Righteous fury has never been so attractive.
This spring break marked my third trip with Project Appalachia and the southern organization Christian Outreach For Appalachian People. Thirty-seven students spent a week painting, cleaning and rehabbing houses in Harlan, Ky. It was an amazing experience, and for many of us who attended, Harlan is a place of fond memories and hopes for a town still suffering from the ill-effects of coal mining.
But a strange thing happened on our return: instead of sighing when trying to explain our typically obscure destination, people began to nod emphatically at the mention of Harlan. “With the coal mining, right?” they would ask. “And the drugs and the skinheads?”
Though we did not encounter any of the latter during our stay, these statements weren’t far off. And my mother finally cleared up my confusion when she called to rave about the premier of an FX show called Justified, which features the always-attractive Timothy Olyphant as a U.S. Marshal who gets relocated after a public shootout in Florida.
Once she was done gushing over his big brown eyes and southern drawl, she explained that Olyphant gets shipped back to Harlan County, Ky., where he grew up.
And suddenly everything made sense, from the cursory references to the region when we had spent spring break to the allusions to Time articles about the area for the first time since the unionization attempts of the ’70s.
Justified has put Harlan back on the radar. Still riding the glow from the service trip, a bunch of us settled in front of our TVs to check out the place that had recently been our home.
And though it may not be an accurate representation of the county, it was still pretty kickin’.
The action-driven show is full of smart dialogue, references to the area’s history and eye candy for all. Raylan Givens (Olyphant) is sent to bust fugitives in Harlan, some of whom he knows from his youth. He tracks these goons to backwater abandoned churches that now serve as skinhead training centers and meets up with an old crush who just murdered her husband with his own shotgun.
Writer Elmore Leonard’s Harlan is a wild place, and though it is by no means the one we stayed and worked in, it makes for some excellent television.
Olyphant is experienced in the ways of the western from his protagonist role in three seasons of HBO’s Deadwood a few years back, and he carries the remnants of his time as a sheriff in the lawless town in South Dakota.
Givens is intimidating and scary and enthralling all at the same time, and the show really plays to that. Though his attire is typically dark, his weathered white hat stands as the symbol of the good guy, giving him the ambiguous vibe that is synonymous with the role. When he speaks with old friend Boyd Crowder, he says “Boyd” with just enough condescension in his voice that he could be saying “boy” as the two glare at each other. His fearless riffs as he stands in front of people pointing guns at him is breathtaking. He has clearly mastered this role.
What is accurate in the show are the surface allusions to the world of coal and the sense of unfulfilled potential that runs through the characters living in Harlan. Country songwriter Darrell Scott wrote a song called “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” and the show reflects that mentality.
The men with the swastikas on their chests are running from the mines and looking for some sense of purpose, however warped, to keep them out of there. Ava, the avenged wife, serves dinner in her dining room two days after cleaning up the blood from where she shot her abusive, miserable coal-miner husband. Givens is stunned that he is returning to Harlan, the home he tried so desperately to escape.
Justified is an amazing show, whether you like the idea of a modern western, are feeling nostalgic for eastern Kentucky or just don’t feel like moving from the couch on Tuesday nights after your Lost fix. It has action, emotion and beautiful, beautiful Olyphant. What more could you ask for?
-Liz
