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True Detective


caley

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I only just watched the last episode, had to psych myself up to watching it after reading some of the shit about it.

 

It was, ah, yeah, not good.

 

The cruel bastards had poor Kelly Reilly film out in the fucking desert too. Ain't nobody notice she's a friggin redhead from England?

 

Oh well, Fargo's back soon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There are legitimate criticism of this season but I think people bitching about the clunky, pretentious dialogue are missing the point.

 

It's supposed to be silly. These characters say these things for the same reason Jules did the big Ezekial speech in Pulp Fiction. It sounds like cool shit to say before you put down a motherfucker.  Hannibal is a similar deal: They say stupid stuff on that show all the time. It's part of the characterization. .

 

The characters get so wrapped in in the image they have of themselves, they're neglecting their actual selves.

 

Or something.

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Have you ever heard Pizzolatto talk about his work? It is most definitely NOT supposed to be silly.

Tarantino and Pizzolatto couldn't be any more different. Tarantino didn't even make it through watching one episode of TRUE DETECTIVE.

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Just for reference:

 

 

Have you seen True Detective?

 

I tried to watch the first episode of season one, and I didn’t get into it at all. I thought it was really boring. And season two looks awful. Just the trailer — all these handsome actors trying to not be handsome and walking around looking like the weight of the world is on their shoulders. It’s so serious, and they’re so tortured, trying to look miserable with their mustaches and grungy clothes.

 

Now, the HBO show I loved was Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. That was the only show that I literally watched three times. I would watch it at seven o’clock on Sunday, when the new one would come on. Then after it was over, I’d watch it all over again. Then I would usually end up watching it once during the week, just so I could listen to the dialogue one more time.

 

This is funny because you had people who wrote articles fantasy booking Tarantino directing a season of True Detective. I am not sure about now, but 1995 Quentin Tarantino would've tried to kill Nic Pizzolatto on set. It would have been something like Brian De Palma and cokehead Oliver Stone when they were shooting Scarface.

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He also once put THE LONE RANGER on his best of the year list because he really liked the big train sequnce at the end. So this wouldn't be the first time he loved something terrible because of one particular aspect of it.

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I actually still think some of it was intentional . These characters were not super competent Rust types.

Frank was out of his element. Ray was a lunatic. He also tripped over a bag of money he was leaving behind!

Antigone was... Well not so sure about that one. She was competent for 7 episodes.

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Man, I don't know. NP is not the type of dude who is THAT crafty to purposely make the dialogue that bad. It reminds me of M. Night saying he wanted to purposely make a bad movie with the Happening. The fuck you did.

 

M. Night, master of tripping over shit and acting like he meant to do that afterwards. I'm onto you, asshole.

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  • 1 year later...

So anyway, I got the DVD of Season 2 in the sale and I'd recommend going back and rewatching it. Picked up on tons of stuff that passed me by when watching it episodically.

Is it as good as Season 1? Nope. And I think that's largely down to a lack of narrative depth. It is there, it's just not that intriguing.

Similarly I think the expanded cast hurt it. Too many personal storylines going on that aren't given enough time for you to really care.

I liked the fact these characters were completely inept, it was refreshing. I was rooting for them but they kept fucking up because they weren't that good - they were all on that case to fail, not for their skills, and they got caught up in the shit as a result of trying to do the right thing.

Ray Velcoro's arc is really great, and I'd legit put Farrell's performance up there with McConnaughey - okay he doesn't have as many cool lines but the nuance really makes him a sympathetic character. That scene when he's being supervised with his kid and then goes on a rock n roll bender in his shitty house is heartbreaking. 

Worst line - "Never do anything out of hunger, not even eating.". That line sounds like something White Goodman would say in Dodgeball which Vaughan picked up off the cutting room floor. In fact the weakest part of the whole thing is by far Vince Vaughan and his meek wife - every scene with them two just drains any momentum an episode has.

In conclusion - flawed but nowhere near as bad as everyone makes out. For Season 3, please get the same director for every episode. And an actual intriguing case for them to solve

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I thought that "even my constipation is fraught with consternation" line was the worst. It was something about taking shits and intensity. I remember that much. By the way, if Semyon was supposed to be some kind of Russian Jewish gangster (pulling that out of my ass but he's clearly not supposed to be an Irish or Italian gangster) then why did his dad that showed up in the desert appear as some burnt out wife-beater wearing ex-Marshall Tucker Band roadie? I wonder when we are even getting a Season 3.

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There won't be a season 3 because season 2 sucked. HBO said as much.

Season 2 of True Detective set such a high bar for bad television. It really is quite remarkable. Any time I think about season 2, I always think to the line from the Waterboy from Lawrence Taylor: "Don't smoke crack." Season 2 of True Detective is what happens when you make NP think he's such a brilliant guy that can do no wrong. This thread is rife with examples of why nearly every episode was terrible. The sad thing is that I really expected NP to come out at some point and say that this was MEANT to be awful as a throwback to shitty 70s crime shows, kinda like how M. Night said the Happening was MEANT to be bad as a throwback to bad horror movies.

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Of course you'd say that, you slagged the show off left right and centre every week. Did Pizzolato rape the corpse of one of your ancestors or something?

Anywho, HBO's new programming chief Casey Bloys announced that the show was still alive but that there was currently "no take on a third season yet." what's more they admitted that the faults of Season 2 were their own for rushing Pizzolatto to complete the season so *shrug*

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That said, I would still be immediately down if season 3 were to ever happen without NP and going back to Marty and Rust, exploring that relationship more. I still think how season 1 ended is awesome, with the overall arc bringing these two guys, who on the surface appear to polar opposites, so close together because they're really quite similar. Have them both working on a case together, better understanding each other's quirks and nuances, etc.

Putting that out there makes me feel like It's Always Sunny is REALLY missing the boat by not doing a similar thing with Charlie and Frank.

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8 minutes ago, CreativeControl said:

Of course you'd say that, you slagged the show off left right and centre every week. Did Pizzolato rape the corpse of one of your ancestors or something?

Anywho, HBO's new programming chief Casey Bloys announced that the show was still alive but that there was currently "no take on a third season yet." what's more they admitted that the faults of Season 2 were their own for rushing Pizzolatto to complete the season so *shrug*

Is that necessary? Why would the show creator have to affect me personally to not like their creation? Sometimes TV is really, really shitty and it's fun to shoot the shit with others about why and how it's really shitty. It helps to pass the time while you wait to see if this thing you used to like will get any better.

Be better. Meaning you. If you liked it, that's fine. I, and plenty of others, didn't. There's nothing wrong about that. No one is attacking you for your taste or your take on the season, so why go after someone else for expressing a different view?

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Because your negative rhetoric is just bizarre. Week-in week-out you slated it in the most nitpicky way possible - fair enough, many did, I respect that and I was a detractor in parts too. 

So I come back to the topic six months later and with the benefit of a binge rewatch to sorta say "hey you may want to revisit this" and you just launch in again like you desperately need to have the final say. 

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  • 6 months later...

Well Season 3 is a go.

HBO’s limited series will officially return for a third season, this time starring Oscar winner Mahershala Ali. Nic Pizzolatto is set to direct, along with Jeremy Saulnier.

The next installment tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. Ali will play the lead role of Wayne Hays, a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas. It does not currently have an air date, nor is there a set date for the start of production. 

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Jesus. Pizzolatto shouldn't be anywhere near this.

Although, I'm legit interested and I'll watch. I was just in the Ozarks (southern Missouri on the MO/AR border) visiting my wife's mom and grandma a couple weeks ago. It's a beautiful area, but there are for sure some creepy rural places around that area.

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