The best episodes of Justified
Ranked by viewer rating, highs first. Lit marks on the season rail place this list across the run. Vote on a placement to back it or contest it.
- 01
After some bad publicity involving a shooting, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens' boss transfers Raylan from Miami to Lexington, Kentucky. Under Chief Deputy Art Mullen, an old friend from the academy, Raylan takes on the case of the murder of a young white supremacist who is linked to a church bombing. The chief suspect is Boyd Crowder, a childhood friend of Raylan's. In order to catch him, Raylan returns to his hometown of Harlan. Boyd gives Raylan an ultimatum: leave Harlan within twenty-four hours or be killed. After a tense confrontation at an old acquaintance's house, Raylan gets the drop on Boyd and shoots him in the chest, though he survives and is hospitalized.
- 02
The bad blood between the Bennetts and the Crowders reaches its boiling point and results in bloodshed, and Loretta returns from Lexington to avenge her father's death.
- 03
As the coal mine makes one final attempt to negotiate with the Bennett clan, Loretta begins to piece together what the Bennetts did with her father.
- 04
Raylan tries to track down Dicky after Helen is killed, but he is forced to turn to Arlo to make a deal and get Mags' blessing.
- 05
After the murder of his friend, Raylan is a man on fire as he goes after any- and everyone he holds responsible on the way to a bloody final showdown.
- 06
Raylan is turned hostage negotiator when a dangerous inmate holds a group of people hostage. Raylan's affair with Ava inadvertently grants Boyd an early release from prison.
- 07
In the first season finale, Harlan is turned into a battlefield when the tense situation between Raylan, Arlo, Boyd and Bo Crowder finally comes to a head. When Bo sadistically kills all of his son's followers, Boyd looks to Raylan for help. Arlo's plan to betray Raylan is found out, and he is shot by Raylan. Ava is kidnapped by Bo and Johnny Crowder, after which, Bo shoots Johnny for suspected collusion with Boyd. Boyd and Raylan go after Bo to rescue Ava. At the standoff, Bo is unexpectedly killed, in an ambush, by Miami gun runners who are after Raylan. Raylan and Boyd manage to save Ava and kill three of them, but one of them escapes. Raylan is forced to let Boyd (who calls Raylan his "only friend") chase after Bo's surviving killer.
- 08
A shocking murder forces Raylan to confront his past mistakes. Boyd grapples with Harlan's corrupt sheriff.
- 09
While Raylan closes in on an ever-more-unpredictable Quarles, Boyd enters into an unlikely alliance with Dickie Bennett in a last-ditch attempt to recover Mags's fortune.
- 10
Raylan and the Miami mob compete to capture a fugitive, Roland Pike. The Miami mob wants to kill Pike because Pike was their former accountant and he stole their money and disappeared. The authorities want Pike to act as an informant. Raylan once had a chance to nab Pike, but Pike lied to him and ran off. Pike comes out of hiding as a result of brutally attacking a client from Pike's dental office. The Miami mob spots Raylan looking for Pike, and decides to kill both Raylan and Pike when they have a chance. Raylan eventually kills two of the mob henchmen on his tail (marking the third episode in which Raylan kills someone), and then finds Pike. Pike decides to let a sniper shoot him.
- 11
Raylan's step-mother and aunt, Helen, calls him to tell him Arlo is in jail. Raylan reluctantly goes to Harlan, where Helen tells Raylan he needs to bail out his father. Raylan is wary about getting too involved with his father, who made Raylan live in fear growing up and who was constantly involved in some sort of scheme. Arlo in part blames his behavior on his own father, a religious man who mistreated him. Raylan eventually discovers that Arlo planned to use his own son as a shield from Oxycontin ("hillbilly heroin") runners, whom Arlo had stolen from. Arlo's plan works, as Raylan finds Oxy at the drug runners' house (planted by Helen) and threatens the Oxy runners with jail if he goes after Helen and Arlo again. Raylan doesn't even bother asking Arlo where the stolen Oxy or money is because he knows Arlo will not tell him.
- 12
Having been suspended from the Marshal's service, Raylan decides to use his free time to go head-to-head with the gangsters who are bothering Winona's new husband.
- 13
After Winona realizes that Raylan didn't recover her counterfeit $100 bill from the bank robbery, she drops another bombshell on him. Meanwhile, the coal mine offers Boyd a new job more suited to his skills.
- 14
As Winona begins divorce proceedings, Raylan begins to contemplate his future as a marshal. Meanwhile, Dicky Bennett takes exception to his family's new business arrangement with Boyd Crowder.
- 15
Raylan tries to find out who tried to kill him, but the investigation leads to an unlikely source. Meanwhile, Dicky retaliates after Boyd stakes his claim on the Bennett clan's marijuana business.
- 16
The arrival of a dangerous new player in Lexington puts Raylan on a collision course with a sadistic Dixie Mafia hitman.
- 17
Boyd and the Detroit Mob try every dirty trick there is to stop Raylan and Drew Thompson from leaving Harlan alive.
- 18
A wealthy man seemingly commits suicide on a luxurious Kentucky horse ranch, and Raylan must hunt for his missing art collection while resisting the advances of his attractive widow.
- 19
Raylan is assigned to guard an eccentric judge, but Raylan takes time off from the assignment to track down an old lead connected with the Crowders.
- 20
Raylan tangles with a ruthless Harlan County crime family while hunting for a fugitive sex offender.
- 21
Dewey Crowe returns and tries to score on a drug shipment, but the bus carrying the drugs is hijacked, and he tries to impersonate Raylan Givens to get it back. Meanwhile Boyd gets a proposition from some fellow coal miners.
- 22
Boyd reluctantly joins a payroll heist, but can he trust his new partners? Meanwhile, Raylan's investigation into a forged signature on a dead man's government check leads back to the Bennett clan.
- 23
The murder of a fellow Marshal throws Raylan together with a woman from his past. Boyd engineers a showdown with Dickie Bennett.
- 24
Raylan races to save Dewey Crowe from a gang of vicious organ harvesters. Boyd faces off with a new adversary.
- 25
As his feud with Quarles and the Detroit mob heats up, Raylan's tactics puts him at odds with the FBI.
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