May contain spoilers for Seasons 1-4

Justified is another show that utilizes the "big bad" formula (A new villain every season), but the difference between this series and most others is the exceptional writing from Graham Yost. He's able to give his villains a layer of depth that is unparalleled on television and somehow makes them every bit as compelling as our protagonists every single year. Season 1 had Bo Crowder (M.C. Gainey), and despite only appearing in 5 episodes, commanded the screen every second he appeared. Season 2 set the bar with the Bennett clan, proving that a woman as sweet as pie could also be ice cold, landing Margo Martindale a much deserved Emmy as the family matriarch, Mags Bennett. Season 3 had debatably the best villain the show has seen with carpet bagger Robert Quarles, played by the astounding Neal McDonough, Quarles was evil, vicious, unpredictable, charismatic, and chewed the scenery every time he was on camera. Season 4 changed the format up a bit and introduced a D.B. Cooper inspired storyline, while giving us our big bad midway through in Nicky Augustine, played to menacing perfection by Mike O'Malley. Season 5 is the season of the Crowes.

Season 5 follows two prominent storylines, picking up shortly after Season 4's conclusion, we open the season with our favorite dimwit Dewey Crowe suing the Marshal's office for police brutality against Raylan, winning $300,000 and promptly buying Boyd's bar/brothel, Audrey's, to live the dream so to speak. Chief Art Mullen (Nick Searcy) soon assigns Raylan a case to hunt a fugitive down in Florida whom is a known associate with a family Raylan is well acquainted with, Dewey's kin, the Crowe family, while at the same time giving Raylan some time to see his ex, Winona (Natalie Zea) and his newborn baby girl.

While he's there we learn that Raylan has had quite the history with the Crowe clan as we meet Darryl Crowe Jr. (played by Michael Rapaport.) Before being transferred back to Kentucky in the pilot of the series, Raylan had arrested Darryl for one reason or another and it landed him in federal prison, and is now currently on probation that doesn't allow him to leave the state of Florida. Darryl claims to be a changed man and offers to help Raylan catch his fugitive, hiring his sister Wendy (played by Alicia Witt) as his lawyer, whom strikes a deal with Raylan; If Darryl helps Raylan apprehend the fugitive, then Raylan will get the judge to remove his probation. Raylan agrees and everything goes smoothly. In the process, Raylan lets slip of Dewey's newfound fortune.

As important as Raylan is to this show, Boyd is every bit as important this season, maybe even more so. As we catch up with Boyd, he is now in a full fledged partnership with Wynn Duffy (Played by Jere Burns.) After being betrayed last season by Sheriff Nick Mooney (played by William Gregory Lee) which allowed Lee Paxton (played by Sam Anderson) to turn the tables on him, that resulted the imprisonment of Ava He has sold Audrey's to Dewey for a good sum of money to help grease the wheels to get Ava out of prison, while at the same time trying to establish his new drug empire. Boyd is trying to scramble to come up with a plan that will undermine Mooney and Paxton before Ava's trial, which will send her to federal prison. Things go according to plan, until Ava is framed for something she doesn't commit, securing her fate.

Raylan, now back in Harlan, is business as usual... hunting down the occasional fugitive, seizing mansions from the rich that have ties to the Detroit mob and then preceding to occupy said mansion until that person is out of prison, meanwhile taking up with a social worker named Allison (played by Amy Smart), though his bliss is soon interrupted with the arrival of Darryl and Wendy Crowe, along with their brothers, Danny (played by A.J. Buckley), a hick in every sense of the word who might have even less intelligence than Dewey, but is lethal with a knife, Kendal (played by Jacob Lofland), the youngest Crowe, and the Haitian family trustee, Jean Baptiste (played by Edi Gathegi), in tow looking to settle down in Harlan with new criminal enterprises in mind.

With Boyd now scrambling to do everything in his power to get Ava out of prison, while also trying to find out who has been ripping off his drug shipments, having to fear the wrath of the various drug cartels that are now after him and Raylan having to deal with the ever growing thorn in his side known as the Crowe family, this season is as gripping as Justified has ever been.

