‘Justified’ series finale recap: Graham Yost talks Raylan shootout, circling back to the pilot

Justified wrapped with an action packed series finale Tuesday night and creator Graham Yost talked about the pivotal scenes, decisions and more while speaking with EW.

“We felt that it came down to Raylan,” Yost begins when asked about the survival of Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins).

“It needed to be Raylan’s choice and the idea was to basically answer the question that was posed at the end of the pilot: What would he have done with Tommy Bucks if Tommy Bucks hadn’t drawn? And in this case Boyd’s got a gun but he refuses to pull, so it’s kind of this same situation. Lord knows over the years, what Boyd’s done, in particular in the last couple of episodes, he warrants a bullet – as much as we love him. So we needed to have Raylan have to make that choice.”

The dynamics between Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) and Crowder began in the pilot and Yost explains the full circle.

“…part of the thing we wanted to do was bring the whole series full circle. When Raylan first saw Boyd back six seasons ago at Boyd’s church, there was this history between them,” Yost tells EW.

“No matter what was going on between them at the present, there was a history. It’s Elmore’s line in “Fire In The Hole” after he’s shot and killed Boyd in the story he says ‘I’m sorry,’ and Ava says, ‘Why did you say that?’ And Raylan says, ‘Well, we dug coal together.’ So that was in the pilot and then when we were talking about that final scene, it was actually Walton’s idea to echo that and it seemed to fit.”

Of course there’s the climactic shootout with Boon and Yost gives his take on the scene.

“Once we decided that Raylan wouldn’t kill Boyd, we felt we wanted to have Raylan in a situation where it looks like he could lose his life, and so that was one of the reasons why we introduced Boon. We wanted someone who was a young gun, like Raylan of 20 years ago, and have him go up against himself of the past. And then we just lucked out with the location and lucked out with having Adam Arkin directing it. The way he staged it was just awesome. And Jonathan Tucker, man, he was just a welcome addition to the whole run.”

Yost talks bad guys, the fate of Bob (Patton Oswalt), Ava (Joelle Carter), the relationship with Winona and much more.

Check out the full interview here