True Detective (Season 2)

[number8]

I remember hearing them talk about the guy but I did not understand the bolded portion at all during the episode. I'm not sure if I missed it because I wasn't paying enough attention or I was just confused at who everyone was. I was also incredibly confused about Tim Riggins dick and I want to know now.

To be fair, I think they didn't make it clear until the very last scene that sunglasses guy was him. I just remember understanding that Colin Farrell was looking for the city manager throughout the episode and then at the end he shows up at the crime scene and goes, "Yep, this is my missing person."

[number8]

Um.

Huh.

[Henry Gale]

Well.

How 'bout that.

[

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He can't be dead though, right? Like, even from a basic story arc point of view and general establishment of him within this fairly fresh narrative. I mean, that second shot to him looked pretty devastating, so the series will have to pull some considerable work-around to justify it any form of "back to 100% recovery!" -- I'd just guess severity of bullets used (rubber, for instance), which of course would just raise more questions -- but it would just seem like a strange choice above all else for them to go the face-value route with that ending, beyond the shock of it.

Promo-specific: [

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Also, a bit more cheatingly, I feel like I can recall at least a couple of shots with him from the trailers that we haven't seen yet.

]

Or maybe I'm just fooling myself. I mean, in a post-Game of Thrones world, top billing means very little, and here we are on the same network with an even bigger star, with a smaller episode-count to boot.

]

[Irish]

There's a distinct possibility this might be a terrible show.

[Winston*]

Um.

Huh.

Yup. Can't believe the mystery of Taylor Kitch's dick has already been solved.

[Winston*]

[

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I had heard a character died this episode, but I didn't know which one. Felt for sure it was going to be Vince Vaughan's, given all his speechifying this episode.

Farrell seems like such a weird choice if you're going to kill off someone. He's the only one where there's anything to grasp onto. Kitsch's character is wooden closet case and McAdams is starting to feel pretty embarrassing, with that knife dialogue and the shame porn watching.

And if he survives, then that's a bullshit fake out.

]

Not feeling that confident in this show right now. When W Earl Brown showed up, I kind of wished he was one of the protagonists instead.

[number8]

Yup. Can't believe the mystery of Taylor Kitch's dick has already been solved.

Pretty poorly handled. They could not be shouting "GET IT? GET WHAT HE IS?" any louder.

[number8]

I'm really happy about the image of the shooter, though. I also thought that this season was gonna be more Ellroy and drops the weird fiction aspect, so kinky creepy masked killer was a welcome sight.

[DavidSeven]

The girlfriend/ex-wife scenes were pretty bad. They had Kitsch's girlfriend and Farrell's ex-wife basically repeat the same things over and over again. It's a shame because I thought Michelle Monaghan's integration into Season 1 was one of the best things about it.

I don't know about that ending. I originally thought it conveyed finality, but the promos suggest we haven't seen everything yet.

[

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If they shot stuff just for the trailer to mess with everyone, I can respect that, but then why waste so much time on Farrell's backstory? If it's a fake-out, then laaaaaaaaaaaame.

]

[Grouchy]

Rock salt bullets. You heard it here first.

[Winston*]

Rock salt bullets. You heard it here first.

Why the second shot then?

[Grouchy]

Why the second shot then?

To render him unconscious, I suppose. The first shot only seemed to stun him.

[Winston*]

[

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I don't think he's dead either, just because as Henry Gale mentioned, it's hard to see any narrative purpose in it. In Game of Thrones' first season [

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Sean Bean was the show's anchor, so when he died unexpectedly it set a bunch of other narratives in motion.

] Velcoro is a loner with no connections aside from a tenuous one to Vince Vaughan's character, so it's hard to see what his death would accomplish (aside from doing something Hitchcock did 50 years ago).

Also, the first season ended on an optimistic note. If Velcoro died here, it will be hard to see the show crawling back from that level of pessimism. Broken man contemplates death...gets killed. Life's a bitch.

I will still be annoyed by the manipulation if he turns out to be alive though.

]

[number8]

He's probably not, but a lot of things in that second episode did have a ring of finality to them that made it sensible for me for it to be his exit: [

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The part where he's trying to get the kids to get away from the toxic sludge and they just flip him off, the scene with the ex-wife where he says if he doesn't have his kid then there's no purpose to his life anymore, and that final conversation with Semyon where he seems to have given up on everything.

]

Also, I do see the narrative machinations of it. [

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First of all, Semyon will be forced to investigate and get involved more directly instead of through his bent proxy. Secondly, it was stated several times in the episode that the State Dept doesn't really give a shit about the murder, they just want to nail corruption in Vinci and Antigone's real investigation is Velcoro himself. So now he can be the *real* murder that they investigate.

