True Detective

[Willihammer]

we had a neat and tidy wrap-up to it without really finding out all the different connections the case had so interestingly brought up through the course of the investigation.

 

I assume season 2 will get into that stuff, eventually working its way up to the Governor.

 

Lot of pipe laid in season 1.

[TheLeviathan]

I assume season 2 will get into that stuff, eventually working its way up to the Governor.

 

Lot of pipe laid in season 1.

 

My thought was that the next season would be a completely new case with completely new characters?

[Brock Beauchamp]

My thought was that the next season would be a completely new case with completely new characters?

 

Yep. As far as I know, all new characters and story.

[Willihammer]

What seriously? Wow what a tease

[TheLeviathan]

What seriously? Wow what a tease

 

Yeah, hence my frustration with the ending.

[Willihammer]

Yeah I understand now.

 

Wow. Who does that? Meaningless foreshadowing?

 

Sad thing is I will probably watch season 2 and be disappointed all over again.

[PseudoSABR]

Two things:

 

1) It's incredibly difficult to write a continuously interesting and cutting edge serial (episodic) dramatic narrative with only two freaking characters. In it's best form the show probably should only have been six episodes; I'm sure HBO execs were fighting against a series that had only eight episodes.

 

2) I thought the ending was fantastic, given that there were so many train-wreck options. A) A less pretty ending without catching the lawnmower guy (who was uniquely and profoundly well rendered in the last episode), would have been totally off-putting in predictable. Say, an ending with Marty and Rust both dying would have been pretty unsatisfying, though more realistic perhaps. There's no revealing of the occult that could have been satisfying. I'm glad that they didn't attempt to explain what was really happening.

 

More than this, all good narrative is about characters, and both Marty and Rust go through real evolutions of character. The scenes in the hospital, especially in the parking lot have such resonance. Marty realizing how much he misses his family and what a horrible **** he's been. And Rust realizing that the experience of human life isn't some perverted evolutionary accident.

 

I think the show will continue to deal with the occult, and we will learn about the operation of secret society and their belief system; though we'll shift characters and regions. Though we wont see Rust and Marty, we might see the Tuttles again though probably not next season.

[TheLeviathan]

More than this, all good narrative is about characters, and both Marty and Rust go through real evolutions of character.

 

Of course, but the plot those characters are a part of matters too. A good example would be the Matrix: great characters and the first movie had an outstanding plot. Movies 2 and 3 had the same fascinating characters but the plot was garbage.

 

So, in my view, a narrative that fails to be as strong with it's story as it is with it's characters is a flaw. Breaking Bad didn't have this kind of problem in my opinion.

 

Your belief that we'll continue to see these threads evolve is an assumption that you're using to fill gaps the ending left out. With confirmation there will be no Marty and Rust next year (and with the rumors that the next season will be unrelated), I think that's an unfair way to judge the show. The ending, as constituted and likely concluded, left a lot of the plot that was addressed in the show hanging at the end. Even the final conversation indicated a "we only caught this one guy and ultimately failed at the larger picture" type of conversation between the two detectives. Which is fine, it wrapped up the murder they initially investigated, but it makes large chunks of the season and the motivations the characters had utterly irrelevant if the Tuttle situation just dies with season 1.

 

To me, this was too cute and happy an ending with so much unresolved. It felt rushed and a bit too Deus ex Machina-y to me.

[PseudoSABR]

In fiction (and Pizzalotto emerges from that realm), the plot must serve the characters; so the plot does matter, but only in so much as it reveals about the people involved in the narrative. The characters in the first Matrix sucked too, but the plot was so bold that it hardly mattered that the characters were tokenistic ("Neo" for godsakes). The sequels failed because they lacked both a story a tell and credible characters (I couldn't even watch them). As great as Marty and Rust were, having them for a second season may have tuned in viewers, but wouldn't have been good for the show, as they already had their denouement; the narrative covered 20 years of their lives.

