In an interview with NPR, Yost revealed that the present’s writers did not conduct any on-the-ground analysis in Kentucky till they had been prepping for the second season. After they lastly went on an ATV tour of Harlan County, they discovered from certainly one of their guides that, in his estimation, they’d efficiently captured the flavour of the area. This was vastly validating for Yost, whose main duty was honoring the voice of creator Elmore Leonard, with out whom these banter-happy characters and this corrupt slice of rustic residing would not exist.
As he instructed NPR:
“[W]e had been all the time making an attempt to use Elmore’s guidelines of creating characters attention-grabbing and having them converse effectively and be good and intelligent. Sure, we have stuffed that a part of the world with loads of unhealthy guys, way over there truly are, however I used to be all the time hoping that folks in Harlan would view our present in the identical manner that folks in New Jersey view The Sopranos, which is, ‘OK, it is not actuality, but it surely’s enjoyable.’ We did not wish to ever insult folks so we all the time tried to maintain our unhealthy guys fairly intelligent. I believe when you create loads of silly characters, that is insulting, but when they’re attention-grabbing unhealthy guys, I believe that is type of enjoyable.”
Mission achieved. Even the dimmest of bulbs in “Justified” (e.g. Jeremy Davies’ Dickie Bennett) can fireplace off a nifty riposte in the best scenario. That is what saved us coming again to the present, and what has us stoked for “Justified: Metropolis Primeval.” There’s delight in being a local Kentuckian, and, when you’re from Harlan County, a shared, shoulder-to-shoulder camaraderie. As Boyd Crowder tells Raylan Givens within the sequence’ ultimate episode, “We dug coal collectively.”