‘Justified’ on FX – The Final Season

At 10:00 p.m. tonight on the FX network, the final season of Justified, season 6, will begin and we’ve got all the spoilers for the premiere as well as the rest of the season, gathering all the info we could find. Let’s start with the cast. Sam Elliott, Garret Dillahunt and Jeff Fahey are joining the cast in recurring roles on the show this season. Star Timothy Olyphant talked to Rolling Stone about Sam Elliott joining the show and said:

Okay, so then you know Sam Elliott is in this last season — and his bad guy is pretty great … My only worry about having Sam on this last season, if I can be honest, was that people would finally realize I’ve been ripping him off for the years now. On his first day of work, I took him aside and said, “Look, buddy, here’s the deal: Raylan is really just me trying to be you and failing miserably. In fact, I’ve just been stealing your whole deal since before I started this gig. Now, when we do our scenes together, people are going to be like, ‘Oh, now I get it! Tim is doing Sam Elliott but with the voice of a 12-year-old girl.’

As far as how the final season opens up, Executive Producer Graham Yost told TV Line:

As always, a couples theme emerges early, and then other themes develop along the way. But one of them from the chomp was the notion of “One last thing before I go,” that classic setup in crime movies where the bad guy says, “One more big job, and then we’re done” — and that rarely goes well. But in our case, [in addition to Boyd] it’s also “one more thing” for Raylan, one more big job for him, and then he can [join Winona and their baby in Florida] — and that seldom goes well either. The other theme is just simply trust and betrayal, and the horrible situation that Ava is in …

The titles of the first seven seasons are: “Fate’s Right Hand”, “Cash Game”, “Noblesse Oblige”, “The Trash and the Snake”, “Sounding”, “Alive Day,” and “The Hunt”. The synopsis for “Fate’s Right Hand” reads: Boyd prepares a daring heist while Raylan attempts to turn a former ally against him. Episode 2, “Cash Game” has released its synopsis as well, which is: Raylan’s investigation leads to a conflict with a paramilitary crew.

TV Guide writes about the biggest question to be answered on the show this season, stating:

The final season will be the ultimate showdown between Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens and his childhood friend-turned-criminal nemesis Boyd Crowder … At the beginning of the season, the character in perhaps the tightest spot is Ava (Joelle Carter), Boyd’s former fiancée whom Raylan sprang from prison in order to make her an informant against Boyd.

Executive Producer Graham Yost talks about Ava saying:

She still has a deep affection for Boyd. She also has affection for Raylan, even though he treats her quite harshly in the early episodes of the season. So, she’s pulled back and forth, and I don’t think she entirely knows where her loyalty lies. She’s just trying to stay alive more than anything.

Yost also opened up about Boyd’s downfall in the final season, explaining:

Boyd is a sociopath, so he sees everything from his own point of view and really everything is oriented toward that. [He might not know] whether he truly loves Ava or if it is a fantasy that he has spun up in his mind because it serves his vision of himself as this great man. I think that’s interesting. What do we project on other people and do we create these situations because it fulfills some need within in us? So, does he truly love her or does he love the idea of being in love with her and being that guy? He gets pulled back and forth on that.

As far as Raylan goes, he isn’t as concerned about Ava as you might think. TV Guide reports:

It’s the other women in Raylan’s life that loom large in the final season. Will Raylan actually walk away from Kentucky and move to Florida to be with his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) and be a part of his daughter’s life?

Yost adds:

That’s the big question for Raylan. I think his fear always with Winona is that he can’t be who he is at heart, which is a lawman, and be in her life. He wants to be a part of Willow’s life, but will that include a relationship between Raylan and Winona? I think that’s a question for him, and in the middle of the season we get more clarity on that.

When it comes to the ending of the series, all Yost would reveal, was this:

We could’ve done just The Adventures of Raylan Givens [forever], but like with Harry Potter, it comes down to Harry versus Voldemort. Boyd is by no means Voldemort, but there is a contest –and eventually that contest has to come to an end. So to that degree, the audience knows what the ending of our show is going to be. They don’t know the particulars of it. They don’t know who’s going to live and who’s going die, but they do know that the contest is going to come to an end. We’re still just ultimately trying to tell an Elmore Leonard story as Elmore-y as we can. I always say to people, if you want clues as to how it’s going to end, just read Elmore. That’s as far as I’ll go.

The series finale is set for April 14, 2015.