Created and written by novelist Nic Pizzolatto HBO's anthology series True Detective barreled through the zeitgeist on the backs of career best performances by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson strong direction by Cary Fukunaga a bracing level of bone deep nihilism and a nightmare inducing web of creepy Lovecraftian local color. The suspense kept pulses pounding through each episode while the drive to decipher its mysteries had viewers doing literary loop the loops for the rest of the week. What could have been just a well made portrait of dangerous men in a compelling time and place Bayou walk Empire basically exploded into a cultural phenomenon. Calling its first season a Southern Gothic rollercoaster ride is both the kindest and the cruelest compliment you can pay it.
Sidebar Is 'True Detective''s New Season Truly DefectiveBut as exciting as a rollercoaster's ups and downs may be it doesn't actually take you anywhere in the end. Those eight hours of dark crime fiction shouldn't be dismissed. But the more distance we got from the madness of the moment the more concerns about the material mounted Pizzolatto's over fondness for his macho main characters say or his insistence that picking these protagonists prevented him from creating women characters with depth. Ultimately the whole thing revealed itself to be a stunning act of television prestidigitation With so many of the factors that made that happen no longer in place it's all but impossible to repeat the trick again.
That's the dilemma facing Season Two. Even aside from all the hurdles inherent in setting up an anthology series' second go round new story new setting new characters as well as new actors and directors too so many of the techniques its initial incarnation used are off the table. And if this premiere episode is any indication the results are not promising.
Wisely eschewing serial killer symbolism (at this point you can't swing a severed arm without hitting a television show combining murder mysteries and stag antler imagery) True Detective 2.0's story stays focused on the political corruption angle relocated from the swamps of Louisiana to the sprawl of Los Angeles. Here we find Detective Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) a down on his luck divorced drunk from the City of Vinci. The cop is paying off a debt to local crime boss Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) by serving as his enforcer when he's not busy bullying his own terrified son. Elsewhere Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) a detective with the Ventura County Sherrifs grits her teeth through unsatisfying penny ante assignments while heavily scarred war veteran Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) uses his job as CHiPS motorcycle cop to sublimate his suicidal impulses. After establishing their gigs and lives the episode brings the three police together when Woodrugh stumbles across a corpse one who happens to be a missing person from Semyon's corrupt political machine.
The plot is admirably dense but you wouldn't call it compelling. And absent Fukunaga's touch the imagery courtesy of Fast Furious franchise veteran Justin Lin lacks the first season's immersive quality. Only a handful of shots linger in the brain at all the sight of Farrell's character in a ski mask turning to the camera and shushing a witness a couple of arterial overhead shots of the freeway system a recurring sequence of a corpse in wraparound shades being driven around in the back of a car. Given that the first showed up in the trailer the second is a no brainer for any L.A. story and the third is pretty much an homage to David Lynch's underexplored Lost Highway/Mulholland Drive California noir period it's a weak showing.
The performances can't carry the weight either. Colin Farrell's bloated belligerent alcoholic cop is shall we say not exactly a stretch. Kitsch and McAdams aren't asked for much more than being younger photogenic and better at keeping their obvious demons under wraps around others. Vaughn hands in some of the episode's best work watch his eyes which radiate genuine unspoken concern over Velcoro's sorry state when the two of them meet up near the end of the episode. Yet he's also asked to deliver gangster dialogue that sounds cribbed from a video game cut scene It'd take a Brando to make clunkers like This filth hurt your woman or This place is based on a codependency of interests or A good woman mitigates our baser tendencies sound halfway passable.
As two of those three examples indicate True Detective's woman trouble has hardly improved. McAdams' character is introduced in her underwear storming out of the bedroom after freaking out her boyfriend by apparently requesting something a bit too wild. Both she and Kitsch's character experience sexual dysfunction as a shorthand for their psychological issues but in his case he can't get it up without Viagra it's telling how the worst problem a man can have in the series' world is failure to perform while for a woman it's performing too aggressively.
Sidebar 'True Detective' Finale Recap The EndCertainly that's reflected in the females Woodrugh encounters a speeding starlet who gets him suspended with false accusations of soliciting sexual favors and a girlfriend (also introduced in her underwear) who we've barely seen for 30 seconds before she says It's been a week Mr. Policeman get that dick over here. Can't she see he's suffering Well no because he saves that for his long solo night rides on his bike the wind against his face making for the hour's most unintentionally hilarious visual.
Worse still is the emotional contract the show asks us to sign regarding Velcoro and Semyon. A flashback shows the pair first connecting when the latter provides the former with information about the suspect in his wife's rape hence the this filth hit your woman bit. Given what we've seen of Velcoro's subsequent behavior it's easy to imagine what he did with this knowledge. It's much harder to know how the actual victim felt given that we never see his wife hear her or even learn her name in the episode. The show asks us to believe that a rape is fundamentally the story of the abusive man who avenges her (when he's not menacing children himself) a repeat of Season One's unfortunate white knight theme. Why must we accept stories about violence in which its perpetrators are its heroes Unless and until it answers that question True Detective risks simply being a one season wonder.
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