believed it would damage the political system—and he was right. He opposed Harry Reid’s lifting of the judicial filibuster for non-Supreme Court nominees because he believed it would damage the Senate—and he was right. You can argue that his decision to escalate the practice was wrong, but only if you subscribe to the childish notion that Democrats are allowed to change the rules without consequence. McConnell warned Reid that there would be consequences for Reid’s decision and, like a grownup, he was true to his word.

It’s a talking point of the left that McConnell is just another Trump supplicant who does the president’s bidding. This nonsense overlooks the fact that the primary reason the MAGA right hated him—other than his reluctance to spout flattery in Trump’s direction—was his refusal to abolish the legislative filibuster. As both a grownup and an institutionalist, he understood that the “I want it now” caucus has all the foresight we associate with children. He knew that Democrats would be back in power again, and the cost of abolishing the filibuster for some short-term “win” for Trump would guarantee far greater losses in the future. Politics is often called “the art of the possible,” and that’s McConnell’s métier. Yes, he looks like a tortoise, but the tortoise won the race because the childish rabbit lacked foresight.

The inestimable Kevin Williamson writes:
One of the many perversities of Trump’s presidency is that Donald J. Trump’s core deficiencies as a chief administrator—his ignorance and his laziness—are the chief practical virtues of his presidency. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know, and this has created the opportunity for some of the people in his administration to get some useful things done. For this reason, the conservative advances that have accompanied the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) mostly have been in the fields in which the president has the least engagement and interest, whereas the catastrophes of the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) are strongly associated with those few areas of policy in which he takes an active interest or is personally and strongly engaged with ex officio.

Kevin goes on to note that perhaps the best illustration of this has been Trump’s utter disregard for the Constitution. “Trump’s principal success has been as a rubber stamp to the very ‘establishment’ at which Trump and his admirers like to sneer.”

This is a point I’ve hammered for years now. Trump believes his best friends are the ones who lavish him with praise and celebrate his biggest mistakes as brilliant victories. But, from the vantage point of history, his best friends are the conservatives who constrained him—or simply ignored him—to get important things done. In the summer of 2016, Trump was talking about his steadfast support for “Article 12” of the Constitution and boasting that he might put his sister on the Supreme Court. Some grownup somehow convinced him that this could cost him the election. So he had to persuade voters that he would substitute a serious group’s judgement for his own. But it was only because he never cared about the conservative legal movement that he was perfectly happy to outsource judicial appointments to people who do.
I shudder to think what kind of judges we’d have if Trump felt as invested in who sits on the bench as he is about who sits in the attorney general’s chair.

If Trump had outsourced the pandemic to the experts in his own administration as if it were a medical Federalist Society, he might well be poised for re-election (every governor, Democrat or Republican, and virtually every foreign leader, liberal or conservative, who took the pandemic seriously benefitted in the polls). But the appeal of “free media” to childishly perform during COVID press conferences was too seductive, and the allure of fighting his own medical “establishment” was too great.

What amazes me is how so many of the people who rail against “the establishment” for all of Trump’s failures always place blame at the feet of the “establishment” but assign credit for all of the “establishment’s” successes in Trump’s column. The Federalist Society, Heritage, and McConnell handled the judges, but Trump gets the laurels. Trump took the ball from Fauci and Birx, but it’s their fault Trump scored in the wrong end zone.

There are conservatives—and people who merely claim to be conservative—who so detest Donald Trump that they think the entire GOP should be “burned to the ground.” I certainly understand the detestation, and I definitely think a price should be paid (and it looks like it will be). But letting your passion run roughshod over reason is itself a form of populist childishness. McConnell didn’t want Trump to become president. But grownups adjust to reality when they don’t get what they want. That’s what McConnell did. He said “No” to Trump when he could, and when he thought he should. You can defensibly complain that he should have and could have done it more. But at a moment when Gaetzian childishness is the reigning definition of ideological purity, I am grateful for what few grownups are left in the room.
Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

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The Only Adult in the Room
How Mitch McConnell has navigated the Trump era.

