Review: Timothy Olyphant's 'Justified: City Primeval' is a relic of the past

Raylan Givens and his cowboy hat are back. But something's not right.

Yes, like so many other beloved TV shows of yore, "Justified" has returned. With its original star, Timothy Olyphant, an Elmore Leonard story at its heart and a new cast of mostly corrupt characters, "Justified: City Primeval" attempts to bring back the spark of the original series a decade or so later in a new setting, as Raylan has taken his swagger from Kentucky to Detroit.

But while it looks, smells and sounds like the "Justified" fans know and love, there is something fundamentally missing from "Primeval" (FX, Tuesdays at 10 EDT/PDT and streaming on Hulu; ★★ out of four). Yes, Olyphant slips back into character as if not a day has gone by, and new cast member Aunjanue Ellis is a scenery-chewing delight, but something about the revival never quite clicks into place. It's hollow, almost soulless in moments, slapping the veneer of a Leonard crime novel on the surface and hoping that the audience won't notice the cheap foundation underneath. But we can see it. And it's not angering, it's just disappointing.

Based on Leonard's novel "City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit" (with narrative adjustments to make Raylan the protagonist), "Primeval" puts him on a collision course with the Motor City, this time with a teen daughter in tow. After he literally runs into a pair of Michigan fugitives in Florida, Raylan winds up in Detroit to help investigate the attempted murder of a judge and related conspiracies in a city that has its own web of corruption, deal-making and criminal networks. Reluctantly pulled in, Raylan clashes with powerful defense attorney Carolyn Wilder (Ellis) as he attempts to parent his teenage daughter Willa (Vivian Olyphant, Timothy's daughter), a wild child with a hankering for Harlan County, Raylan's hometown and the original "Justified" setting.

Something is lost in the move from Kentucky to Detroit. There is less of a defined sense of place, despite great effort by the creators to establish Detroit as its own frontier of corruption and lawlessness. It feels as though it could be any vaguely metropolitan area, rather than a specific city with its own idiosyncrasies.

Just as it struggles to establish a setting, the series also struggles to establish stakes and emotions. It's hard to tell why we're supposed to care about these Detroit politicians, judges and criminals, or the connections between them. It takes several episodes for the shape of the narrative to appear, in a way that's less like a fun mystery and more like a frustratingly dense plot.

"Justified" is a superb show that I have long loved − I consider it one of the best shows of the 2010s. But in many ways it feels like a relic of that era, when TV lionized antihero lawmen who abided by their own sense of justice. Yes, in many ways Raylan has to adapt to a changed world − he does not, for instance, get away with taking two suspects in custody along for a ride to his daughter's summer camp − but it's impossible not to feel like the series is too dated for 2023. The series is too full of old sensibilities about cops and robbers, about the justice system and about a lawman's place in the world. Olyphant may not look like he's aged much, but the story around him has.

It's just not a revival that's easy to justify.

Timothy Olyphant on new ‘Justified' 'I cried like a baby on that last day'

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Justified: City Primeval': Timothy Olyphant's revival is a relic