Fx's Justified initially ended after a stellar six-season run, but was the western crime drama canceled? First premiering on March 16, 2010, Justified is based on author Elmore Leonard's stories about the character Raylan Givens, particularly the novel Fire in the Hole. Justified ran for an impressive 78 episodes over six seasons before concluding on April 14, 2015, to critical fanfare, with Justified season 6 garnering universal acclaim for Raylan Givens' (Timothy Olyphant) poignant send-off.
The enduring quality of Justified's six seasons has since prompted a revival of the series, with FX announcing Justified: City Primeval is in the works as of January 2022. This Justified revival returns to find a world-weary Givens in Miami, balancing his life between his career and being a present father to his 14-year-old daughter. The original Justified writing team, led by Graham Yost, returns for Justified: City Primeval, with legendary director Quentin Tarantino also in talks to direct some episodes (per Variety).
Given all of the above evidence, it is little wonder that Justified ended after season 6 of its own accord. Far from being canceled abruptly, Yost and company (per Entertainment Weekly) had been planning Justified's endgame as early as season 4, with Givens' initial swansong a carefully choreographed journey. This decision, in part, was taken due to the Justified team "not wanting to overstay their welcome," with Givens and Boyd Crowder's (Walton Goggins) intertwined narratives both naturally coming to an end. Furthermore, Elmore Leonard's passing in 2013 solidified this choice to wind the series down, with Justified looking to make a fitting tribute to Leonard in the season 6 finale, which marked the end of the Fire in the Hole source material.
The majority of Justified's narrative, both in the TV show and source materials, is built off the back of Boyd Crowder and Givens' relationship as intertwined adversaries. This back-and-forth style rivalry turns into genuine respect between the two men, with the Justified season 6 finale seeing Givens make the long journey to deliver the (false) news Ava has died in a car crash. However, the pair's tussle for supremacy across Kentucky could only be stretched so far, with Yost stating: "We just felt like if this chapter in Raylan’s life was about Raylan and Boyd that we could only take it so far, that was basically it.” This decision proved prescient, with Justified's Raylan Givens story remaining a high-quality offering undiminished by declining ratings and viewership in the way many shows tend to devolve.
The other significant reason Yost and company chose to end Justified after six seasons was Leonard's death in 2013. Leonard's passing left Justified with a finite, already small set of source material, with the Justified writers agreeing not to go off-script regarding Leonard's original world. Furthermore, Olyphant and Yost expressed wanting to honor Leonard with Justified's final season, with Olyphant later stating in the same EW interview that they "thought that Elmore would have liked it.” As a result, it is abundantly clear that Justified was not canceled after season 6, with the series instead choosing to go out on a high and poignantly honor its quality source material.