Post-Leonardian insight

We've made it to season 6 of Justified, a show that's generally been easy to watch. Right out of the gate it stayed true to originator Elmore Leonard's take on the heroic narrative -- Marshall Raylan Givens, played by Timothy Olyphant, is a man on the cusp of midlife, old enough to have amassed experience and a touch of deep wisdom, while still virile enough to attract the ladies and mete out violence.

A television series is a group project, of course, and so a departure from Leonard's template was inevitable -- and, from my POV, entirely welcome. Leonard's women tend to be cyphers whose behavior is either inexplicably impetuous or inscrutably calculated. If the novel doesn't break the 350 page mark, I don't mind giving this take on the female psyche a "pass" -- any longer, though, and credulity is strained to the breaking point.

Although Givens' ex-wife/love interest is the typical Leonardian "inexplicably impetuous" type, the series nevertheless produced female characters possessed of emotional depth and motivational nuance -- particularly Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter).

Ava is another ex of Givens, one who actually sees through the bad boy charm and thus dissipates some of the virility aura he is so pleased to exploit. She is present in all six seasons -- the contrast she brings to the Givens character becomes so persuasive the viewer is forced to concede something about Leonard's creation that Leonard, in all his years of writing, could never quite come around to: his "hero" is, in fact, an incredible asshole -- one who somehow, despite this character deficit, manages the heroic feat.

I haven't yet finished the series, so this is as far as the grand theories and profound insights go. But it's one I'm grateful for. I recently commented (to my wife, of all people) that a man who doesn't have at least one friend who knows what an incredible asshole he can be, and who calls him out on it, is a man who leads a profoundly lonely life. Story telling that tips its hat to this reality is, it seems to me, doing beholders of this particular historical moment a great favour.