 

I didn't see a realistic way to resolve the Tuttle situation without having even more Law and Order type episodes. In my opinion, had it resolved much more than it did, it would have been far too cute and neat, and lose it's sense of authenticity.

 

I don't see the Deus ex Machina at all, really/

[Brock Beauchamp]

Agreed, Pseudo. The Matrix isn't a good comp because that was almost entirely plot-driven. The characters were unremarkable.

 

In my opinion, a better comp to True Detective is a movie I loved from the 2000s, Children of Men. Strong, interesting characters navigating a plot that isn't fully explained to the audience. Nor did it need to be explained, in my opinion. I view True Detective as a piece that took us through a journey of character exploration, not the resolution of a murder mystery. The murder mystery added intrigue to the piece but it wasn't the point of the series and I'm okay with brushing over a few details in favor of focusing on the relationship between the characters.

[TheLeviathan]

Except we had 2 Law and Order episodes so the plot did matter. We largely dropped character development for two of them and you could make a case for closer to 3 and a half of the episodes. You guys are arguing for an ideal interpretation that ignores what doesn't fit your opinion of it. We spent large segments of the plot devoted to elements of it completely ignored in the conclusion. Frankly, I see those chunks of time as wasted character development opportunities spent on what ultimately was irrelevant.

 

And there was Deus ex machina...the whole house paint, green ears, magically still alive old lady who remembers who her husband had paint her house, everything gets located back conclusion was very much Deus ex machina. The unsolvable, untrackable, vague "giant with the scarred face" got solved in literally 10 minutes of screen time by that exact plot device.

 

(Also, I'd argue there were plenty of token elements to our two main characters and certainly to the villains of the series. The incredible performances just masked how relatively cookie cutter a Southern d-bag Marty was and "let's throw together as many cliche dirty serial killer memes we can" villain. Straight down to "follow me into my lair while I mysteriously whisper to you" chunk at the end)

[Turd Furgeson]

True Detective was a very entertaining, but flawed storytelling. As others have said, it started out really strong with interesting characters, great acting and layers and layers of plot. The problem is, the more layers of plot that you pile on, the more important it is to get the ending right. They failed to address many of the elements in their story that pulled me in, in the first place. Then, to have the creator of the show deny some of these elements entirely, was a slap in the face.

[TheLeviathan]

So yeah, Season 2 is just everything bad about Season 1 on steroids.

[PseudoSABR]

I think losing Season 1's director hurts the most.  There's no spookiness, and the attempts at setting the mood with bird-eye industrial shots seems hamfisted.  The story is starting to accrue for me (with three episodes left) and some of the characters are worthy of seeing through, but the premise of the season was so sprawling that it would never make much sense.

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Przf4_zZlXY/VaivgBxsSsI/AAAAAAAAYWQ/gVjO7SPSQw0/s640/True%2BDetective%2BLost%2BInterest.jpg

[TheLeviathan]

Every time Vince Vaughn says something like "I don't have bandwith for that right now" or any of the other hamfisted attempts to make his dialogue seem interesting - I cement my disinterest in watching Season 3 more and more.

 

(Season 1 had sprawl problems too, just no one seemed to notice for some reason)

[PseudoSABR]

Vaughn has been worse than I expected-I don't even register his dialogue anymore (but that's a gawdawful line). Colin Farrell has been surprisingly palatable, and the other two leads are strongly-casted as well (though John Carter's character arch is cringe worthy).  

 

Will there be a Season 3? I'll wait to decide if I'll watch by finishing this season up.  And I'll probably give it a chance regardless as long as Nic Pizzolatto is writing---there is some hope that he'll learn from his mistakes.  And I hope they find a new director/art-direction team.

[TheLeviathan]

I agree, Farrell has been pretty good and Taylor Kitsch is somehow making an awful character semi-palatable. But good lord is everyone's dialogue over wrought.

[DaveW]

I think people are way to hard on season 2, yeah it's not as great as season 1 but it has been pretty damn good television overall, especially the last few episodes.

