Movies - TV
What Justified Writers Learned Early On About Raylan And Boyd's Relationship
By JEREMY SMITH
U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is reassigned from his glamorous Miami case to his home county of Harlan, Kentucky, in “Justified.” Upon his return, he is immediately at odds with his old childhood rival and son of a once powerful drug trafficker, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), with whom now he’s stuck playing a game of cat and mouse in a town he swore to leave behind.
The writers learned their direct conflict wasn’t enough to drive the entire show, as Goggins explained in an interview, “If you go to that gold mine too many times, then you're gonna run out of gold. The writers recognized that early on.” He also marveled at the dynamic stating, “It's that endless, overpowering obsession that each man has with the other that will lead to their ultimate downfall.”
It's a self-destructive conflict, but if their enmity was the sum total of the show, viewers would've checked out early. Instead, the show's creator, Graham Yost took these adversaries off on side routes. Both men go on different paths and almost succeed in creating fulfilling lives, only to ruin them with their unending conflict until all they are left with is the sole, immutable truth that has bound them throughout their wasted lives: "We dug coal together."