While typically the biggest draw of Justified for me is the strong writing, and watching Walton Goggins disappear into the role of Boyd (I firmly believe he's the best actor currently on television), I think for the past couple of seasons, just as big of a draw for the series at this point is Raylan's morally gray trajectory. In the past, Raylan has skimmed the line of morality, going all the way back to the opening moments of the series with Tommy Bucks, when he gave him 24 hours to leave town and declared he'd kill him on sight if not, he (justifiably) does when Bucks refuses to leave and pulls on him. Though our most notably example of Raylan bordering on the edge was in the season 4 finale when he called the brutal execution of Nicky Augustine. This season touches on where Raylan is going just a bit more. In this season, we have two great guest stars in David Koechner and Eric Roberts portraying both sides of Raylan's path yet taken. Koechner's character, Deputy Sutter is happily married with children, has a job he loves while being close to his family. Eric Robert's Agent Miller however, is the polar opposite. He's bent, lets drugs slide if it means info for himself, is a miserable drunk, has kids he regrets, and worst of all, he kills unarmed suspects to simply make a statement. In one of the season's defining moments, Miller takes on Danny with his "21 foot rule", obviously echoing Raylan's own hubris. While Raylan is initially friendly with Miller, he ends up appalled by his actions, yet he can't quite bring himself to become like Sutter, though the season finale indicates what path he might take.

This season in short, is by all means a setup for Season 6, an indicator of where things will end up by series end and most importantly this is a season of our character's ultimate crucible's. Raylan, Boyd and Ava are all pushed to their absolute limits by seasons end, and every one of our central character is at an impasse, Raylan's always towed the line between good cop/bad cop, but the growing annoyance of Darryl Crowe Jr. and the increasing temptation of crossing that line once more to rid Harlan of the Crowe family by any means may be the time where he goes too far over the line. Boyd is on the end of his rope with associates dead, the cartel after him, and emotionally having to go to the darkest places he's ever gone in attempts to get Ava out of prison, where I was even honestly surprised at length of which the writer's take him, and Ava herself showing us how much of a survivor she truly is. Whatever you think of this penultimate season, the final season is going to be one hell of a send off for Justified.

- Positives:

+ The witty dialogue continues to be the best on television, hands down.

+ The chemistry between the main cast, in particular between Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins. It's unmatched on television.

+ The guest performances. Yes I'm putting this in the positive column. While many put down Michael Rapaport's performance in the season, well more accurately, put down the accent he used, he ended up really making the character his own when he settles into the role. AJ Buckley and Alicia Witt both go against type here and likely deliver the best guest performances in the season. Amy Smart also signs on for a recurring role throughout the season as Raylan's new love interest, Allison, a social worker whom has a edge to her.

+ Fun guest stars. While the last paragraph was dedicated to the recurring guests throughout the season, this one is for the one shot characters. Despite being a comedic actor, Alan Tudyk is brought in as a hired gun thug for Theo Tonin. I've already touched on Eric Roberts turn as Agent Miller, and he was an absolute blast to see interact with Raylan. Steve and Wood Harris play brothers Jay and Roscoe, a couple of thugs who're working with Johnny Crowder (David Meunier) and are looking to overthrow Boyd. Best of all, we also get an appearance from some past fan favorites like Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies reprising his Emmy award winning role) and Loretta (Kaitlyn Dever.) We're also introduced to Mary Steenburgen's Katherine Hale, Wynn Duffy's mentor whom will be a central character next season.

+ Gives us an excellent set up for the final season.

+ Ava. The biggest complaint was how Ava's storyline this season was "pointless" or "it didn't need to be in every episode." This couldn't be further from the truth. After watching Ava's storyline this season, it's truly apparent just how important it was to the series as a whole. She is the backbone/crux of this series, and you may not think so while watching it, but this was an absolutely 100% needed story to further Ava as a character and propel us into the final season.

