You've Been Watching Justified: City Primeval All Wrong, Apparently

At this point in television history, there's no doubt that Justified is one of the best crime shows to ever grace the medium. The FX series about US Marshal Raylan Givens has managed to truly capture the raw vibe of Elmore Leonard's original writing, and millions of fans are still in love with the story and its cowboy hat-wearing protagonist.

That is why when FX announced that Timothy Olyphant would reprise his iconic role in the miniseries Justified: City Primeval, people were over the moon, hoping that the new series would be just as powerful as the original. However, the recently released episodes proved that the writers had a different idea in mind for the sequel, and that didn't align well with fans' high expectations.

Even though City Primeval was promoted as the grand return of Raylan Givens, the fan-favorite Marshal only looked like a real hero in the first two episodes and was then sidelined in favor of some newly introduced characters. Naturally, many viewers were angry about this, accusing FX of using the original show's name and main character to make their new project more popular.

These allegations actually sound reasonable because City Primeval has absolutely nothing to do with the Justified story.

However, it looks like the problem here is not with the show per se, but with how the fandom perceives it. Some people have pointed out that City Primeval should be viewed as a part of the franchise, not a direct sequel to Justified.

'Raylan is a legacy character with an entire life of stories to tell. In some events in the character's life, they are central, and [in] others, they would be a side character, more of an observer, or just simply positioned slightly [differently] than the biggest story in their life (the original series in this case),' a fan explained on Reddit. 'That is what City Primeval is. It's a broader view into the world Raylan exists in.'

While it's tempting to agree with this view, it's impossible to overlook the fact that City Primeval was billed as Raylan's story first and foremost. If the FX producers were trying to create a standalone story in the Justified universe, they should've included Olyphant's character as a cameo to tie the series together, not use him to promote City Primeval.

Source: Reddit.