Pilot air date: March 16, 2010, FX

Stream it on: Hulu, Prime Video

The tall man in a stetson saunters across the deck of a Miami hotel, salsa music guiding his strides. He’s here to give a warning to a bad dude: Get out of town, like I told you, or I’ll shoot you, like I told you. But the bad dude talks better than he listens. And before the scene is over, he can’t do either.

That’s how we meet US Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), the quick-draw hero of “Justified.” Relentless, ice-cold, but somehow charming, Raylan is a fish out of pastel water in Miami, with its beaches and constant sunlight. But he kind of likes it that way, which means he’s not too happy to take his punishment for gunning down the bad dude: a transfer home to his native Kentucky, where he’s got skeletons in the closet and an old friend with a thing for blowing up buildings.

Enter the second star of “Justified”: Walton Goggins, who brings menacing charisma to Raylan’s old buddy Boyd Crowder. Raylan and Boyd used to dig coal together; now Boyd is a local white supremacist leader, though Raylan thinks he’s in the hate racket for the money and the thrill of setting off explosions. When we meet Boyd, he’s about to fire a rocket launcher at a Black church. After that, he shoots his skinhead associate in the back of the head. Boyd thinks the guy might be a government snitch, but he also just seems to enjoy it. Boyd is a dangerous nut, but Goggins, who had already made a name for himself on “The Shield,” can’t help but make him fun.

Created by Graham Yost, who more recently created the Apple TV puzzle box thriller “Silo,” “Justified” is an uncommonly well-written crime series. That is fortunate, as it’s based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, “Fire in the Hole.” Leonard, who died in 2013, was a towering figure in genre fiction, equally at home in the western and the crime story. “Justified” has elements of both. It also has the juicy dialogue for which Leonard was celebrated. “You concerned about me coming down here?” Raylan asks his new boss in Kentucky, Art Mullen (Nick Searcy). “It’s a small office, Raylan,” replies Mullen. “I’m concerned when we switch brands of coffee.”

“Justified” is largely concerned with what it means to come home when you’d really rather not, to a place that never really let you go. Raylan also has two formidable women to contend with: his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea), and Boyd’s former sister-in-law, Ava (Joelle Carter) — former, because she gunned down Boyd’s brother after he hit her one too many times. And to complete the picture, Raylan’s got a career criminal (Raymond J. Barry) for a father. Life sure would be a lot simpler back in Miami. But that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun for us.

Chris Vognar can be reached at chris.vognar@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram at @chrisvognar and on Bluesky at chrisvognar.bsky.social.