- Negatives:

- While I did just put it in the positives, I can understand some complaints about Ava's prison storyline. While necessary, it does get a bit tedious in the middle of the season. Many comparisons have been made to Orange is the New Black, though I refuse to label it as such due to this storyline already having been set up prior to Orange even existing.

- Not too much of an issue, but the pacing was a bit over the map in this season.

- Same with most of the prior seasons, some of the supporting players are underutilized, the prime examples being Tim (Jacob Pitts) and Rachel (Erica Tazel.)

Video and Audio:
Much like it's previous seasons, Justified: The Complete Fifth Season is presented on Blu-ray in a high definition 1080p transfer, in it's original 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The image line is sharp, the colors are nice and bold, and the show in general is very clean.

The audio has been mastered with a lossless 5.1 DTS-HD master audio track which is fantastic, the music of the series is upbeat, the dialogue is crystal clear, and sound effects are well layered. There were no signs of distortion or dropouts throughout the set.

There are optional subtitles.

Extras:

Disc 1:

- The big house: Prison set tour. (8:52) - Pretty self explanatory title, a behind the scenes feature with Dave Blass, the production designer of Justified, where they take us on a tour on location of the prison and how the set was constructed and how they shot in a real prison.

- The Onion eulogizes Elmore Leonard (2:59) - A feature with Patton Oswalt (Constable Bob on the show) reading Elmore Leonard's obituary intersected by including Leonard's 10 rules of writing that the article was breaking.

- Getting the shot (7:00) - A behind the scenes feature discussing the cinematography on the series.

- Commentary on "A Murder of Crowes" with Graham Yost, Damon Herriman, Fred Golan, and Michael Dinner.

- Deleted scenes for the episodes Good Intentions, Over the Mountain, and Shot All to Hell. (8:50)

Disc 2:

- The coolest guy in the room (36:12) - A career and life retrospective where the cast and crew celebrate the life of Elmore Leonard, whom sadly passed away wile they were working on the fifth season.

- Season of the Crowes: The making of Season 5 (21:42) - A behind the scenes feature discussing the various new characters in the season, how they came to be, and how Graham approached creating each character for the Crowe clan. They also discussed how the characters were cast and we get to hear from each actor discussing their character.

- King Lear (4:11) - A behind the scenes feature highlighting one of the best scenes of the season where nearly every single antagonist of the season is in the brothel together when Raylan and Eric Robert's guest character show up and dub the meeting "The United Nations of assholes."

- Deleted scenes for the episodes "Kill the Messenger" and "Whistle Past the Graveyard." (5:13)

Disc 3:

- Raylan Givens: Two roads converge (3:14) - A behind the scenes feature comparing and contrasting the characters of Raylan and the guest characters played by David Koechner and Eric Roberts, whom both play versions of a person that Raylan could be depending on what path he takes in the final episodes.

- Writer's Diary: A week of "Starvation" (22:06) - A nice little feature similar to the Season 4 box set feature where they shown us the breaking of episode 4x12 "Peace of Mind", this time following Chris Provanzano breaking down episode the penultimate episode of the season, 5x12, "Starvation."

- The wall of death: Season five body count (2:42) - Obviously do not watch this until after the season. A brief clip discussing the death scenes in the season along with a montage of them all.

- Commentary on the season finale, "Restitution", with Joelle Carter, Alicia Witt, Fred Golan and Dave Andron.

- Deleted scenes on the episode "Restitution" (1:59.)

There were some really nice extras included on this box set. Honestly the only thing it lacked was an extra commentary that included Olyphant and Goggins. By the time I got to the end of the deleted scenes spread across these 3 discs, I can see why most of them were cut for the final product, however there was one nice two minute scene in the finale between Raylan and Allison that I think would have been nice to leave in.

Overall:
The penultimate season of Justified is stellar. I've always found Justified to be one of the strongest written shows on television, and here it's no different. The complete fifth season of Justified pays off in spades, The characters continue to be well developed, the villains are fun and unpredictable, the dialogue and writing in general is second to none, and some of the best episodes in the series to date. You can't miss this show. Highly recommended.