Here’s How ‘Justified: City Primeval’ Landed That Incredible Season Finale Cameo

Bringing Justified‘s most notorious criminal to Justified: City Primeval was no small task. Luckily, the producers accomplished it with the help of an empty prison in Pittsburgh. Viewers of last night’s City Primeval finale know that Raylan Givens’ greatest nemesis and former coal-digging colleague Boyd Crowder is on the loose again, having escaped from prison where he’d been left at the end of Justified. In a new interview with Deadline, City Primeval executive producer Michael Dinner explains how the show overcame Covid restrictions and Walton Goggins‘ busy schedule to bring back Boyd.

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Although Goggins was busy starring in Jonathan Nolan‘s Fallout adaptation for Prime Video, he was interested in reprising the character, but was only available for a day and a half. However, with filming set to go in a week and a half, Covid restrictions and understaffing shut down all filming in Illinois’ prisons. Unable to build sets in the short timeframe, the production instead shifted to Pittsburgh, where a suitable abandoned prison was found to shoot in, as was a scenic bridge for Crowder’s escape – a bridge that was set for demolition weeks later. Everything fell into place, and viewers were treated to the triumphant return of Boyd Crowder.

Who Is Boyd Crowder?

An explosives expert from the coal mines of Harlan County, Kentucky, Boyd Crowder became a white supremacist terrorist, robbing banks to finance his growing militia. In the first episode of Justified, he seeks vengeance on his sister-in-law, Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter), who’s just killed his brother after years of emotional and physical abuse. In doing so, he runs afoul of Harlan native Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), an old acquaintance who has since become a federal marshal. Crowder died at the end of Fire in the Hole, the Elmore Leonard short story that Justified‘s pilot episode was based on, and the same fate was originally going to befall him on the series, as well. But Goggins’ performance impressed the producers to such an extent that he was spared, and eventually became the series’ longest-running antagonist, alternately bedeviling and assisting Raylan Givens. Over Justified‘s six seasons, Crowder went to jail, found religion, fathered a son with Ava, and turned to crime over and over again, all the while clashing with the relentless Givens. By the series’ end, Boyd is in jail, seemingly for good, and at peace with himself and Givens – after all, as Givens says, “We dug coal together”.

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Justified: City Primeval is a continuation of the original Justified series, although Olyphant (and Goggins, briefly) are the only returning cast members. It is an adaptation of City Primeval, a 1980 Elmore Leonard novel that does not feature Raylan Givens; it was modified to put Givens in place of the book’s original protagonist, Detroit police officer Raymond Cruz (who appears briefly in the series, played by Paul Calderón, who reprises the role from the 1997 Leonard adaptation Out of Sight).

All eight episodes of Justified: City Primeval are now streaming on Hulu. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and watch the teaser for Justified: City Primeval’s finale below.