True Detective [HBO] [** Spoilers **]

Lovely Bloke

Frank Semyon is gay. He can't get it up for his wife and recognises Woodrough in the club.

Frisbee

Struggling to like this.

The dialogue is like when Joey gets a Thesaurus in Friends and re-writes his letter to try sound smart.

loyatemu

So...
Farrell is an depressed, alcoholic, corrupt cop with daddy issues, embroiled in a bitter custody battle
McAdams also has daddy issues from her bizarre cult upbringing and a taste for extreme sex
Kitsch is a damaged war veteran with mommy issues and is a closeted homosexual
Vaughn is a bad-guy-trying-to-go-straight, had an abusive childhood, and he's impotent but is trying to have a child.
We've had touches of the occult (as in season 1) but also a David Lynch style musical near-death scene, several visits to the most depressing bar on earth, the worlds drunkest mayor, and line after line of ropey, trying-too-hard dialogue. Oh, and endless aerial shots of highways.

And that's just in the first 3 episodes - it's all a bit too much really...

PrettyBoy

PrettyBoy wrote: »

Not the most exciting episode but I enjoyed it. Expected the story to be a slow burner and that it is. No point in comparing it to the first season as the only thing this series shares with it is the name but, for those that must, I can recall a few times in series 1 where I felt the story was moving a bit too slowly. Be patient.

Yes it's not as if the first series was perfect by any means yet it looks like some people can't get over it!

The second series is not perfect either but is intriguing enough to keep me watching. It's still well made, looks good and more ambitious than 96% of the normal tv fodder out there.

jones

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Frank Semyon is gay. He can't get it up for his wife and recognises Woodrough in the club.

Wasnt the whole thing that he couldnt do it for procreation (i presuming it for for IVF or something?) rather than sexual thing. Saying he was checked and it must be her problem...or something along those lines? I dont think he's gay he even said something about it never happening to him before. As said above he's probably impotent.

The scene between him and friday night lights in the club was strange though.

I know it was a bit of a cop out (pardon the pun) but i'm glad Farrell isnt dead he's the best thing in it at the moment

den87

Taylor Kitsch is the best thing in this if you ask me "Is that a f***in ecigarette?" was the complete perfect opposite of Farrell fawning over Bezzerides use of said item last week.

Im torn because i want to see how this ends up but its gonna be a chore.

brevity

Bambi wrote: »

Maybe Dennis Waterman could hand more credible hidings than Vincent Vaughan, that was embarrassing stuff.

Thinking back, the fight scene was stupid. Would much have preferred Vince to shoot him in the foot or something.

Mechanical Clocktail

Vince is the weak link here. The acting is passable but there's no movement in his area of the story. The mob stuff is dull and adjacent to the murder plot, although will obviously figure in later. I'm happy with the rest of it. Farrell and McAdams are great.

foleypio

I THINK PIZZOLATTO'S EGO HAS GOT THE BETTER OF HIM. Cary Fukunaga was one of the best things about series 1 & the clear reference to him in Sunday nights episode as a washed up alcoholic prima donna sex addict shows how bitter Pizzolatto is. No wonder he proper fell out with even his own parents.

The show lacks a solid direction, the writing gets carried away with itself at times & the acting is average aside from Farrell who has genuinely surprised me.

But to be honest, its still better than 90% of other tv shows out there at the moment so im sticking with it.

Roquentin

foleypio wrote: »

I THINK PIZZOLATTO'S EGO HAS GOT THE BETTER OF HIM. Cary Fukunaga was one of the best things about series 1 & the clear reference to him in Sunday nights episode as a washed up alcoholic prima donna sex addict shows how bitter Pizzolatto is. No wonder he proper fell out with even his own parents.

The show lacks a solid direction, the writing gets carried away with itself at times & the acting is average aside from Farrell who has genuinely surprised me.

But to be honest, its still better than 90% of other tv shows out there at the moment so im sticking with it.

true

foleypio

Pizzolatto appears in a scene in TD1 as a bartender in a strip joint. He's wearing a T shirt that says "Kiss me I'm an a-hole". Apparently, Matthew and Woody gave him the T shirt as a gift because he IS an a-hole.

Tells you all you need to know about this boyo

FloatingVoter

brevity wrote: »

Thinking back, the fight scene was stupid. Would much have preferred Vince to shoot him in the foot or something.

...that's old school Indiana Jones but still preferable than thinking amateur boxing will win the day. Maybe produce his child and slit her throat. For kicks and giggles.
As it stands he seems to rule LA with the ability to beat up an obese midget. Anybody you know who has done a spot of amateur boxing, spent some time in the army or the guards or is a genuine hard man could have laid out the male model with the teeth. Celebrity rappers wear teeth like that. Anybody in a world where they are in danger of someone producing pliers does not.
VV is doing a good job with what he has got - but the writing on his side of the fence is dodgy. Last time we were dealing with hillbillies going off the grid because they were so glassed up they didn't know there was a grid. This time it seems to be the IBM of gangland LA - all the blacks, Mexicans, nazis lined up as corporate VPs to the big man in the suit.

tommy2bad

I think it going in the direction of being more Frank Miller than Elmore Leonard, becoming almost cartoon in cliches characters and cliches situations. Its still interesting, don't get me wrong, I think the idea is good, use the well trodden tropes to explore the characters in some depth, the problem is unless it starts to develop out of the cliches its going to be little more than a colour by numbers dective story, no matter how pretty the colours are.
The lack of humour is killing it, making it seem pretentious. The first series was just as nihilist and bleak but it has a gallows humour that saved it. This one is plodding and dour, you feel worse after watching it, which begs the question, why am I still watching? It looks super, the acting is top class and lets face it I'm loss adverse, 3 hours invested and it's Monday night in the summer.

