Full Coverage: ‘Justified’

FX’s great crime-drama series “Justified” ended its six-year run last week in a way that both satisfied fans and upended expectations.

For all the western imagery, slick dialogue and curling gun smoke, FX’s “Justified” was always a series about cycles, about people trapped by circumstance or choices made without their input.

This article contains spoilers about the series finale of “Justified.”

“Justified” has been moving at a blistering pace in recent weeks, and “Fugitive Number One” is no exception, as a number of key players meet grisly ends, betrayal is the order of the day and the rules of Harlan County as we know it end up flipped on their head.

The FX series’ combination of gore, goofiness and humor is attributed to crime writer Elmore Leonard, whose ‘Fire in the Hole’ inspired the show.

If you’ve ever run a long-distance race, you know that feeling that shoots through you near the finish line.

Elmore Leonard, like many writers, fashioned a method of self-preservation when it came to dealing with Hollywood.

I believe it was the Philosopher of Noble’s Holler, Ellstin Limehouse, who, when discussing the fiscal realities and criminal underpinnings of one Harlan County, said, “It’s funny how all that money bring all them wayward personalities together.”

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of March 8 - 14, 2015 in PDF format This week’s TV Movies SERIES NCIS Robert Wagner returns as DiNozzo’s (Michael Weatherly) father, who lends his art expertise when the team investigates a murder connected to a rare painting that turns out to have been swapped with a copy, prompting a probe of the world of black-market art dealing.

In the closing moments of “Justified’s” sixth and final season premiere, Raylan and Art share a glass of bourbon, smirking at one another, enjoying the latest back-and-forth in their tense but warm father-son dance, when the discussion turns to what a final confrontation between Raylan and Boyd Crowder might look like.

Welcome to the inevitable, basically customary, shifting allegiances episode that comes but once a “Justified” season.

One week after the gunfight that led to Choo-Choo’s last stand, “Justified” chose to slow things dramatically with “The Hunt,” an episode loaded with talking, talking … and more talking … that cements the stakes for the series’ final chapter.

“Justified” just finished a typically terrific fourth season that featured the Detroit Mafia invading Kentucky, a marriage proposal from antihero Boyd Crowder to his love Ava and Patton Oswalt playing a constable who takes it (and takes it) on the chin before turning into an unlikely hero and saving the day.

Harlan County has a history of breeding mammoth, bruising, short-on-brains antagonists for Raylan Givens.

Harlan County may be on its deathbed, but the writing staff over at “Justified” is giving the town one hell of a eulogy, managing to peek back on some of the lives we’ve stepped in and out of over the years, even in the midst of what’s supposed to be Raylan and Boyd’s climactic tilt in the withering coal country.