Actually, the season that just ended in April was the fifth, but there will be another, which will definitely be the last.

"A lot of it was just figuring out how much story we have left," series creator Graham Yost said after the announcement of the show's impending end. "Our biggest concern telling these stories is that we don't run out of stories and start repeating ourselves. ... It really felt, in terms of the story of Raylan Givens in Kentucky, six years felt about right."

The decision to end the show after season 6 was made before season 5 even premiered. Knowing so far in advance is a rare treat for a TV writer, and for fans, too. It means that the writers and fans are guaranteed a proper wrapping-up of events.

Yost said there was initially an idea of ending with one longer fifth season instead. Though the writers changed their minds on that, he said that the events of this past season were definitely intended to set up a grand finale.

"We don't know what the end is going to be, but we know some of the rough material that will go into causing the complications that will lead us through the last season," he told "Collider" magazine this past winter.

Complications certainly abound on "Justified." It has a cast of characters that is huge and rich, many of whom have all changed throughout the show -- the sort of characters usually found in books. Of course, these characters are. "Justified" is based on a series of novels by modern pulp-fiction great Elmore Leonard.

Though Leonard's death last year was not the reason the show is ending -- he was an executive producer on the show, but his role was more or less limited to broad story guidance -- Yost said that his loss was a difficult one for the show.

"The big thing is that he doesn't get to see it, so we don't get that feedback and we don't know absolutely whether or not we're on the right track. ... But, he was always so genuinely supportive. He got what we were trying to do 'cause it was what he was trying to do."

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