Jonah Goldberg

Oct 28

Amy Coney Barrett makes three. Three Supreme Court justices and 220 judicial appointments in all. Regardless of your ideological commitments, it’s a monumental achievement. And if “judges” was your overriding reason to vote for Donald Trump in 2016, it’s hard to argue with the claim that your decision was vindicated.
But ask anyone in Washington who knows anything about how Washington actually works, they will tell you that while Trump’s election was necessary, it was not sufficient. The indispensable man in this regard, and perhaps of the Trump presidency, was Mitch McConnell.
Starting with his decision to refuse consideration of Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia, Merrick Garland, McConnell has been the decisive factor. That one decision arguably—I would say, probably—got Trump elected.
Of course, as I often note, Trump’s victory was so narrow that any factor that attracted even a statistically tiny number of Trump-reluctant voters can be credited with his victory.
Mathematically, if only the people who were excited about voting for Trump had cast ballots for him in 2016, he would have lost. Remember: 7 percent of Trump voters told Pew that they would be disappointed if their candidate won. So you can point to Jim Comey’s press conference, or to Hillary’s refusal to campaign in places—most famously, Wisconsin—as the decisive factor. Heck, weather alone could explain it.
But holding all those other things constant, I think Trump’s decision to outsource his list of nominees to the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation was essential to putting together a coalition that could pick the lock on the Electoral College. Of voters who said the Supreme Court was “the most important factor” in their decision, 56 percent voted for Trump. Meanwhile, 26 percent of Trump voters surveyed by the Washington Post said that the Supreme Court was the basis of their decision. I don’t think the real number is that high, but even if it was a tenth of that, it would mean the Supreme Court won the presidency for Trump.
And if Mitch McConnell hadn’t made the decision he did on Garland—whether you think it was outrageous or courageous—Trump would have lost.
And yet for the first two years of Trump’s presidency, McConnell was Public Enemy No. 1 in MAGA World.
Night after night, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, and the rest hammered McConnell as a Deep State stooge, an establishment fossil, an indefensible obstructionist of the glorious MAGA agenda. “So, Sen. McConnell, my message to you, if all you’re going to do is whine like a 10-year-old and complain and make excuses and blame the president for your failure after eight months of him now being in office and you having the House and Senate, guess what, it really is time to drain the sewer and swamp,” proclaimed Hannity in one typical jeremiad.
“The fact of the matter is, McConnell and [Paul] Ryan—they look like troglodytes that somehow have survived eons, and they have, if you will, been Darwined [sic] out, but just they and the conference don’t realize it,” explained Lou Dobbs. Hating McConnell became the organizing principle of Breitbart.
But no one was more committed to destroying McConnell than Steve Bannon. He told the New York Times in 2017, “Mitch McConnell has to go.” When asked whether McConnell would be majority leader in 2018, Bannon replied, “I absolutely do not think he will be majority leader. … It’s not my personal mission, but it’s an objective. … And I believe it’ll be done before this time next year.”
At this point the narrator should have intruded to say, “Actually, it was his personal mission.” Bannon soon organized primary challenges to every single Republican senator (except for Ted Cruz—who, by the way, famously refused to endorse Trump in 2016) in an explicit attempt to strip McConnell of the majority leader job. He cobbled together a ragtag cadre of MAGA gargoyles to take out incumbent Republican senators (as well as some House candidates, including the anti-Semite goon Paul Nehlen, who lost to Paul Ryan by 70 points). The most (in)famous of these candidates was Alabama crank and mall-cruiser Roy Moore. To McConnell’s credit, he made it clear that even if Moore won, he would be shunned by the party.
Bannon’s failure was as complete as McConnell’s success.
Governance is for grownups.
McConnell has his critics, and some make perfectly defensible points. But here’s what I admire about McConnell: He’s a grownup and an institutionalist. The two things go together. It will win me no points with populists to say this, but populism often manifests itself as childishness. “Childish” has a slightly different connotation than “childlike.” Childlike conveys sweetness and innocence. Childishness is defined by a refusal to accept the rules. Childish people are quick to take offense. They are the Veruca Salts of the world, who want it now. They don’t care about the rules, and they think manners are for other people. They are reluctant to listen and eager to shout. Childish pranks are their own reward, and consequences for their actions are always unfair. Grownups think about consequences. They remember mistakes and adjust for them.
Children think serious arguments are unfair obstacles to wish fulfilment. As the great populist William Jennings Bryan said, “The people of Nebraska are for free silver, so I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.”
