Now that Breaking Bad has disappeared into the New Mexico sunset — following a final season that has deservedly won every year-end award in the universe — I’m left with a giant Walter White-shaped hole in my TV heart.

Breaking Bad might be my favorite show ever, but what will replace it as my favorite show currently on the air?

Mad Men is a complex and artistically stunning work, featuring one of television’s best ensemble casts and a brilliant central performance by Jon Hamm. It would easily earn the crown were it not for a gaggle of smart-ass cops and criminals in Harlan County, Kentucky.

Yes, Justified, produced by Graham Yost and based on characters created by the late, great Elmore Leonard, has captured the flag. This violent, funny gangster/western mash-up is the best show on TV.

I have to thank my parents for introducing me to Justified. Given its subject matter and authorial lineage, it’s a shock I hadn’t discovered it myself.

Nobody writes smooth-talking bad guys like Elmore Leonard (Tarantino learned most of his moves from the master) and Yost and company have captured that style perfectly. The writing room mantra is “What Would Elmore Leonard Do?” and the answer is usually something unexpected, twisted and hilarious.

Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan Givens is a Deputy U.S. Marshal banished from Miami back to his hometown in rural Kentucky because of his itchy trigger finger. He’s the coolest character to ever grace a widescreen TV, casual and quippy in the face of danger. And he’s in a pretty much constant state of danger.

Over its four and a half seasons, Justified has created a rich and real universe, populated with dozens of colorful characters. From Raylan’s acerbic boss and fellow deputy marshals to the rogue’s gallery of lowlifes who orbit Harlan, there is never enough screen time to fit all the awesomeness.

Apart from Raylan, my personal favorite is Boyd Crowder, the show’s principal antagonist, played with sardonic relish by the brilliant Walton Goggins. Boyd is a very bad man with a very impressive vocabulary for whom you can’t help rooting no matter how many awful things he does. When you find yourself cheering on a murderer with a large swastika tattoo on his left shoulder, you know that’s some quality writing and acting.

Today’s SOTD is the show’s theme song. The first 30 seconds play over the opening credits. Gangstagrass is a New York-based band that blends hip-hop and bluegrass. It’s the perfect match for the show itself, which is a beautiful blend of urban crime and rural legacy.

Unfortunately, F/X has announced that next year (Justified‘s sixth season) will be its last. So a little more than a year from now, I’ll have to announce a new favorite show.