“Justified,” Season 3, Episode 1

• Courtesy of FX
• ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A GUN THUG? Walton Goggins and Raylan Givens

This town ain’t big enough for the two of us. By “town” I mean the broadcast TV landscape, and by “two of us,” I actually mean all the dense, demanding episodic dramas out there. One of the pleasures of “Justified” on FX is that it’s so much less taxing and complicated than must-see shows like “Lost,” “Battlestar Galactica” and pretty much any HBO drama. It’s a relief to watch the Western set in modern-day Kentucky without having to keep a web browser open to look up names and details on-line.

“The Gunslinger,” the first episode of “Justified’s” third season, began shortly after the events of the season finale, which saw Stetson-wearing, superstud U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) catch a bullet in a shoot-out at the Bennett family farm, shortly before backwoods crime-lord Mags Bennett (Emmy winner-Margo Martindale) killed herself with a poisoned shot of her apple-pie flavored moonshine. “The Gunslinger” starts with a state trooper pulling over Winona (Natalie Zea), Raylan’s ex-wife and off-again/on-again lover, and informing him of his bullet wound. At the hospital, Raylan’s boss Art (Nick Searcy) tells her that the bullet went clean through, missing vital organs. “He’s a lucky son of a gun,” Art says, starting off the episode’s gun-related imagery.