is paul cooney JUSTIFIED in hating the new t.v. show?

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christopher funderburg, john cribbs & paul cooney

graham yost's JUSTIFIED

 

paul cooney:

Funderburg is driving to Queens! No way the boogie down bx lets a Donal Logue lookin' motherfucker who likes justified hang uptown! [objection: no one has ever agreed with you that I look like Donal Logue. Not a single person. - christopher] [objection over-ruled. - john] [what?! what a goddamned betrayal! - christopher] Yeah, I do have logic issues, in that I like logic!  it's not that hard to make shit logical, just lazy incompetence that prevents it! And as for Olyphant hanging his hat, that is another problem i have with the show: his hair looks stupid when he takes his hat off!  I like my leading men to be beautiful all times, and not suffer from greasy weird parted hat hair.

You do make a good point about the stupid chief standin' in the way of a maverick cop who GETS RESULTS... so, ok, I'll allow that

(Peter Greene needs to change his name. No wonder i never knew that guys name before - how banal!  he should trade with Jack Noseworthy.) I like your idea of Greene bein' unarmed and olyphant guns him down anyhoo. [yeah, that would've been perfect. perfectly awesome. - christopher]

And I will admit that part of my distaste for the show comes from the fact that kentucky looks gross, and the people grosser...there's a reason the great jan hammer only scored shows set in cosmopolitan locales like miami... ky is disgusting.

The chick was just cliche... You make a solid point about Goggins being illogical and downright crazy: that's why he does nutty things like shooting the guy who wasn't a fed and blowing up churches. That said, the rocket launcher was retarded. Tone it down a little. Have him burn the church and lose the whole daylight bank robbing scene with no masks. We know he's a criminal already - that scene was just silly overkill. "He's not driving away immediately! He's so fucking reckless! whooo!" Your cast for Goggins Goin' Bananas is impeccable - is Mike Biehn still alive? Vergara, however, seems destined for bigger things. She and Clooney will be in a rom/com before you know it.

I'll allow crooks are dumb so they don't have a good marshal killin plan...but letting olyphant drive pass...like they just assume..."well shit i bet his car don't have no reverse gear" And it could have so easily been avoided...olyphant gets the call from the chick and rushes off...calls the other marshals and tells them to follow...that way he is a few minutes ahead when the ambush strikes...i don't know how this shit doesn't occur to the writers/director

the black chick is fine except that no one can possibly buy her coming up on the two guys and acting all tough shit  ..little chick cool as shit coming up on two dudes firing machine guns?  bullshit...just cast a bigger chick or have a dude do that scene

how dare you question the duke shooting the dynamite...need i remind you of llyod bentsen dan quayle?  i heart olyphant, but olyphant is no john wayne...wayne could shoot god's dick off a cloud

i liked the first scene with greene, and I liked the end scene at the table. Goggins and Olyphant ooze charisma. It was taut and tense. The line about shooting guys at dinner was great and I bought the chick wildcard screwing up the showdown and letting Olyphant get the drop. My problem was afterwards where Olyphant gets scolded by stupid chief number 2 for not killing him on purpose or some shit - 'cause when it happened i was genuinely like "oh shit, this show suckered me... Olyphant gets blown away in episode one!"  'cause when i see a dude get shot straight in his fucking chest from 5 fucking feet I fucking assume that goddamn wound is fatal. For some chief to sarcastically get on Olyphant like he was a softy - as if even Martin Riggs had the marksmanship to in a split second say, "oh shit he's reachin' and gonna shoot a woman i'd better pull and let me just put it a milimieter away from his heart so i'll just put one in his chest and don't worry it wont touch his heart or spine". Give me a fucking break. That's eating your cake and having it bullshit...

"let's have the scene end with olyphant blowing goggins away!"
"wait we don't want goggins dead...ok just say it missed his heart"
"oh, Paul has something to say...he told us to go fuck ourselves"

episode dos

Despised the driving scene, right from the get go... he's letting him drive???  No cuffs??  This guy is going to jail for life: of course, he is going to try something. How bout turning the car down an embankment and jumping out the driver door and hoping a helpless olyphant dies in the crash? I mean that was just too stupid. And even after he almost kills olyphant and innocent drivers olyphant still lets him drive!  

