The “Justified” series has ended after six seasons with its final episode on Tuesday, and series creator Graham Yost revealed to the Hollywood Reporter why he made the decision to do what he did with certain characters (spoilers ahead).

The final episode left all of the main characters alive despite leading viewers to think that one of them, Raylan, had died after confronting Boon, but it turns out that the bullet only graved Raylan’s head, according to Yost in his interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

Boon had arrived when Raylan was taking Ava to jail — Boyd had saved Ava from Markham earlier in the episode before Raylan arrested them. Ava was able to escape as Raylan got into a duel with Boon.

The show flashed forward by four years showing Raylan in Florida, where he was working and enjoying a good relationship with ex Winona and Willa, his daughter. Raylan spots Ava in a picture and goes to arrest her in California, but finds out that she was pregnant with Boyd’s son Zachariah when she escaped. Raylan decided not to turn her in and tells Boyd that Ava died in a car accident three years prior.

Yost said in the interview that Justified was “not the kind of show where we’d kill of Raylan.” And, because they wouldn’t kill off Ava either, that meant Boyd could be the only one to go, but his death “wouldn’t reflect well on Raylan,” and the show wanted Raylan to have incremental growth in his character over the course of the series.

Timothy Olyphant, who plays Raylan, said he was happy with the ending of the show. He said while the confrontation with Boyd wasn’t what he imagined it would be, he still “like the way it went down.”