7 Things: Finales #4 – Justified

Not only does Justified have one of the best current theme songs on TV – along with Adventure Time, Phineas and Ferb and Psych – it has some of TV’s finest writing and a real knack for finales. In fact, the first and second season finales of Justified go down as some of my favorites of all time – which is the only reason that this season’s finale was so disappointing. On any other show, that last haunting line of season three would have been more than satisfying, and when I step back from my own expectations, I do recognize how brilliant it was.

It’s just that I really wanted…

* BEWARE SPOILERS *

You see, the draw of Justified for me is the relationship between Raylan and Boyd, the show’s main hero and the show’s main villain, respectively. Though Justified has a rotating roster of uber-bad guys, Boyd remains Raylan’s main nemesis, but their relationship is complicated by the fact that they grew up together. So, even when they are on opposite sides, which is most of the time, they tend to be lenient with each other. Neither of them has choked the life out of the other yet, for instance.

That dynamic led to both the first and second season finales, in which Raylan and Boyd ended up fighting on the same side, or at least against common enemies. That is what makes those finales great. That is what I was expecting this time around as well, especially since the set-up for such a finale was there as it had been in the past two seasons. In fact, if they could have ended up a reluctant team after the way the season premiered, it would have been even more sweet.

So, while we did get deep insight into Raylan as Raylan stated the serious emotional blow he’d been dealt in a rather matter of fact way, and while the creators did add an interesting twist to the Raylan-Boyd relationship, the finale left me with a pout. They’d been enemies all season. I just wanted five minutes where they kicked ass as allies.