5 Biggest Reasons Justified: City Primeval Ended Up a Failure

Since premiering on FX on 18 July, the Justified spinoff City Primeval has aired three of its planned eight episodes. Unfortunately, many fans have so far found the miniseries disappointing.

Raylan Givens' move to Miami seems to have ruined the story of the beloved Deputy U.S. Marshal. Here's why.

Raylan Givens

Timothy Olyphant still plays the lead character, but he feels like a completely different person. What fans have come to love and expect from the tough deputy U.S. Marshal is his witty banter, plenty of action, and, of course, his unique brand of justice. City Primeval has none of those.

Instead, viewers get treated to long, boring scenes of Raylan sitting in police cars waiting for things to happen.

The Villain

After dumbing down the protagonist, the creators added insult to injury by shifting the focus away from him to the story's main villain, Clement Mansell, portrayed by Boyd Holbrook. But that hardly improved the show.

In their attempts to bill Mansell as a cold and ruthless criminal, the writers got repetitive: Mansell's been doing and saying the same things for three episodes now. It's time for some variety already.

The Father-Daughter Relationship

City Primeval gives a lot of screen time to Raylan's relationship with his daughter Willa, portrayed by Olyphant's own daughter Vivian. However, despite the actors sharing a familial bond, there is little chemistry, if any, between their characters. The script fails to give them a dynamic that would feel even remotely genuine.

Most of their scenes together feel as if their relationship's sole purpose is to drag out the plot.

The Pacing

City Primeval's overall story just feels off so far. What really makes the show difficult to watch is the pacing. Unlike Justified's crisp and efficient narrative, City Primeval feels slow and ponderous. There is zero urgency in the story. Scenes that should take seconds drag out for minutes on end with no clear purpose. The impression is that the overarching goal is to make an hour-and-a-half story last for several episodes.

The Justiverse

Thus, the main reason City Primeval has been such a disappointment is that it has strayed too far from the original series. It focuses on the villain instead of the main character, and the villain is repetitive and boring. Raylan Givens has been dumbed down and turned into a boring by-the-book lawman with practically zero action.

The end result is a boring procedural with a vanilla good guy as the lead rather than a modern-day Western. Well, it’s not over yet, so things could potentially improve.

Justified: City Primeval Episode 4 airs on FX on 1 August 2023.