Shut the Front Door! The 'Justified: City Primeval' Finale Just Dropped a Major Bombshell

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If you haven't watched the Justified: City Primeval finale yet, stop right there. Spoilers are ahead. If you need to catch up, the entire series is now streaming on Hulu.

You good? Okay.

Walton Goggins is in the Justified: City Primeval finale! Seriously. After all that bluffing about U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) being the only character to return in the eight-episode limited series reboot of FX's Justified, Boyd Crowder is back! And, unless we're mistaken, the creators just left the door wide open for a true revival of the series, not just a one-off.

Let's rewind. In the last episode, the series wraps up the Detroit storyline, which is based on Elmore Leonard's novel City Primeval. Our new villain, Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook) meets his end in a justified shooting by Raylan. Soon after, Raylan returns to Miami, announces his retirement, and devotes himself to spending time with his daughter.

Just when we think Raylan is riding off into the sunset once again, we jump to Boyd Crowder in prison in time to witness his triumphant escape, and it's clear—everybody's favorite supervillain hasn't missed a beat.

So what does this mean? We have theories.

“There’s a season, kind of, for everything,” Goggins told TheWrap earlier this summer when asked about his character's absence in the reboot. “This isn’t the right place and time.” Note, he distinctly did not say there is not a right place and time.

Fans have been lobbying for his return too. On the show's official Instagram @justifiedfx, comments like, "Excited for its return!! Now, they need to incorporate Boyd Crowder into an episode or two!!" and "Love the new bad guy but still not as good looking as Boyd Crowder!" have been a common theme.

The finale also paved the way for more returning cast members. Back in Miami, we meet up again with a few friends from the original Justified: Dan Grant (Matt Craven) and Gregg Sutter (David Koechner), Raylan's superiors in the Florida division of the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as Winona Hawkins (Natalie Zea), Raylan's ex and mother to their 15-year-old daughter, Willa (Vivian Olyphant).

From the Justified: City Primeval cast, Detective Wendell Robinson (Victor Williams), who dreams of retiring in sunny Florida, seems primed for another chapter of Justified. And so does defense attorney-turned-judge Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis), who writes to Raylan about possibly visiting in the winter.

Looking back, there was foreshadowing in the opening scenes of episode one of the reboot when Willa argues with her dad about not being able to take her phone to camp. She points out he could never be without his phone because, otherwise, how would he get "the call"? By the end of the finale, we know exactly what call she's referring to. As the two enjoy some father-daughter time on the water (and try not to be bored), Raylan's phone begins buzzing with news of Boyd's escape. Will he take the call?

Given the ongoing writers' and actors' strikes in Hollywood, we'll most likely be waiting a while for that answer. But we're not counting it out either.

After all, part of what made the original Justified so great was a detour from Leonard's books: Boyd Crowder would have died in the pilot episode if the series had followed the plot of the novella Fire in the Hole, but instead he became Raylan's legendary nemesis for six seasons. Now that Boyd has been uncaged once again, can we really leave that plot thread hanging?

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