True Detective

Numbers

Well-known member
I'm more thrilled by High Maintenance signing to HBO than the renewal of True Detective, to be honest.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I'm sticking with it, you can't say the dialog's any worse really, its just these characters have yet to get the sort of sterile monologing ability, or that "back and forth through time" rise and fall effect. There's also so overtly a desire to shout out David Lynch, which is v. interesting to me because with the new Twin Peaks out and about...

The music is infinitely lesser though.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm really enjoying this season, don't get all the moaning to be honest. It's kept the air of menace and feel of the first series despite having none of the same actors, director or location. This one feels much more complex in terms of story though - the first one gave you a murder in episode one and straight away you knew it was going to be about solving that, this time it's not so clear what it's actually about, even by episode three. I get the impression that this lack of a simple and immediate storyline is what's bugging a lot of the critics but for me it's a good thing.

SPOILERS

Of course, it's not perfect - I think it was a bit of a con having him shot and survive like that (why was the guy using rubber bullets for him?) and the start of the next episode was almost embarrassing in the way it borrowed so much from David Lynch. In fact, in Twin Peaks doesn't the exact same thing happen, he gets shot and has a surreal dream? It must have been a deliberate homage I suppose but it seemed a shame to me when True Detective has such a strong identity of its own - why borrow someone else's?
I think that Farrell is fantastic (he really looks so unhealthy) and while it seems to be fashionable to pick on Vince Vaughn I don't really know why. Plus I love the theme tune so there!
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah, I fuck with the soundtrack/score dude, T-Bone Burnett, a lot TBH
He must be about a hundred years old by now right? Surprised he's still involved in things like this.
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
this is used in True Detective to some extent

It is indeed. Watched the first series now and although the serial killer plot is a bit boring by now (as has been been pointed out by someone else already in this thread) I did like it quite a lot in the end. I didn't rate it when I had just finished it, but there are several good reasons to watch it and I'll probably end up watching it again (I've done The Wire three time and TD is fairly rapid and lightweight compared). If you haven't watched it then watch it not for the plot, but for

1. The acting. Woody Harrelson is good and maybe trying hard to play a straight guy, but Matthew McConaughey is just a fucking magnet in this one.
2. The soundtrack. Any show which ends an episode with Townes Van Zandt's "Lungs" must be worth watching. T-BB has done sterling work with the tunes.
3. There is indeed that James Lee Burke feeling to some of the scenes and scenery - staples like Angola (Louisiana Penitentiary), Iberia parish and some of the plot is right out of JLB.
4. The hinted at supernatural back story - the "King of Yellow", the city of Carcosa and from there the writer's (in)direct references to HP Lovecraft, Ambrose Pierce, philisopers like Schopenhauer and Zappfe (and antinatalism). This might all be for show - but it lifts the series.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm two episodes into the current series and, well, let's say I'm undecided at this point. Some interesting characters, although they might have gone a bit OTT with the 'dysfunctional misfit cop' stock figure by having not one but three characters fitting this description. (I mean, one the reasons the first series worked so well was the synergy between the straight-man character of Marty, who despite his various neuroses and weaknesses is still ostensibly the all-American small-town cop with a wife and kids, and Rust, the traumatized, drug-damaged, Nietzsche/Ligotti-quoting loner mystic.)

Some of the dialogue is frankly ridiculous, although "I'm gonna buttfuck your father with your mother's headless corpse" had me convulsed with glee.

I'm kind of prepared for a letdown based on comments I've read here and elsewhere, although I've downloaded it now so I'm loathe to stop watching unless it actually just gets proper shit.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Also I really loved the weird/supernatural (or at least magic-realist) aspects of the first series and am really hoping they'll use some of that in this series. Basically the exact opposite of my attitude with regard to Thrones.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
But is it shit in the absolute sense, or just the nothing-like-as-good-as-the-first-series sense?

Dammit, and I was really looking forward to it. Ah well. Still got the second and third series of House Of Cards to watch, perhaps I'll get back on that.
 

droid

Well-known member
I was where you are now when it started. Liked the creepy atmos and all the aerial shots, thought it was worth sticking with... but - its not just shit, its heroically bad in places and the rest is just bland nothingness. Best bit was the shootout in episode 4.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The shootout at the end of the second episode was both amazing to watch and utterly ludicrous. Eight or ten cops armed with pistols take on a bunch of double-hard Mexican cartel types packing AKs and UZIs in the middle of a city in the middle of the day? And they don't, at any point, think "we're a bit out of our depth here, perhaps we should call in the SWAT team/Delta Force/Navy Seals"?

I dunno, maybe that actually just routinely happens in America.
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
Second that on second series being shit, it could have been good but this was just calamity of clichés. Cops with issues, death wishes being fullfilled, cabal of corrupt and powerful people doing orgies, stupid ending (final frames felt like a bad episode of Homeland), no McConaughey to carry it and so on.

And that girl in the depressing bar/hideout strumming the same song over and over - a David Lynch scene belonging on the cutting floor. All wrapped up for parody.

It was just on par with Amazon's "Bosch", in other words not very good.
I'll probably end up rewatching the first series, but the second will not get a second chance.
 
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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
The shootout at the end of the second episode was both amazing to watch and utterly ludicrous. Eight or ten cops armed with pistols take on a bunch of double-hard Mexican cartel types packing AKs and UZIs in the middle of a city in the middle of the day? And they don't, at any point, think "we're a bit out of our depth here, perhaps we should call in the SWAT team/Delta Force/Navy Seals"?

I dunno, maybe that actually just routinely happens in America.

The town is essentially a small town who wouldn't be able to afford its own SWAT team, and has a corrupt office that A) didn't want State Authority investigating further (as it'd only unearth the massive corruption within) and B) was probably hoping everyone involved would get massacred.

The police who responded had no idea the level of preparation they would be facing from the Cartel, nor were they adequately supported. If it weren't for the fact that McAdams and the Chips dude were trained in combat on a above-average level (which in itself is slightly unrealistic to have two people so TTG coincidentally get lined up in a team), it is entirely likely that State Support would come in to handle the situation. Granted the whole of the scene happens in the span of what, 3-4 minutes?

Even if support was provided, any sort of American Response team of a military police level couldn't get there without about 1.5-2 minute preparation and then at least 3-5 minutes with travel? That's all guesswork as far as I go, but yeah.

But these are things you'd have to consider, and the show doesn't REALLY do a great job of sewing up the connections adequately, its stuff you almost have to take notes and force the connection.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I was ultimately disappointed in the second series, thought it started well and had good moments but in the end it kind of petered out. Was hoping the last episode would somehow pull it all together and raise it but in fact it was the opposite - lots of shooting and stuff but that's not really what I wanted from it.
Shame cos the acting was good and it started intriguingly with just a hint of occultism which I hoped was going to grow but instead they rowed right back from that and by the end it turned out to be totally incidental. I think that part of the issue was that the first series was about satanic child killers and after that anything else was not going to have much weight - yes it had the corruption angle of the first but it had nothing else beyond that (or did I miss something?).
 

griftert

Well-known member
I watched the first episode of this...lol. Is Matthew McConaughey meant to be a 14 year old? Cringe inducing stuff.
 
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