Roquentin

tommy2bad wrote: »

I think it going in the direction of being more Frank Miller than Elmore Leonard, becoming almost cartoon in cliches characters and cliches situations. Its still interesting, don't get me wrong, I think the idea is good, use the well trodden tropes to explore the characters in some depth, the problem is unless it starts to develop out of the cliches its going to be little more than a colour by numbers dective story, no matter how pretty the colours are.
The lack of humour is killing it, making it seem pretentious. The first series was just as nihilist and bleak but it has a gallows humour that saved it. This one is plodding and dour, you feel worse after watching it, which begs the question, why am I still watching? It looks super, the acting is top class and lets face it I'm loss adverse, 3 hours invested and it's Monday night in the summer.

i think thats harsh. its better than most things on tv now. the problem is that the audience is unconsciously aware that it has to compete with an exceptional first season. people are comparing it to season one and it will be hard to beat season 1. im finding it enjoyable and certainly one of the best series i have seen this year and ive watched a lot.

Tipsy McSwagger

People say you can't compare this with Season 1, but the reality is it's not great and we are hoping it can reach the heights of Season 1. Maybe it's doing a reversal, first few episodes ain't great but it ends with a bang, the opposite of the first season which started brilliantly but ended poorly.

To be honest it's fairly boring and cliched. There's no sense of uneasiness, the bad guy killed someone who was a crooked state official, so what? What I would have liked to have seen is a child killer on the loose not some Birdman killing characters we have zero sympathy for. Throw in a confusing story about property development and each of the 3 cops working for an independent body all trying to get the dirt on each other and it's a bit of a mess.

Keep it simple. Two cops, a killer targeting kids in LA, some interesting side characters, gritty and shocking scenes.

chanelfreak

I'm really surprised at the amount of hate for S2! I have to say, I was probably one of the very few people who didnt think S1 was all it was made out to be. Maybe I came to it too late, but it just didnt live up to the hype for me (I watched it over Easter this year). I personally think it got such rave reviews because it was something new and it didnt spoonfeed the audience, but the best tv show ever? I'm not sure.

On the other hand, I am really loving S2 so far. Colin Farrell is a class act, Vince Vaughan is decent enough and I am interested to see if he will really go somewhere we havent seen him go before with this character. I love, love, LOVE the darkness of it all, both in terms of the language, plot and the stunning shots. I also really like Depressing Bar Girl and was sad she wasn't in Ep3 I really adore noir though, so maybe that's why I prefer it to S1.

Tipsy McSwagger

I highly recommend 'Bosch' if you want to see a good detective show.

FloatingVoter

^ Yup it is dark and very noir. It is suffering from the David Lynch rip off. Those of us who remember Twin Peaks remember the humour, the darkness, the supernatural element and the general weirdness. I started into the last ep., saw CF in the afterlife being serenaded by Elvis and said yes, we're home. Nope, it was back to a rehash of The Shield. As the above poster said, none of the characters are interesting. Some of them are unbelievable. The show can't recover its "Gritty Reality" angle after the laughable conference between the LA gang heads and the little fight after school routine of our two villains.
Too many characters, nobody to care about, the show doesn't bave any legs.
TD1 was an overhyped buddy flick adapted for TV - McConaughey and Woody had chemistry and there were genuine laugh out loud moments but ultimately it was Lethal Weapon with muttering in.

tommy2bad

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

People say you can't compare this with Season 1, but the reality is it's not great and we are hoping it can reach the heights of Season 1. Maybe it's doing a reversal, first few episodes ain't great but it ends with a bang, the opposite of the first season which started brilliantly but ended poorly.

To be honest it's fairly boring and cliched. There's no sense of uneasiness, the bad guy killed someone who was a crooked state official, so what? What I would have liked to have seen is a child killer on the loose not some Birdman killing characters we have zero sympathy for. Throw in a confusing story about property development and each of the 3 cops working for an independent body all trying to get the dirt on each other and it's a bit of a mess.

Keep it simple. Two cops, a killer targeting kids in LA, some interesting side characters, gritty and shocking scenes.

So basically repeat series one? I refuse to call them seasons as it implies a follow on from, true detective is more an anthology, each series its own thing.
I have to say its not boring, slow and dour definitely but not boring. Its cliches all right and wears them with pride, so did series one btw, its just that they were less familiar cliches from a less used genre. Southern gothic.
I have said I find it depressing and I do, that's not a criticism, I think its what they intended to do. The question that we wait for an answer to isn't " who did it" its can any of the four leads find redemption by the end.

