The Ringer:

Justified has been on my mind since Ringer chief content officer Sean Fennessey described The Mandalorian as “Justified with blasters” shortly after the new show’s Tuesday release.

As a person who loves Justified deeply, this checks out. Within minutes, The Mandalorian has invited you into a shabby dive bar where two poachers are, in full view of everyone, about to carve up another paying customer, because that’s the sort of thing that can happen in this universe.

The most noticeable commonality between The Mandalorian and Justified is the tone—the long gaps of silence for blank stares to fill with meaning, the wide shots that communicate emptiness and despair, the wear on everything that communicates “this is a hard life, but someone’s gotta live it.” A Western is as much about societal decline as it is about survival and cool-sounding one-liners, and the lead should be a stone wall on which to project all of that.

OK, this is just crazy talk. Justified was one of the best TV series ever. We’re only two episodes in to The Mandalorian. Make no mistake – I loved Justified and I mildly enjoyed The Mandalorian but it will take quite a bit more for the latter to match up to the former.