Earlier this year, we wrapped up watching Justified. I know there are people that recommended it to me when it was new on TV, and I’m not sure why I didn’t pay attention then, but thank you if you tried, because the recommendations stuck with me and, all these years later, when I saw it was on one of the streaming services I’m currently using, I finally watched it.
I love it, but there are some things it gets wrong about Kentucky – or doesn’t get right enough:
- The landscape. It doesn’t look like Kentucky at all. It’s so obviously California: the pine trees, the dirt, the lack of leafy underbrush and kudzu…
- The lack of University of Kentucky mentions. Any bar or dive restaurant or family-owned business should be covered in UK posters and banners, and people everywhere should be wearing UK t-shirts and sweatshirts and hats. UK basketball and football games should be on TVs. And there should be that one rebellious place that has University of Louisville stuff.
- The prostitutes are too pretty and have all of their teeth.
- Where’s all the fried catfish? And biscuits and gravy? And country ham? And chess pie on special occasions?
- No one mentioned having a Derby party.
- Not one mention of Henderson? Okay, glad you got Paducah in there… but come on, how about a scene where Raylan Givens goes to a big outdoor gathering where there’s burgoo?
- Not one mention of Mammoth Cave?
- And, of course, the accents. Some weren’t even close. And everyone was way, way too understandable. Oh Brother Where Art Thou struck a good balance: obvious accents, but those not from the area could mostly understand it (though my German husband needed subtitles for it). That said, shout out to Damon Herriman (Dewey Crow) of Australia – NAILED THAT ACCENT.
But even with all that it got wrong: LOVED IT.
But did not love Justified: City Primeval. It had NOTHING to do with Raylan Givens – why was he even in it? It’s not a bad story, but it had NOTHING to do with the premise of Justified, Raylan Givens wasn’t at all his snarky, always-together self, I don’t even know why he was in it, and the villain was just so, so, so evil – so evil that I wanted him dead in the first episode and was repulsed every time he came on the screen. Unlike Boyd Crowder.
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