McConnell is a rare creature in Washington, particularly in the Senate: a man who isn’t president and doesn’t want to be. He is where he wants to be. Sure, he is an ideological conservative, but he’s also an institutional one. He opposed campaign finance reform because he believed it would damage the political system—and he was right. He opposed Harry Reid’s lifting of the judicial filibuster for non-Supreme Court nominees because he believed it would damage the Senate—and he was right. You can argue that his decision to escalate the practice was wrong, but only if you subscribe to the childish notion that Democrats are allowed to change the rules without consequence. McConnell warned Reid that there would be consequences for Reid’s decision and, like a grownup, he was true to his word.
It’s a talking point of the left that McConnell is just another Trump supplicant who does the president’s bidding. This nonsense overlooks the fact that the primary reason the MAGA right hated him—other than his reluctance to spout flattery in Trump’s direction—was his refusal to abolish the legislative filibuster. As both a grownup and an institutionalist, he understood that the “I want it now” caucus has all the foresight we associate with children. He knew that Democrats would be back in power again, and the cost of abolishing the filibuster for some short-term “win” for Trump would guarantee far greater losses in the future. Politics is often called “the art of the possible,” and that’s McConnell’s métier. Yes, he looks like a tortoise, but the tortoise won the race because the childish rabbit lacked foresight.
The inestimable Kevin Williamson writes:
One of the many perversities of Trump’s presidency is that Donald J. Trump’s core deficiencies as a chief administrator—his ignorance and his laziness—are the chief practical virtues of his presidency. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know, and this has created the opportunity for some of the people in his administration to get some useful things done. For this reason, the conservative advances that have accompanied the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) mostly have been in the fields in which the president has the least engagement and interest, whereas the catastrophes of the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) are strongly associated with those few areas of policy in which he takes an active interest or is personally and strongly engaged with ex officio.
Kevin goes on to note that perhaps the best illustration of this has been Trump’s utter disregard for the Constitution. “Trump’s principal success has been as a rubber stamp to the very ‘establishment’ at which Trump and his admirers like to sneer.”
This is a point I’ve hammered for years now. Trump believes his best friends are the ones who lavish him with praise and celebrate his biggest mistakes as brilliant victories. But, from the vantage point of history, his best friends are the conservatives who constrained him—or simply ignored him—to get important things done. In the summer of 2016, Trump was talking about his steadfast support for “Article 12” of the Constitution and boasting that he might put his sister on the Supreme Court. Some grownup somehow convinced him that this could cost him the election. So he had to persuade voters that he would substitute a serious group’s judgement for his own. But it was only because he never cared about the conservative legal movement that he was perfectly happy to outsource judicial appointments to people who do.
I shudder to think what kind of judges we’d have if Trump felt as invested in who sits on the bench as he is about who sits in the attorney general’s chair.
If Trump had outsourced the pandemic to the experts in his own administration as if it were a medical Federalist Society, he might well be poised for re-election (every governor, Democrat or Republican, and virtually every foreign leader, liberal or conservative, who took the pandemic seriously benefitted in the polls). But the appeal of “free media” to childishly perform during COVID press conferences was too seductive, and the allure of fighting his own medical “establishment” was too great.
What amazes me is how so many of the people who rail against “the establishment” for all of Trump’s failures always place blame at the feet of the “establishment” but assign credit for all of the “establishment’s” successes in Trump’s column. The Federalist Society, Heritage, and McConnell handled the judges, but Trump gets the laurels. Trump took the ball from Fauci and Birx, but it’s their fault Trump scored in the wrong end zone.
There are conservatives—and people who merely claim to be conservative—who so detest Donald Trump that they think the entire GOP should be “burned to the ground.” I certainly understand the detestation, and I definitely think a price should be paid (and it looks like it will be). But letting your passion run roughshod over reason is itself a form of populist childishness. McConnell didn’t want Trump to become president. But grownups adjust to reality when they don’t get what they want. That’s what McConnell did. He said “No” to Trump when he could, and when he thought he should. You can defensibly complain that he should have and could have done it more. But at a moment when Gaetzian childishness is the reigning definition of ideological purity, I am grateful for what few grownups are left in the room.

