Justified: City Primeval Showrunner Says Another Raylan Givens Series Could Happen in the Future

After more than eight years away from the spotlight, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens recently returned to TV with a brand new series. FX’s Justified: City Primeval is a follow-up to the award-winning Justified series, and it sees Timothy Olyphant reprise his role as Raylan Givens. This time around, Raylan is working on a case in Detroit, rather than chasing down drug dealers in Harlan, Kentucky. It’s an evolution of Raylan’s story and a new adventure for the character, and it proves that the character could come back for even more tales in the future.

Michael Dinner, who directed episodes of the original Justified series, serves as co-showrunner on City Primeval alongside Dave Andron. During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Dinner revealed that City Primeval may not be the last we see of Raylan Givens. 

“Well, here’s the thing. We didn’t do this to go back to the past, but to go back to the feeling we had doing this in the past,” Dinner explained. “And I think everybody came away from it feeling like we had a great time: the writers who were in the room, the actors, most particularly Tim. I’ve said it before, but I think the six years of the original Justified is the first act of this guy’s life. The story is you can’t go home again, but this is a different story. We pick him up about 10 years later, and there’s an existential story in these eight episodes. The road in front of him is a lot shorter than the road behind, and how do we deal with that? It’s something we’ll all deal with, you know?”

“But I do think there’s a third chapter, in success, if the audience comes to this,” the filmmaker continued. “We’re waiting to see how that happens over the next couple weeks, and if FX wants to do another chapter, I think that Tim would want to do it. Dave and I would want to do it. [Justified showrunner] Graham [Yost] is in an Apple deal, but he acted like the uncle on this. And whether he is still in an Apple deal or not, he would probably give it his blessing. The rest of the writers would also want to do it, so it’d be great to do another chapter.”

Dinner went on to talk about Olyphant’s performance as Raylan Givens over the years, and how he believes the actor has even more to give the character now than he did when he started.

“It’s interesting for me because I’m here in London doing [Silo season two] and I did a seminar/talk thing for the London Film School, and we couldn’t show the first episode of Justified: City Primeval, because it was gonna be at ATX and they had the exclusive. So I screened the pilot of the original show, and I hadn’t watched it in a few years,” Dinner said. “The response was great, and Tim was great in it. But I look at City Primeval, and he’s even greater. He’s now 10 years older, and there’s not one false note in this, in terms of who he is and his performance. So I think you’re right. He’s fantastic. Tim is Raylan and Raylan is Tim, and there’s an opportunity if someone wants us to do it again. I think that we can do it again.”

What Is Justified: City Primeval About?

Here’s the official synopsis for Justified: City Primeval:

“Having left the hollers of Kentucky eight years ago, Raylan Givens now lives in Miami, a walking anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl. His hair is grayer, his hat is dirtier, and the road in front of him is suddenly a lot shorter than the road behind. A chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway sends him to Detroit. There he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent, sociopathic desperado who’s already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once and aims to do so again. Mansell’s lawyer, formidable Motor City native Carolyn Wilder, has every intention of representing her client, even as she finds herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well. These three characters set out on a collision course in classic Elmore Leonard fashion, to see who makes it out of the City Primeval alive.”