Justified: The Complete Third Season

One of the better cable dramas on TV, this FX-aired crime show is based on a story (and later novel) by Elmore Leonard, maintaining the flavor of the author's work in its tale of U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a cowboy of a lawman punitively assigned to his home state of Kentucky (and the Southern crime culture he thought he had escaped). As in previous seasons, this one is built around a self-contained narrative arc while also following the rocky roads of the core characters. Here, Givens finds himself pitted against a pair of villains: Chicago mob operator Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough)—essentially a carpetbagger who comes to Kentucky to establish a drug empire in Givens' backyard—and a backwoods godfather named Ellstin Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson), who conducts his shifty business from a barbecue shack. Justified features an almost instinctively self-destructive hero in Givens (who sabotages any hope of reconciliation with his ex-wife this season), vivid supporting players (especially Walton Goggins as philosophical crime boss Boyd Crowder), and smart screenwriting in a pulp-fiction format. Compiling all 13 episodes from the 2012 third season, extras include audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, and outtakes. The Blu-ray edition also features an interview with Olyphant and Goggins. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)