“Ya make me pull, I’ll put ya down.”

That is the rattlesnake whir of U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), protagonist of the underappreciated FX series, Justified. Givens is a laconic lawman with a slow tongue and a lightning-fast draw. He is the stereotypical western cowboy living in the modern world. Yet, his black-and-white moral code is thrown off kilter when he comes up against a world of criminals who dwell in the gray areas of life; criminals including his childhood friend, his ex-lover and even his own father.

Such is the premise for Justified, a show based on two novels written by iconic crime author Elmore Leonard. The series pilot, “Fire in the Hole,” is based upon a subsequent short story written by Leonard. The pilot is very faithful to the source material, but for one important detail. In the story, Raylan kills the bad guy at the climax of the story. In the TV series, said bad guy lives and ultimately becomes Raylan’s most prominent adversary.

In the opening scene of the premier, Raylan’s desire for justice (or is it vengeance) propels him into a rooftop confrontation in Miami with a very bad man. Raylan prevails, of course, but his renegade actions force his superiors to transfer him to his home state of Kentucky. This is a true punishment for Raylan, as he makes it clear that he has no desire to go home. Yet, home he goes, and soon runs up against a white supremacist who, in Raylan’s own words, “Loves to rob banks and blow shit up.” The wrinkle comes when we learn that said bank robber is Raylan’s childhood friend, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins.) They weren’t close when they dug coal together in the mines of Harlan, but as both men note at various times throughout the six-year run of the series, mining coal together forges a bond that can never be entirely broken.

The hook that brings the viewer along for the ride of Justified is that, once he is sent home, things become personal for Raylan. His repeated confrontations with Boyd Crowder are personal. His meeting with Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter), Boyd’s sister-in-law, becomes personal. From the time of the pilot, everything in Raylan’s world becomes personal, particularly when he attempts to reconcile with his ex-wife, and is forced into an unhappy reunion with his wayward father.

Every colorful criminal Raylan meets throughout the course of the show gets under Raylan’s skin. He hates the bad guys because he grew up around criminals and knows how poisonous they are, particularly in an impoverished community such as his home town of Harlan. This is why he refuses to change his occupation or his behavior, even after he faces the consequences of his actions in Miami. In Raylan’s world, every criminal has a simple choice. “Ya make me pull, I’ll put ya down.” Raylan can easily put head to pillow each night, knowing that the world is better off with one less bad guy to further blight the already bleak landscape of Harlan.

Raylan’s outer trappings harken back to the age of John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood. Unlike the square-jawed cowboys from the golden age of cinema, Raylan is far from perfect. He is not an anti-hero, though some of his choices throughout the series stray into anti-heroism. He has a temper. He has difficulty maintaining personal relationships. Sometimes, he has a blind spot to the character flaws of those closest to him. Yet, in other circumstances, he is too cynical to allow for the possibility of change for the better in people. He is quick to warn criminals of dire consequences for their actions, yet he is too slow to realize that his own actions also garner consequences. In many ways, he is the typical protagonist of the 21st century. As the series progresses, Raylan is forced to develop a stronger sense of self-awareness when he faces the prospect of fatherhood. Raylan ultimately must choose between the voice of his wicked father, or his gentler mother when he too becomes a parent.

Raylan’s nemesis, Boyd Crowder, serves as the opposite side of the same coin. He too grew up exposed to a criminal element, but his personality forces him down a different, more circuitous path. During the show’s six seasons, Boyd undergoes several transformations, changing from a white supremacist to a religious zealot to a lost soul, before he finally embraces his father’s legacy; that of his rightful place as the criminal kingpin of Harlan. Raylan proves to be an inflexible man who is mostly incapable of change, while Boyd seems to be in a constant state of flux as he struggles to come to terms with his true nature. The scenes that Olyphant and Goggins share together are the show’s best and it quickly becomes evident that each man is the dark alter ego of the other.

Justified is not a flawless series. Very few shows can achieve what Breaking Bad did in its near-perfect execution. One of the problems of the show is how it treats its female characters. In a crime saga like Justified in which the two main characters are male, the primary purpose of the female characters seem only to be to drive the storylines of the men.

