IPTAT: …and an outlaw.
Special Credits - Part Three
I’m putting together a team… multiple teams, in fact.
The eight-team bracket will determine who is the most skilled (and potentially ruthless) squad of them all.
Team 8: Special Credits
Last billed and most revered: characters with “and” status in the opening credits
Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley, Star Trek)
Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins, Justified)
Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni, Veronica Mars)
The Tournament Bracket so far:
Round 1:
Sequel Soldiers defeated Sinister Supers
Immortals defeated Spin-Off Superstars
Scene Stealers defeated Fast Four
Arrowsmiths vs Special Credits
The Round 2 match-ups are:
1. Sequel Soldiers vs. Immortals
2. Scene Stealers vs. (the winner of Arrowsmiths vs Special Credits)
Team 8: Special Credits
Last billed and most revered: characters with “and” status in the opening credits
Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley, Star Trek)
Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins, Justified)
Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni, Veronica Mars)
“And status” is a coveted role in the opening credits of a television series and is sometimes earned over the course of a show’s run, denoting the importance of a cast member as well as the significance of the character. It’s a big deal.
3. Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins, Justified)
First appearance: Justified (“Fire In the Hole” episode 1, season 1, 2010)
Popular entertainment of 2010:
Predators - film starring Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishburne
The Walking Dead - television series starring Andrew Lincoln
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) - novel written by Suzanne Collins
Boyd Crowder is one of the most complex and charismatic figures in Justified (2010–2015). Introduced as a Kentucky-born outlaw and explosives expert, Crowder begins as a white supremacist and foil to U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant), his former coal-mining buddy. After surviving a bullet from Raylan in the pilot episode, Crowder undergoes a series of reinventions—first as a born-again preacher, then as a self-styled criminal philosopher, and ultimately as Harlan County’s most cunning outlaw. His mix of eloquence, charm, and ruthless ambition makes him both magnetic and dangerous.
Throughout the series, Crowder’s relationship with Ava Crowder (played by Joelle Carter) adds emotional depth, as their love intertwines with betrayal, survival, and shifting morality. Despite his constant schemes—bank robberies, drug deals, and power plays—Crowder remains oddly principled in his own way, guided by a twisted moral logic that mirrors Raylan’s. By the series’ end, his fate feels both tragic and poetic: forever tied to Harlan and the choices that made him who he is.
Boyd Crowder was originally meant to die in the pilot episode, but Walton Goggins’ electric performance and the character’s unexpected charisma convinced showrunner Graham Yost to keep him alive. Goggins reportedly improvised some of Boyd’s most memorable, sermon-like monologues. The character’s signature line—“You put me in the ground, you best not miss”—became an enduring Justified quote and a hallmark of Boyd’s mix of menace and poetry.
A witch, a doctor, and now an outlaw—the fourth and final member, a private eye, will have to keep a close watch on his teammates.
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