Why Justified Killed Off Dewey Crowe In Its Last Season

FX's crime-drama "Justified" features a growing roster of career criminals as the series goes on. While Raylan Givens' (Timothy Olyphant) longtime rival and occasional ally Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) will likely be the first that comes to mind when fans think of recurring villains, there's another character who was right there with him in the show's first episode.

Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman) appeared in all six seasons of the series, showing up in 22 episodes of "Justified" along the way. While the character could be dangerous and was more than willing to hurt or even kill others, Dewey was often played off for comedic effect, making the bumbling criminal a fan favorite.

However, when it came time to kill the character off in the Season 6 premiere of "Justified," showrunner Graham Yost provided some rock-solid reasoning for the choice. "It was a hard decision to kill him off," Yost said on the Fresh Air podcast. "But it just felt like that would set the table and set the stakes right at the beginning of the season, that if, you know, Boyd was willing to kill this hapless, you know, harebrained nutball, then what's he going to do when he finds out that Ava's snitching on him?"

Still, even though Graham Yost had a good reason to kill off the longtime character, especially to set the tone for the final season of "Justified," that didn't mean he took the decision lightly. In fact, Yost was keen on how great it was to have a character like Dewey to bring in every once in a while, even if he was careful with when to use him.

"He was in the pilot, and we decided to keep Dewey around and keep him in the mix throughout the series and just use him, you know, occasionally," Yost explained. "Not too much because he was just this wonderful character we didn't want to wear out." It's easy to see where Yost is coming from here, as Season 5 of "Justified," which features the character the most, is arguably the weakest in the show's run.

Furthermore, Yost pointed to Damon Herriman's mastery of playing the character as serious to himself, even if he was widely seen as a laughing stock by other "Justified" characters. "The great thing that Damon did with him is that he didn't play him as ridiculous at all," Yost recalled. "He played him absolutely seriously. He felt that Dewey absolutely believed his craziness and was fully invested in it."