99 Words About … The down-home greatness of ‘Justified’

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The role of Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens has come to envelop Timothy Olyphant like the jeans over which his legions of female admirers rhapsodize.

And the backwoods shot callers of the hoot-in-the-holler “Justified” (10 p.m. Tuesday, FX), led by the magnificent Walton Goggins, have blossomed into a real murderers’ row. Literally and figuratively.

But mostly it’s the writing, patterned after Elmore Leonard’s, that makes even the tiniest details feel as well-worn as Raylan’s Stetson.

“Justified” has become essential viewing for anyone who treasures the written word.

But if that doesn’t do it for you, there’s always Raylan’s jeans.

— CHRISTOPHER LAWRENCE