If Walton Goggins delivered the news to me that I was dying, I don't think I could meet my maker with a bigger smile on my face. The actor has quite the way with words and delivering those words, so anything he declares about his fabulous former TV home Justified is going to be eagerly embraced by our ear canals. And his thoughts about the future of Justified and one Boyd Crowder are a waterfall on a hot summer day. Here's what Goggins thinks will happen to the - late-days spoiler - currently imprisoned Boyd.
He'll get out. Someday, he'll get out. I'll give it another three or four years, but he'll get out. I wouldn't be averse to returning to that relationship with Tim Olyphant's Raylan Givens for a very specific run. Maybe there's one more chapter to that story. It's hard to kill your babies, man. It's hard to lay them down.
Now, we're not taking this as southern gospel that Justified will definitely return for another possibly truncated final final season, because even Walton Goggins is putting some years between the show's finale and another Kentucky fried showdown, and anything can happen in that stretch of time. But sometimes it takes nothing more that an early kernel of conversation to get the ball rolling.
Plus, it makes sense for all reasons conceivable. One, Boyd Crowder is not the kind of outlaw who stays behind bars for extended stints, so there is more to his story in the outside world, and Raylan will be the guy there to see him through it, or out of it. Timothy Olyphant and creator Graham Yost were also so attached to Justified that it's easy to assume they'll also get the 5-or-so-year itch for another booming trip through Harlan County. That's the joy of having Elmore Leonard as source material; the lead characters don't always have to die - although lots of people do - and you can afford yourself a path to a new story in the future.
Goggins told EW he was really feeling the show's absence last year at the time when production on Justified would usually start. And it's apparently not hard at all to bring the Boyd Crowder mindset back to the forefront, according to the actor.
He's never more than a cold beer and an intellectual, Machiavellian comment away.
Somebody get that man some beer!
Graham Yost is one of the forces behind FX's The Americans, which has two more seasons left, and while we're not trying to limit the talented writer from tackling any new projects, maybe he could start mulling over, just mulling, over what a new season of Justified would look like.
Boyd would have a wild time hanging out with Goggins' latest character, a supremely devious school administrator working with Danny McBride on HBO's upcoming comedy Vice Principals. I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but the comedy is an absolute gut-buster - read my review here, schoolchums - and Goggins is a big part of the fun. Be sure to check it out when it airs on HBO on Sunday, July 17, at 10:30 p.m. ET.
