Justification

Last week I blasted CSI pretty hard for its unrealistic portrayal of police work (I could have kept going, honestly), so today I'll post about a law enforcement show I do like: Justified.

Justified is a show centered around Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens and his exploits in Harlan County, Kentucky. I know what you're thinking. I blasted CSI for its lack of realism, but like a show where the main character is practically a one man army. Here's the difference though: Justified is classified as a drama, where CSI claims to be procedural drama. In fact, the creator of CSI is constantly spouting off (lies) that everything in the show is based on "real science". But that's not what this post is about. It's more about me proving I'm not a dirty hypocrite.

For those who don't know, my future goal is to be a Deputy U.S. Marshal, and no, it has nothing to do with this show. I would require a bigger paycheck if I knew I was going to be shot at THAT much. With that being the case, however, I have done ample research into what an actual Deputy Marshal does. One of the things I like about the show is it actually does a good job of displaying the various duties a Deputy Marshal would be doing. While Raylan does primarily hunt fugitives (it is a TV show, after all), he has had to perform some of the less glamorous tasks as well, such as judicial and courtroom security, prisoner transport, asset forfeiture, and witness protection. When he is hunting fugitives, he usually relies on your classic investigative techniques, such as interviews and searches. No magic lab in this show. Also, when the Marshals Service is seen interacting with other agencies such as the ATF, State Troopers, and ICE, it does a good job showing where each agencies' jurisdiction begins and ends. Surprisingly, the show even shows the all the paperwork and the long process a Marshal would have to go through after they are forced to shoot a suspect.

Does it have unrealistic aspects? Of course it does, I don't try and claim otherwise. The reason I don't have an aneurysm over its flaws is it, at least, keeps our hero confined inside the scope of his duties. It is also meant  as entertainment, and doesn't pretend to be deeper than that. I get that TV shows have to go over the top from time to time, and I don't even fault CSI for that. You'll note I never argued in my post that the murder in my example episode involving a dead guy in a scuba suit in a tree in the middle of the forest was stupid (It is, though. I mean, c'mon). I was more focused on the fact that under those circumstances the CSI was more focused on the splinter and tracked it back to the killer's coffee table (considerably more ridiculous). Bottom line is if one person watched Justified and another watched CSI, and they then each were hired to work those jobs, the one who watched Justified would be far less shocked by the translation to real life. In fact, he would probably be relieved to find he wasn't always going to be under a hail of gunfire. The CSI fan, by contrast, would constantly be wondering when they were going to go tackle the bad guy as he dusted for fingerprints...AGAIN.