OT: True Detective Season 2. Anyone watch?
So I thought nothing of True Detective Season 1 when it was announced. I mean Matt McConaughey was a rom com guy and Woody Harrleson hadn't done much serious before this. Then I watched; superbly acted, great score, cool theme and an amazing story with the two lead characters having vastly different yet great story arcs. Unlike anything that's been on TV for a while. The whole Carcosa and Yellow King stuff was way out there.
I enjoyed the first episode of the new season, it could go in a lot of different ways. if you haven't seen it yet, I would recommend it. Helps fill the Game of Thrones void.
I have high hopes.
Same here, I heard the reviews were terrible but honestly I like the way the first episode set up the ending. I think this season has some real potential
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True Detective season 1 is one of my favorite shows of all time, so I had really high hopes for season 2.
After the first episode, I'm really excited to see how this story is going to develop. If people are expecting the same type of story in season 1 with all the metaphyiscs and occult stuff are probably going to be disappointed.
I also expect the directing to be different this season. They are moving from 1 single director to a GoT type where each director gets 2 episodes.
Cary Fukunaga was one of the many great surprises of season 1. I had never even heard his name before True Detective.
"If people are expecting the same type of story in season 1 with all the metaphyiscs and occult stuff are probably going to be disappointed"
This was easily the most disapointing part of the first season. I think an omision of the metaphysics shit will make the show far more enjoyable.
I liked the first season, but feeling lost and needing to watch the post-show discussions of the non-sense story line that never materialized is one of the more offensive examples of ego driven verbal-masturbation I've ever experienced. It nearly ruined the show for me.
I really enjoyed the metaphysical aspects in the first four episodes, but was disappointed (hugely) when the principal bad guy turned out to be your classic weirdo living in a shack in the woods. To me, the show didn't live up to the tremendous potential of its first four episods.
Season two seems bleaker, and doesn't have the esoteric setting and regional flair of season one (rural Louisiana versus a burb of Los Angeles). Also, Harrelson's friction with McConaughey provided some levity that this season doesn't have so far.
If this was a new series, and not True Detective, I probably wouldn't be that interested in keeping up with it after episode one. But maybe this one will finish stronger than it starts. (Does anyone else think the direction so far sucks? All those face close-ups at the end . . .)
I think we had a pretty similar experience. I wanted the metaphysical stuff to be relavent and play an improtant part of the plot, but it didn't and I was left feeling either disappointed or even worse, intentionally misled
First 48 is one of my favorite shows, nice to see another fan on here.
That said, True Detective is completely different. Season 1 is an all-time great, absolute must see material. I'm excited about Season 2, loved the different story lines that they introduced in episode 1.
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I didn't actually read your post, but Post cereal used to be really good, especially Fruity Pebbles.
I LOVED the first seven episode of Season 1 of True Detective, but if I am being honest the last episode was a pretty big letdown. So much of the buildup and so many open loops were left hanging. It felt like they wrote a 10 episode season and then were somehow forced to shorten it to 8 so they just wrapped it up without bothering to explain anything.
It's easy to create a bunch of freaky symbols and allusions. It's a lot harder to tie them all together coherently in a way that's satisfying. In the end, they didn't even try. They just stole some creepy imagery from Se7en (dangling air fresheners) and turned McConnaughey and Harrellson's storyline into your classic love-hate buddy cliché.
I don't disagree. But I think part of the problem is The Internet (tm) read soooo much into soooo many minor details that weren't necessarily meant to have meaning.
Yes, there were some things that were red herrings and that's frustrating. But, some things weren't meant to me uber-analyzed, yet they were, and thus there were let downs.
I think that's a function of this season being set in LA County. The road and real estate are going to be a big part of the story. I like the noir feeling they're bringing by focusing on the setting. Then again, I'm also a Michael Mann fan, so I don't mind the sweeping montage-esque shots.
Probably as many sweeping shots of the Louisiana back country that they showed in season 1.
I liked the first episode. I think it's hard for people to compare season 1 equally to seasons 2. I remember being unsure about season 1 after the first episode and found some aspects equally as confusing and mysterious as I did the first episode of this second season.
I followed the individual stories well, thought they were all interesting in their own way and I like how they left it with them all connected by that (spoiler) dead county official.
It could end up being bad, but I actually like the cast that they picked. Colin Farrell seems like a great "loose nut" kind of guy. Vince Vaughn seems like he could be a great evil character, if that's where they're going with that, and Rachel McAdams, so far, played a great kind of broken person looking for some sort of revenge or to release her anger on someone.
You just can't compare these seasons to one another, especially with the first one being so good. These series seem like a great idea because they're all enclosed in their own little bubble. And if one year isn't as good as another, the next season with an entirely new cast can go the other way.
Seems like Rachel McAdams is the most "masculine" of all the lead characters. The men all seem to be broken in some way but McAdams' character is bad ass. I'm anxious to see more.
Colin Farrell is easily the most bad ass -- dude beat up two people that episode. And McAdams is messed up as well -- maybe more so than any of the other characters. There was the scene where she was into some sort of wierd unexplained sex thing, and the scene where she was booted from the casino. Plus, she has daddy/sister issues.
and plot. Season one was great, I thought the first episode of this season was just ok.
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I thought that was cleverly done -- assuming that was a one time thing of course.
After watching the first episode of Season 1, I remember wondering if I was going to give episode two a chance. I'm glad I did. This season's opener did move quickly and bounce around quite a bit but you have to keep in mind that this is only an eight episode season. They really have to lay the ground work quickly in order to get things moving.
Season 1 took a while to get going. Looking back on it as a whole, it was an excellent season, but people forget about the bad parts. And since its a whole new cast/location/story, and should really be judged as a standalone show instead of season two of something, I thought the first episode was a great first episode for a new show. Lots of promise, and lots of places for a story to go.
