What I'm Watching: Justified: City Primeval, SAG-AFTRA Coverage, and More

On strike solidarity and a whole lot of new writing.

Vivian Olyphant, Timothy Olyphant, Justified: City Primeval

Here’s the rundown on everything I watched, read, and wrote about this week:

The shows:

• FX’s excellent neo-Western series Justified is back after eight years off the air with Justified: City Primeval, and it picks up where the original left off in terms of tone, quality, and effortless cool. Timothy Olyphant was born to play the role of Raylan Givens, and as usual in the Elmore Leonard-based story, the villains and supporting characters who surround the U.S. Marshal are just as richly written as he is. Plus, the series is appropriately contemplative about the role of a gunslinging lawman in 2023 America. I’m saving the rest of my thoughts for longer-form writing on the show, but suffice it to say this one quickly jumped into my top 5 shows of the year so far.

The movies:

• I think this is a first for this newsletter, folks: I didn’t watch any movies this week. I did replace my car headlight, replace my computer, make a plan to fix my finances, clean my apartment for a surprise inspection, pay my taxes, deal with a chronic pain flare-up, endure a heat wave, hang out with my friend from college, write a crapload, and decide to move, though, so I was pretty busy. Let’s call it a by-week! What movies did all of you watch? What should I watch next week (besides Barbie and Oppenheimer, obviously)?

Odds and ends:

• By now you’ve probably heard about the SAG-AFTRA strike that started this week. I’m wholeheartedly supportive of both strikes happening in Hollywood right now and, while they’ll of course impact my work, I’m very grateful to be able to stand in solidary with guild members for as long as is needed to get this stuff done. If you want to know more about the ins and outs of the strike, or even if you think you know a lot already, I highly recommend reading this piece by my friend Amelia. I also recommend watching this full speech by SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, which should get everyone fired up regardless of what industry you work in. AI encroachment will impact all of us, and these two guilds are on the forefront of the fight for (human!) workers’ rights at a pivotal moment!