 

The writing has been suspect, I feel bad for Vaughn, his character could be so much better with some slightly better lines and deeper arc then "bad guy goes good but turns bad again"

[biggentleben]

 

I think people are way to hard on season 2, yeah it's not as great as season 1 but it has been pretty damn good television overall, especially the last few episodes.

The writing has been suspect, I feel bad for Vaughn, his character could be so much better with some slightly better lines and deeper arc then "bad guy goes good but turns bad again"

 

Or with pretty much anyone but him playing the role...

[DaveW]

Or with pretty much anyone but him playing the role...

I dunno, I thought he has been ok in the role, it's just weakly written. I know it's easy to hate Vaughn just for the hell of it, but his character has been getting better the last couple episodes.

[TheLeviathan]

Everything Vince Vaughn says makes me groan.  I don't think it's the actor, it's the god-awful writing.  

 

To the point that people are doing this.  

 

Here's the truth a lot of people don't want to accept, most of the great stuff from Season 1 was McConaughey and Woody selling the hell out of it.  The first season was one of the most overrated television shows in history and it's all to the credit of two amazing performances.

[biggentleben]

 

I dunno, I thought he has been ok in the role, it's just weakly written. I know it's easy to hate Vaughn just for the hell of it, but his character has been getting better the last couple episodes.

 

Everything Vince Vaughn says makes me groan.  I don't think it's the actor, it's the god-awful writing.  

 

To the point that people are doing this.  

 

Here's the truth a lot of people don't want to accept, most of the great stuff from Season 1 was McConaughey and Woody selling the hell out of it.  The first season was one of the most overrated television shows in history and it's all to the credit of two amazing performances.

 

Yeah, I didn't mean that Vaughn was ruining good material or anything, but he's a guy who simply cannot sell even average material, so the ****ty writing plus him playing the role really sticks out like a sore thumb. Vaughn can do some things well, but drama in general is his worst genre, so casting him as a main character was a poor choice.

 

Absolutely agree than Woody and Shirtless sold the hell out of last season.

[Zachary]

I sincerely wanted to see Vaughn do good in a dramatic role. I like him and was hoping that this season could be his catapult into something other than the types of roles he has settled into as an actor. I really enjoyed the first season and this season so far has been pretty sub-par.

 

SPOILERS: The scene in the streets at the end of episode 3? Was pretty awesome. Either way,  I feel like right now we are thinking what in the world is happening and next thing you know we will be thinking oh, the season is over. okay. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

I caught part of an episode on HBO when I was traveling last week...  Gotta ask though, is the orgy thing normal? 

[TheLeviathan]

Sex has played a larger role this year due to the storyline, so not really.

[DaveW]

Another good episode. Color me excited for the finale.

 

Lots of loose ends to tie up though. Except for Vince, he clearly is gonna get away with 12 million and go live on an island somewhere, what could possibly go wrong?!?

[Vanimal46]

Thoughts on the season overall? I felt it was very underwhelming compared to season 1, for reasons that others have mentioned. Poor writing and dialogue throughout the show. This season compared to last season: They introduced so many side characters and minor cases that it was hard to care about character names... I don't think it was so bad that they're not going to do it again, but for season 3, they need to find the magic of season 1 again.

[TheLeviathan]

I thought it was worse than it's overrated first season, so not good.

[DaveW]

I thought it was pretty entertaining, should be even better on a repeat watch, very pulpy and lots of Noir type plots going on.

 

Not life changing, but solid overall. Vince Vaughn really did great work the last 3 episodes of the season.

 

The voice message not getting sent was a pretty heartbreaking piece of TV, along with the paternity results. heavy.

[jimmer]

 

Thoughts on the season overall? I felt it was very underwhelming compared to season 1, for reasons that others have mentioned. Poor writing and dialogue throughout the show. This season compared to last season: They introduced so many side characters and minor cases that it was hard to care about character names... I don't think it was so bad that they're not going to do it again, but for season 3, they need to find the magic of season 1 again.

First season was great.  Second season was hit and miss.  Liked Vaughn's portrayal though.