Justified: City Primeval Fails to Live Up to Parent Show, And Fans Are Not Having It
Looks like City Primeval is no Young Sheldon or House of the Dragon to the original series.
Justified: City Primeval has only got one episode left to try and satisfy OG Justified fans, but it seems that it will be truly challenging for the creators to do, since the fandom doesn't seem to enjoy the current creative direction of the show.
City Primeval has released seven episodes so far, with the eighth chapter to mark the season finale. However, Justified's subreddit is filled with mixed reactions.
Particularly, some fans believe that even though the most recent episodes managed to raise the bar a little bit, it would be virtually impossible to live up to the original show's standards in just one episode that is left.
City Primeval's main problem, according to fans? Main character, Raylan, just doesn't seem to be who fans fell in love with.
"[...] We've been waiting 7 episodes for just a glimpse of the old Raylan we know and love. And we got to see him the first 5 minutes of the series with the carjackers, and that's pretty much been it. Since then he's just been another cop following people around and not doing much of anything of importance," said Redditor realityriot123.
Other fans noted that episode 7 was a "lackluster for a penultimate episode." Seriously, the show even failed to deliver what it teased as "Raylan and Mansell show down"... unless that lovely dinner was the showdown in question.
Finally, the episode's cliffhanger was rather disappointing and annoying than suspense-building. We get it, the finale is coming, and creators definitely want fans to bite their nails in excitement... but judging by the Reddit reviews, they kinda failed to set everything up for it.
One Reddit fan explained what they think is the new show's main problem.
"While I think overall it's been good, it's much more serialized than the original. While the original series had large overarching plots, there were also plots that were contained within the episode/a few episodes and were resolved in those episodes," Redditor Jrsplays said.
Still, if you crave more Justified, then City Primeval is definitely worth checking out. Based on Elmore Leonard's eponymous novel, City Primeval takes you on an exciting quest for justice (duh) with Timothy Olyphant as Raylan and Boyd Holbrook as his antagonist, criminal Clement Mansell a.k.a. The Oklahoma Wildman.
Episode 8 of Justified: City Primeval is set to premiere on FX on August 29. Who knows, maybe we will get an actual showdown between Olyphant's Raylan and Holbrook's Mansell after all...