I hadn't even thought about the station attendant...you're right...and it was stupid about  "hey olyphant we got a prison break out..." 2 minutes later..."whaddya know!  a gas station!" [again, I think you guys don't understand really rural areas like Harlan County. A gas station being open late at night would be a little weird and certainly notable enough to be worth checking in on. And the older convict mention his plan to turn on the lights would land them a car. It was all actually a nice little bit that was thought out pretty well, in my estimation. - christopher] But i was willing to just be like "alright, whatever, coulda happened," and i did like the t shirt bit. The breakout was pretty stupid however. "You hide in the porta potty. I'm pretty sure only one guard will investigate. I'll pick up a blunt object that always seem to be near port-a-johns and I'll hit him."

I'll allow the break in crap and floorboards and ok fine criminals are dumb and he shoots him and lets him live... that could happen. Did you just disrespect Year of Living Dangerously? Did that just happen?  I have a death list...you're on it. And Funderburg did have his way with you while you slept. His genius is that he leaves no traces. Unless you stick that q-tip deep in your ear you never find out that that waxy build up is actually cum... and you should never stick shit in your ear. [objection? - christopher] [sustained. - john]

But that end scene was terrible. To have the sniper actually state something along the lines of "he does something bad, i drop him" and then he shoots the hostage! HE SHOOTS THE HOSTAGE!  Was the sniper on a piss break?  Was he back at Club Wandersexxx with Lucy Lawless?

"Hey cooper... ummm he put a bullet in the hostage. Wasn't that a good time to blow him away.?"
"yeah. um. i was getting a text message. actually a sexting. hot little puerto rican chick i been seeing."

As soon as he shoots the hostage I'm waiting for the bullet from the sniper but nada! Never addressed. And again, just have him shoot the hostage before the marshals show up! Are these directors/writers fucking retarded? I cant help it if I desire excellence...

- Roy O'Bannion himself

 

john cribbs:

Of course I mean Queens... I was certainly not confusing Cougar's wife with his mistress, who is also lovely and also pregnant, and lives in the Bronx. That cat's got chiquitas lined up in all 5 boroughs (note to Maritza if she is reading this: nothing I just said is true. Es un chiste.)

Again, many fine points Cooney. Peter Greene should definitely change his name - we are in agreement on that. But I think Olyphant looks damn sexy, hat on or off.  The valid problems you pointed out (the botched hit on the marshals after Olyphant's car has gone by, prisoner driving the car, the sniper who sextexts when he should be shooting) I all blame on the Hard Rain dude. Have you ever seen Hard Rain? Nothing makes sense in that movie.

But those really are things I can get past due to the overall charm and entertainment of the show thus far. That might change in an episode or two, but I find it solid for the moment.

And Olyphant is a good shot. Seriously, just leave it at that. He didn't want to kill his friends, and we didn't want Googins to die. We're all having our cake together, and it's delicious!

- Olyphant's offended stylist himself

 

christopher funderburg:

Let me weigh in for two seconds and end this madness. So many of your little complaints, Paul, are address by the show. In episode dos, Olyphant says he tried to kill Goggins, no wound him, and was just unlucky. He didn't "hit the bullseye." Something like only 15% of handgun wounds are fatal, so I can buy that it wasn't a kill-shot, but that a kill-shot is exactly what the extremely poorly-named "Raylon Givens" was going for. I mean, the show does make at very least a half-assed effort to address the questions of "why did Olyphant stop at the convenience store that the escaped cons were in?" or "why did he leave the assault-rifle shoot-out?" or "how did bad dude #2 figure out where the money is buried?" and I'm sorry that you seemed to have missed them. As John points out, Goggins is so crazy he can intimidate witnesses and is willing to risk being seen without a mask. But then Olyphant takes him down in a matter of days.

Anyway, the enjoyment of this show is in the clever lines and weird character relationships - the stuff with his ex-wife is excellent - and if there's a bit of heightened reality, I'm with John: it's a work of genre fiction, not a documentary. And I don't want to see a boring show that accurately captures the true tedium and inanity of police work in a rural county. I'm sure Olyphant with bust some meth-heads at some point, but that's not the only thing I want to see him do. Or watch him write speeding tickets or harass poor black people because they haven't registered their firearms or they like to smoke weed. I like a good "hidden loot" story and I really like a good "psychotic criminal goes over the edge" story, so I was cool with the first two episodes. I'm not sure I'll go out of my way to watch the show (before it aired I was sure I would find a way to see every single one), but I have overall positive feelings about it.

The sniper/hostage/Eurotrip actor stand-off sucked though. They really need to do better than that. But then, there was the funny exchange between the retired stripper and the housewife about her breast implants that was funny and unexpected. It's good writing all around, especially for t.v.

Let's end this on a positive note and focus on something we can all agree on: Descontrol.

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