'Justified: City Primeval' review: Raylan Givens is back in this so-so reboot

WHAT IT'S ABOUT U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is back in this eight-parter based on Elmore Leonard's 1980 novel of the same name, with several key changes. (The big one — Givens never appeared in the novel.) Now living in Miami with his daughter (Vivian Olyphant, who is, in fact, Olyphant's daughter), Raylan goes with her to Detroit where he helps the police try to find the killer of a judge — a crooked one who kept a little black book with the names of everyone in Detroit on the take. Givens quickly runs up against attorney Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis) who is defending the judge's killer, Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook). She's got ties to another shady local figure and saloon keeper — who also has ties to Mansell — by the name of Sweetie (Vondie Curtis-Hall). FX's original six-season series (2010-15) was based on the Leonard novella, "Fire in the Hole."

MY SAY When "Justified" wrapped eight years ago, half of the series' fictional Harlan County seemed to have been depopulated by mob wars (or by Margo Martindale's Mags Bennett) while Givens' arch-nemesis Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) was finally behind bars.

 What could possibly be left unfinished (or undead) in this series? 

Raylan, obviously, because one of TV's most satisfying characters of the last decade just rode off into the figurative sunset by the end of the 6th, remaining an enigma to his fans and possibly to the actor who played him. But Olyphant wanted to move on, and that was that. 

Or was, until now. He's back, and the first thing we learn about Raylan 2.0 is that his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea, who has a cameo) might have a good case for sole custody. He leaves his kid alone for whole stretches, sometimes whole nights. The bad guy even seems to spend more time with her than dad.  He's still got that USC swim team-sculpted bod too (Olyphant was a college all-star swimmer). Viewers will get a glimpse from the waist up as a reminder that neither has spent the last eight years eating potato chips and bingeing Netflix.

Meanwhile, Raylan's almost-white Stetson remains his most reliable fashion accessory. One is never without the other. 

Raylan is still Raylan — that's reassuring — but what's a little less reassuring is the story that's brought him back to primetime. Getting U.S. Marshal Givens from Miami to Detroit requires quite a leap of faith in both story and execution, and quite a leap takes place here. It's all so vaguely preposterous that you start to wonder whether it's supposed to be some meta loop-de-loop that's transported Raylan from one genre (neo-western) to another (neo-western-comedy).

"Primeval" also feels like a time capsule that emerged straight from the 2015 pipeline. This could have easily aired in 2016, which might be the whole idea — preserve Elmore Leonard, preserve Raylan, preserve the time frame, except that after a while it all begins to feel like it's been preserved in formaldehyde.

The story shambles at first, then picks up but never quite enough to place this among the better seasons of "Justified." What's obviously good is the setting, Detroit (the series was filmed in Chicago) and the actors — seasoned pros like Ellis and Curtis-Hall, also Broadway's Norbert Leo Butz (who plays a trigger-happy cop).

Holbrook ("Narcos") is good too, except as far as psycho-killers go — a "Justified" specialty, by the way — Goggins was better. 

 BOTTOM LINE So-so reboot, but fans will want to stick around for the closing minutes of the final episode. They won't be disappointed.