Fifteen years ago this week, the angriest U.S. marshal on television strolled into a rooftop restaurant in Miami and, in the Florida sunlight, shot a gun thug point-blank in the chest.

That’s a hell of an introduction for Justified’s complicated antihero and protagonist Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a quick-draw lawman in a Stetson hat created by the late author Elmore Leonard and developed into one of FX’s most enduring characters by Justified showrunner and executive producer Graham Yost. For the writer, Justified is arguably neck-and-neck with his 1994 summer blockbuster, Speed, in terms of what project on his CV will be jockeying for top tombstone placement. And Yost is very much aware of and content with that fact, and the impact the Emmy-winning series had on both his career and audiences. 

“I'm proud of the whole show,” Yost tells the Television Academy in the second part of an exclusive interview. (You can read part one here). “Happy to have been involved in it from beginning to end.”

As the series celebrates its 15th anniversary, Yost takes us behind the scenes of writing and shooting memorable episodes like season four’s action-packed “Decoy.” He also reveals his exact involvement on City Primeval and why Carla Gugino appeared on Justified in a version of the role she played more than 20 years ago on ABC’s Karen Sisco.

Television Academy: Going through some of the show’s more memorable episodes, you seem to enjoy writing the tense, one-complication-after-another installments, like season two’s “Save My Love” — the one where Raylan and Winona struggle to return stolen cash to the evidence room.

Graham Yost: That stuff's fun to write. And then it's fun working with [director Jon] Avnet. The horrible part about it was — we thought, “Hey, let's save some money and film and block-shoot two episodes at once,” which were episodes six and seven [that season]. And [“Save My Love”] was the seventh episode to air, and it was like: “Oh, man, six is screwing with seven [production-wise]. Now seven’s screwing six!” But it was fun; it was just sweet to see Raylan going on to the other side of the law kind of, but really just straddling the line.

Between this episode, your script for Speed and season four’s “Decoy,” writing your heroes into impossible corners feels like your go-to.

I love it. To me, writing is all just problem solving. But Tim [Olyphant] had this line that he would use almost ad nauseam, but it was so true: “We just put people up a tree and throw rocks at them.” Just get them into a jam and make it worse and worse. That’s the fun.

ABOVE: U.S. Marshals Tim Gutterson (Jacob Pitts) and Art Mullen (Nick Searcy) in a scene from "Decoy"

Speaking of “Decoy,” that plays out like a mini-Western, with the bad guys and the good guys all after the same MacGuffin – the criminal Drew Thompson (Jim Beaver) — but for different means. How challenging was it to plot out a story like that with so many moving parts?

That episode — for [cowriter Chris] Provenzano and me — we would look at each other and go, “Well, that's about as good as it gets.” I mean, [director Michael] Watkins just nailed it. It was great writing for Jacob Pitts [who plays U.S. marshal Tim Gutterson], and doing that phone call scene he has with Ron Eldard’s character [Colt], where Pitts says [Colt’s] “one broken shoelace away” from … yeah, it was fun to write, fun for the actors to do it. We got to make fun of Boyd’s teeth. [Laughs]

Boyd even spits out a tooth, after getting hit in the episode.

That was probably Walton [improvising] on the set. What if I spit out a tooth? Or it was an idea Watkins had on set.

But that episode, Michael Watkins — he just understood it. He got [the tone]. We talk about  Justified being sort of a modern Western in the way that [pilot director Michael] Dinner set the whole template of how to shoot it. Like, there's a shot of Raylan going into Winona's house with a shotgun in his hand, just walking up the steps. It’s framed low and looking up, which is just very much like a Western. We just knew that was our Western scene. 

I wrote all the Raylan stuff, and Chris wrote all the Ava and Boyd stuff. So when you get into the Ava scene in the bar with Mike O’Malley’s bad guy character [Nicky Augustine], he’s such a great villain. But I remember seeing it and then calling Provenzano, like, “What do you think?” And he said, “Well, what do you think?” I mean, we just went back and forth. And it's not self-praise. It's just, “We're so lucky.”

ABOVE: A script excerpt from "Decoy" - Photo Courtesy of Sony Pictures Television/FX

You also brought back Carla Gugino playing a character very similar to her U.S. marshal on ABC’s Karen Sisco —

Yeah, she's Karen Sisco. [Laughs] She’s basically — we just couldn’t call her “Karen Sisco” for legal reasons. Rights reasons.

I assumed. Well, for the series finale, where the whole season is spent building to a big confrontation between Boyd and Raylan before Boyd goes off to jail, did you and the writers consider other storylines or fates for them?

We talked so much about who lives and who dies. And Elmore was gone for two years by this point — close to it or heading toward that. We talked about: Do we kill Ava? And it's like, no, we don't kill Ava. There was a book of Elmore’s where there are these two guys pulling this con and a bank robbery, and the woman [in the story] gets away with the money. So we decided to let Ava get away with the money. That’s very much a tradition of Elmore — and if anyone deserves to get the money and get the hell out of Harlan, it's her.

And for Boyd, there’s no point in killing him at that point. And we were sure as hell not going to kill Raylan. And when it was all said and done, we got the feeling that Elmore would have been happy with it. And when [Justified: City Primeval executive producer and showrunner] Dave Andron, Michael Dinner and — to a minor, minor extent —  me did City Primeval, the villain character played by Boyd Holbrook, he had to die. And Boyd Holbrook is an incredibly entertaining actor.

Since you brought it up, what was your role in City Primeval? Did FX initially approach you with continuing Raylan’s story?

It was just — it was basically do I give it my “OK.” And also, with my deal at Apple, where I’m doing Silo, I was allowed to consult on anything that came out of anything I had done in the past that was a sequel or a continuance. So I was allowed to spend like an hour a week in the writers’ room, which was all a Zoom room, and I got to meet [author and writer] Walter Mosely, who was just great. And he has watched Justified four times — all the way through, four times. I said to him, “Walter, I can't say that you've seen it more than I have, but that's — God bless you.” I just thought that when they figured out how to end that season, it was great. And going back to Winona and seeing [her child with Raylan] grown up, that was pretty great.  

So, looking back on 15 years of Justified, and working with one of your literary heroes on it, how does the whole experience resonate with you?

There are so many episodes that I'm incredibly proud of. And I'm proud of the whole show. Happy to have been involved in it from beginning to end. Something that will always stick with me, though, is … when Elmore died, we went to his funeral. Tim comes with his wife, Alexis. I'm there, and Scott Frank is there. It was just great to hang with the family. He was just beloved. And I will say this, lastly — I'm sorry, Phil, I'm going on longer than you wanted.

It's okay! This is what I am here for.

Elmore, he read the pilot script or watched the pilot and said, “I love it. It's great.” And I said, “Of course you do, Elmore. It's all you.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Justified and Justified: City Primeval are streaming on Hulu.