Ava Crowder is the best example. When we first meet Ava, Raylan visits her shortly after she kills her abusive husband at the dinner table. Boyd wants revenge on Ava for her husband’s murder, since he was Boyd’s brother. This conflict serves as the climax of the pilot. Once the story is resolved, Ava remains as a presence in Raylan’s life. At first, they become lovers, which proves detrimental to Raylan’s career. Later, after Raylan becomes re-involved with his ex-wife, Ava switches sides and becomes involved with Boyd. Her allegiance to Boyd serves as a centerpiece for the remainder of the series, particularly in the show’s final season, but it never feels entirely authentic. It’s as if the writers loved Joelle Carter’s work and didn’t want to lose her, so they contrived a plot twist in which Ava becomes romantically involved with Boyd as a means of continuing her presence. Ava is a strong woman (all women on Justified are strong), but that doesn’t mean that all of their choices are intelligent, or that the writers do a good job of illustrating Ava’s reasoning in an organic fashion. This defect becomes particularly stark in the show’s fifth season, in which Ava is given a jailhouse storyline that separates her from Boyd for the duration.

Raylan’s afore-mentioned ex-wife Winona is another example. From the moment we first see Winona (Natalie Zea), it is clear that Raylan is still in love with her. Winona is more of an intermittent presence throughout the series than is Ava. She and Raylan seem to be locked in a dance wherein neither can decide if they want to truly commit to the other. Their rapport is interesting early on, but becomes tiresome as the series progresses.

Another female character that is criminally underused is U.S. Marshal Rachel Brooks (Erica Tazel.) She is an African-American law enforcement officer in the Deep South. One would think that, over the course of 78 episodes, the writers could give Rachel at least one substantial plot. The most we get is a stand-alone episode in the show’s second season in which we learn a little about Rachel’s family. Aside from that, Rachel usually just serves as back-up for Raylan. The same is true for Raylan’s other Marshal sidekick, Tim Gutterson (Jacob Pitts), who served as an Army Ranger sniper in Afghanistan.

The character of Art Mullen (Nick Searcy), Raylan’s boss in the Lexington office, is far better served. Raylan’s father Arlo (Raymond J. Barry) is a hardened criminal and the two men have no love for one another. As Raylan and Art continue to work together, Art takes on the role of Raylan’s surrogate father. This often serves as a burden to Art, who is usually exasperated by Raylan’s off-book methods, even though they yield results.

In the first two seasons, Justified suffers from a mild identity crisis. It can’t quite decide if it wants to be a series of stand-alone procedural stories ala Law & Order, or more serialized ala Breaking Bad. It finally settles on the latter by the third season and is better for it. The best of the stand-alones is the fourth episode, “Long in the Tooth,” in which Raylan chases a former mafia bookkeeper masquerading as a dentist into the desert.

The plotting of Justified is uneven and overly convoluted at times. In true Elmore Leonard fashion, there are periods in which viewers will find themselves watching three or four separate groups of characters, all working across purposes. I mean… I was able to keep up with the dense plotting of Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones, for God sake, and there are still times when I will finish an episode of Justified and ask, what the hell was that all about? This flaw is particularly evident in the show’s third and fourth seasons. In times like this, it is best for the viewer with a mid-range I.Q. simply to sit back and enjoy the eccentric characters and colorful dialogue for which the late Mr. Leonard was so notable.

This leads me to the biggest strength of Justified; the colorful cast of villains and supporting players that litter the barren landscape of Harlan, Kentucky. Elmore Leonard was always known as a master of dialogue and nuanced characters. The fact that showrunner Graham Yost worked closely with Leonard until Leonard’s death before the show’s fifth season is reflected in every scene of Justified. The accents range from perfect to passable, the dialogue is laced with wit and humor and the characters feel real.

Yeah… The characters. It may be true that Justified adheres to the ‘baddy of the season’ formula, but what baddies they are! Wynn Duffy (Gere Burns), mercurial mid-level hit man for an organization known as the Dixie Mafia. Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman), one of Boyd’s henchmen with a Nazi tattoo on his neck and nothing in his head. Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough), psychotic Detroit mobster in a business suit with more up his sleeve than a scheme to conquer Kentucky. Ellstin Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson), an African-American crime boss with murky motives. Avery Markham (Sam Elliott), a pothead kingpin who seems to growl more than he talks.