]

And on a meta level, I think it can be an interesting statement because [

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Velcoro is such a cliched anti-hero loner archetype with the macho outbursts and loser personal life, who is always on a redemption path in these types of stories, but in reality would probably just be stupid and self-destructive. So it seems fitting that he gets suckerpunched to death while doing something reckless as a loner.

We have been given no indication that he's even a "true detective" like Rust or Marty. He just goes where Semyon points. So it could be that the show is saying, forget thinking this kind of sad sack is the hero.

]

[Ezee E]

Also goes to the original idea that it would be a male and female as the main detectives in the show.

[Winston*]

This show is boring and bad, yet I will still keep watching. Product of an ego unchecked. That Cary Fukunaga stand-in...

Nice to see Fred Ward in something though. Where's that guy been?

[number8]

That Cary Fukunaga stand-in...

Oy.

I think I also miss the humor. Marty was a sad sack, but he brought a lot of pithy liners that made him a good foil for Rust. These three are all so dour, and Velcoro's attempts at humor are just dumb ("Feels like sucking a robot's dick").

[Ezee E]

Everyone also talks so quietly.

[Irish]

This is an 8 episode season, isn't it?

I've lost track how many times they repeated the same information (Kitch's character is a closet case, etc) without advancing the main plot at all.

[Winston*]

Oy.

I think I also miss the humor. Marty was a sad sack, but he brought a lot of pithy liners that made him a good foil for Rust. These three are all so dour, and Velcoro's attempts at humor are just dumb ("Feels like sucking a robot's dick").

Then they call back the e-cigarette thing with Kitsch this episode.

Season one did such a great job playing to its leads' strengths. Season two feels like it's burying them. Vaughan and Farrell are a their best playing charismatic wiseasses, yet all this season gives them to do is glower at various people and objects.

Would prefer to see the Farrell from Fright Night in this kind of story

[DavidSeven]

I'm still enjoying this for varying reasons, but it's definitely veering into being enjoyably bad at a higher frequency. They are having a hard time distinguishing the voices. Last season, Pizzolatto's linguistic indulgences were channeled mostly through Rust Cohle, who was playing off Harrelson's eye-rolling cop. The show really misses that flippant presence. I'm really starting to understand how much Harrelson brought to S1. His perspective made Cohle's musings more digestible. This year, however, everyone is Cohle, and no one is there to be like "dude..." Never more apparent than that ridiculous "stridency"/"apoplectic" exchange between Farrell and Vaughn.

[Ezee E]

I'm still enjoying this for varying reasons, but it's definitely veering into being enjoyably bad at a higher frequency. They are having a hard time distinguishing the voices. Last season, Pizzolatto's linguistic indulgences were channeled mostly through Rust Cohle, who was playing off Harrelson's eye-rolling cop. The show really misses that flippant presence. I'm really starting to understand how much Harrelson brought to S1. His perspective made Cohle's musings more digestible. This year, however, everyone is Cohle, and no one is there to be like "dude..." Never more apparent than that ridiculous "stridency"/"apoplectic" exchange between Farrell and Vaughn.

Yeah, I thought that McAdams would be bringing a sort of Woody-ish personality to the table, but that's not really the case. Kitsch is always just out of place here, with the repetition of scenes over and over.

Vaughn's charisma has been thrown away so far. I'd like the idea of him being one-note and professional when he needs to be, if he got to be the cocky/over-the-top when the doors are closed, but he's mostly just kinda boring all around. He should've had a solid scene with his fight, but it was pretty tame.

[Winston*]

Vaughn's charisma has been thrown away so far. I'd like the idea of him being one-note and professional when he needs to be, if he got to be the cocky/over-the-top when the doors are closed, but he's mostly just kinda boring all around. He should've had a solid scene with his fight, but it was pretty tame.

The only scene where he really livens up is when he's harassing that guy on the side of the motorway the previous episode.

That fight was ridiculous. Maybe intentionally? I don't know know with this show anymore.

[Ezee E]

I gave the show too much credit for the first two episodes. Well shot, great mood, nice pieces of music... Was wary of the characters, figuring that there was good stuff to come.

Three episodes in, and there's not a hint of intrigue like there was from Matt/Woody's season, and they were on their way to having the episode of the season in number four. There was a sense of buildup to that. If episode four is as sleepy as this week, I might be done with it.

[Winston*]

It's frustrating because you can imagine a good show in this setting with these production values, and the interplay between Farrell as bitter and sarcastic loner, Vaughn as a smooth talking career criminal losing his grip on his empire, Kitsch as a Dudley Do-Right type and McAdams as an overzealous cop with a chip on her shoulder. It's not like the elements aren't there.

Auteurism be damned, I feel like Pizzolatto needs to get some other writers around to check him on his excesses and focus his narrative. Someone to say "maybe there are more effective ways to open this episode than Vince Vaughn giving a five minute monologue about killing a rat" or "does this scene have any purpose other than to say a public fuck you to last year's director?".