If the show was called something like Pacific Coast instead of True Detective: Season Two, the reviews would be much, much different.
It's going to be like Season 2 of the Wire. Some people are going to really enjoy this season of True Detective, I think.
However, I bet a vast majority will look down on it as one of the worst, if not the worst, seasons of the show (should it get extended into more seasons).
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but there's no way I could ever psych myself up to re-watch that season.
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I was a bit underwhelmed by the first episode. However, I'm sure this show will build to a fever pitch so I'll continue watching it.
Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying Vince Vaughn's character the most.
Scene Spoilers Below:
I loved the scene with Ass-pen's father and CF, which reminded me of the senseless brutality of The Shield. And I think the actors are doing well with what they're given.
But holy shit is this episode trying hard to be deep. The scene with Rachel McAdams's father as guru was some of the worst "middling English major gone screenwriter" tripe I've seen in a while. The dialogue and plot devices in general are really heavy-handed. (Do we really need to wonder whether CF's son is the product of rape?)
It's like they were afraid to throw out a story line lest they hurt one of their writer's feelings. And the city manager's apartment looked like an amalgamation of every murder/suspense film cliche since Silence of the Lambs.
TL;DR - Too much character development and not enough plot for my tastes. I liked Season One and will definitely watch the second episode to see how things come together. And the production is top notch.
Regarding the guru dad, they're deliberately writing him to be fake-profound. I mean, he named his daughters Antigone and Athena, but says Athena is the goddess of love. If this were a conventional series, I totally would have him pegged to be evil and behind the disappearance of the girl.
Nailed it. The scene with McAdams' character and her sister in the webcam bust was particularly awkward to watch... The acting seemed fine, but was hurt by the dialog.
If the story suffers at all, it's because you are comparing it to what has already been produced. And if you watched the credits, you probably noticed that last year's lead actors are both listed as executive producers for this season.
The chief writer and show creator remains the same, Nick Pizzolato. And there is a terrific takeout on him and the show in the latest edition of Vanity Fair, written by a guy who knew him back when he was a fledgling DePaw university professor and then later a writing collaborator on the Starz show, Magic City.
In the article, writer Rich Cohen notes that this was always going to be an issue for Pizzolato because this season dispenses with everything that set the first season apart as such a huge hit. If anything, the atmosphere and landscape of the first season was as flamboyantly different as the narrative style of storytelling and the performances.
You might find it interesting that Pizzolato knew exactly who he wanted for the latest roles and picked Vaughn as a villain because it goes against his career type, just as he cast McConaghey and Harrelson against their career type roles for season one. Actually, on Sunday night, HBO broadcast Wedding Crashers after the True Detective debut, in which Rachel McAdams and Vaughn both played comedic roles, totally opposite what they play here. And clearly that scheduling was intentional.
Vaughn seems leaner, more sinister and inwardly devilish as a would be criminal powerbroker who sinks his claws into Colin Farrel's trustworthy sheriff deputy wounded by an attack on his woman.
it's also clear that the industrial landscape surrounding the ribbons of LA highway that center this drama make it dramatcially different from the rural blankness of Louisianna and coastal Texas which swallowed the detectives in their chase to find the mystery behind an occut-related slaying that opened the first season wiht such odd talisman clues.
There is a hint in season 2, that at the very least, the killing of a corrupt city manager swept up in erotic mysogeny, is going to lead an unlikely band of detectives into an unsavory investigation where discovery of his killer is the least remarkable revelation of the unfolding case.
This isn't a criminal procedure story as told on every other network who-done-it show. This story has a Fitzgerald quality to it, in which the ugly, choking landscape with no redeeming view even at night, is part of the darkness of the broken world and people who inhabit it and manipulated by those running it.
This story could be as interesting as any other LA crime drama, Muholland Drive, Black Dahlia or as good as classics such as LA Confidential or Chinatown. We shall see.
Hey, this is like arguing about the best flavor of ice cream. It's all opinion.
But I don't think the story is suffering for me because I'm comparing it to season one. My main gripes (none of the LA crime dramas you cite suffered from these - they were all gripping from the first few scenes):
- The awful dialogue. There is a lot of telling rather than showing going on. I prefer showing to telling. (I'm talking about dialogue still!)
- The lack of a discernable plot line. I don't need (or like) CSI-style plot development. But this episode did not leave me champing at the bit to find out what happens with these characters.
- Broken men littering the characters. These characters do not interest me anywhere near the main characters in Season One.
- What I suspect will be annoying subplots. Again, what if CF's redheaded child is really the biological spawn of the guy who raped his wife? And please don't make me care with a forced plot twist.
- The guru character is awfully acted. I get that he's supposed to be a flake (perhaps with sinister secrets), but Will Ferrell could have played this more sincerely and more compellingly than whoever they have in that role.
- The woman singing in the bar at the end (Lera Lynn). Please make her stop (couldn't they have gotten Cat Power to do a cameo or something?).
What I liked:
- Mostly really good acting.
- The production quality. HBO spares no expense, and it's hard not to appreciate the craftsmanship here.
- The bird head. That was miles creepier than anything in the cluttered city manager's apartment (I'm half surprised the set did not include little Blair Witch mobiles).
What I suspect will be annoying subplots. Again, what if CF's redheaded child is really the biological spawn of the guy who raped his wife? And please don't make me care with a forced plot twist.Would this really be a plot twist? I think the bigger twist would be if it WAS his son. They very obviously have alluded to the kid NOT being his son. Plus the fact that he is all ginger and what not. I thought it was pretty obvious that the kid is NOT Colin Ferrel's character's son.