Halloween Jack

Some major, major problems with this by this stage.

While I admire the anthology approach I think pizzolato has kept the unimportant stuff about the original and jettisoned the stuff that made it unique.

First and most important thing about the initial series is the relationship between Marty and Rust. Practically every scene involves one or both, it's their story, we spend the entire series with them and we like them and their relationship and we want to see things work out for them. EVERYTHING ELSE in the series is either a vehicle to explore this dynamic or colour and atmosphere.

In season 2, we have 4 leads. Each commanding a lot of screen time. We still only have 8 hours though, so instead of a really cool twin timeline to gradually reveal the characters etc, we get loads of really clunky exposition scenes and plot lines which almost seem to exist in isolation. So any chance of really getting to know the characters beyond a few broad and pretty crude brushstrokes or any attempt to really explore their relationships are lost, because there are 4 of them, they aren't often seen together and there is also a giant conspiracy plot to unveil.

The lack of focus regarding the characters carries over into the plot as well. There's just way too much going on. There's the big web of corruption, the weird sexual and occult stuff, the kind of hidden tramp city social critique thing done very heavy handed because there's not enough time to really get in to one angle properly, and it all ends up being kind of blankly stated by characters.

So basically I don't know who's story this is and I don't know what it's about and that's normally the death knell for a fairly straightforward genre piece like this.

I have other criticisms but I'm on my phone and my wrists are killing me.

To end on a positive though, Farrell's acting is by far and away the best thing about this and the reason I'll be watching till the bitter end.

ixoy

Halloween Jack wrote: »

First and most important thing about the initial series is the relationship between Marty and Rust. Practically every scene involves one or both, it's their story, we spend the entire series with them and we like them and their relationship and we want to see things work out for them.

While you making a good point about the importance of relationships in the show, did you honestly like the characters as people? Marty in particular was an a$$hole who mis-treated his family IMO and Rust wasn't much better. Interesting characters, undoubtedly, but like say Tony Soprano I found them impossible to like.

Halloween Jack

ixoy wrote: »

While you making a good point about the importance of relationships in the show, did you honestly like the characters as people? Marty in particular was an a$$hole who mis-treated his family IMO and Rust wasn't much better. Interesting characters, undoubtedly, but like say Tony Soprano I found them impossible to like.

I liked them both yeah, I like a lot of people in real life who are weak or troubled, many of whom have done ****ty things, I've done a few myself;)

Tony is different level though, part of the genius of that show was suckering you into liking tony for a bit before he committed some atrocity or another. By the end of him the charisma is gone, he's used up all his chances and has revealed himself to be a monster.

TheChevron

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

I highly recommend 'Bosch' if you want to see a good detective show.

Why the feck have I never head of this! All over it!

jones

Off topic here but i love Tony Soprano...i do think he became a little less likable during the last season but i thought the beauty of the Soprano's was making you root for a character that in real life would be a complete monster. Same with Ruste in season 1...i loved the character on screen but can you imagine working with him in real life. I think you'd top yourself after a week of his ramblings ;-)

Roquentin

jones wrote: »

Off topic here but i love Tony Soprano...i do think he became a little less likable during the last season but i thought the beauty of the Soprano's was making you root for a character that in real life would be a complete monster. Same with Ruste in season 1...i loved the character on screen but can you imagine working with him in real life. I think you'd top yourself after a week of his ramblings ;-)

the sopranos alright in final season went down. still though the previous seasons were the greatest

The Black Oil

I'm generally enjoying it, following the plot fine. Sure, maybe some of the dialogue needs a kick up the rear and the crime isn't as grisly or underground as what went on in backwater Louisiana, but hey, that's as far as I'm going to go with comparisons.

It's all about character and I'm fine with that. Not all shows are that bothered.

brevity

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

I highly recommend 'Bosch' if you want to see a good detective show.

Completely forgot about this show...loved the pilot when it came out...must watch the rest soon!

lizzyman

brevity wrote: »

Completely forgot about this show...loved the pilot when it came out...must watch the rest soon!

I have this on the laptop now and will be watching the pilot shortly. Thanks boards!

Heckler

While it has big shoes to fill I'm liking it. Farrell is doing a great job.

While its was derivative as hell I really enjoyed the start to ep 3.

"Aw son they kill you. They shoot you to pieces". "I don't know, you're here first".

Could be that I love Elvis and Fred Ward though.

Rays not gonna make it by the end but he's gonna redeem himself I reckon.

mystic86

I have just finished watching Season 1, excellent stuff, although the ending was poor enough, could easily have made such a better ending.

One thing I have to rant about is the way Rust talks, I had the TV up really high here and often still struggled to hear what he was saying, he just mutters so bloody much!!

Anybody else have that issue?

And if the ending wasn't annoying enough because it was so unnecessarily poorer than the rest of the season, I had no f*ucking idea what he mumbled at the end, had to go googling to find out what he said, hardly a good way to end a Season like that!

Very frustrating!!!!!