No review of Justified would be adequate without a prolonged and respectful nod to Mags Bennett and her boys. They emerge as the chief villains of the show’s second season and, in hindsight, they are the best. Mags (Margo Martindale) is the ruthless matriarch of a crime family who deals in pot and homemade moonshine. She shows no mercy to those who seek to undercut or betray her. When Raylan is forcibly returned to Kentucky, he finds himself smack in the middle of a decades-old feud between the Givens’ and Bennett clans. Raylan holds particular animus for Mags’ son Dickie (Jeremy Davies.) Dickie is crippled as a result of a childhood fight with Raylan. In typical Justified fashion, Dickie is the dumbest of Mags’ three sons, though he believes himself to be the smartest. Of course, this only serves to make him the most dangerous.

The current conflict, which centers on a teenage orphaned girl named Loretta (Kaitlyn Dever), serves as the show’s best season finale. It also illustrates why Martindale was one of only two actors to win an Emmy; Davies being the other.

Sidebar: I was so impressed with the character of Mags that I named my beloved cat after her.

… And I haven’t even addressed the rich cast of supporting characters who aren’t criminals. If you want to meet Judge Mike ‘The Hammer’ Reardon, Constable Bob, Ellen May, Pastor Billy and Raylan’s Aunt Helen, watch the show!

Justified does have an occasional misfire with respect to casting and characters. In the show’s fifth season, generally agreed upon by fans and critics alike as its worst, the producers made the unfortunate choice to cast New York native Michael Rapaport as Darryl Crowe, Jr. The only thing worse than the meandering, tangled plot of the fifth season is Rapaport’s glaringly hideous southern accent. Some fans lament that Yost and company chose to pull the plug after the show’s sixth season, despite pleas from FX president John Landgraf for more. Yet, when I try to rewatch the fifth season, it becomes sadly evident that Justified probably ran one season too long.

It is also worth noting that Timothy Olyphant came to Justified several years after his starring role on another celebrated postmodern western series, HBO’s Deadwood. Olyphant was tailor made for western roles, and fans of both series always wondered who might be next to transfer from the Old West of Deadwood to the Modern West of Harlan. As it turned out, Deadwood regulars W. Earl Brown, Jim Beaver, Garret Dillahunt, Sean Bridgers, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Brent Sexton, Gerald McRaney, Stephen Tobolowsky, Ray McKinnon and Peter Jason all had either single-shot or multi-shot guest stints on Justified. Fans were hoping that Ian McShane might make an appearance, given his electric on-screen chemistry with Olyphant, but it never materialized.

Sidebar: If you want to learn more about Deadwood, I wrote an extensive review of it elsewhere in these hallowed pages. Also, Walton Goggins costarred on another FX masterpiece, The Shield, which I hope to review in the future. Sadly, none of his costars appeared on Justified, mainly because they were all being used over on the inferior Sons of Anarchy.

Compared to its contemporaries such as Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Game of Thrones, Justified was underrated. As is usually the case with shows of this kind, it had a loyal but small fan base and was adored by critics. Yet, it never really caught on as cubical conversation. Luckily, it is available for streaming and on home media. If you’re stuck with no place to go in the midst of the pandemic and need something new to binge, and if you like noir crime dramas with a western flavor, try Justified.

As for the source material furnished by the late Elmore Leonard, I always found him to be an acquired taste; a taste that I never really warmed to. Still, his body of work is undeniable and he did have a flair for quirky characters and off beat dialogue. Leonard did claim that Justified was one of his favorite screen adaptations. This is high praise indeed from an author. God bless him and those who made Justified a reality for six years.

“It was already in the glass… Not in the jar.”
Mags Bennett

“Next one’s comin’ faster.”
Raylan Givens

“Raylan, the whole world’s a tree. I’m just a squirrel tryin’ to get a nut.”
Boyd Crowder

“I been married for 28 years. I don’t get the pole out as much as I used to.”
Art Mullen

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I
know it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe,
and am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be
slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

Walt Whitman: “”Song of Myself”