True Detective (HBO)

[jamrage]

It's getting better, but at the midpoint through the season more should have happened. The cops still don't know shit about shit.

The showrunners are working hard to give you something cool at the end of episodes to help you forget how mediocre everything else is. Going "Heat" at the end of this episode didn't hurt my feelings, obviously going to be a lot of fallout given all the cop/civvy deaths. Vaughn is still the best part of the show, you feel like he has the most to lose whereas the cops might just get drummed out of the force or something. Kitsch's character is so goddamn cliche, but Farrell is growing on me. This show needs at least two gun battles an episode from now on.

[stype_ones]

Obviously the best episode thus far. Ending was crazy in a good way but it was also very necessary. Even though it was absurd from many standpoints, the action was there at least. This series needed something like that. The acting is not very good which is what is really hurting the show in my eyes. Vaughn is probably the best, but Farrell is def growing on me as well. Like previously stated, it's just burning at too slow a rate both in theory and method for an 8 episode series. They need to turn this shit the fuck up to 10 for the remainder.

[stupidregister]

Yeah, good action sequence at the end but this show plays like a broke-ass version of The Wire. It's trying so hard to be. Honestly, I think Farrell is the only thing worth watching but I think Vaughn is getting a little better although I don't buy him as a big shot that everyone's suddenly rolling over for. The closet homo is easily the worst character and angle on the show. It's literally unwatchable when he's on.

[drizzle]

Eeeh....

The first 50 minutes of this wasn't any better than the previous episodes, in some aspects maybe even worse. The poisoned land stuff was intriguing and so was finding out the drunk mayor has deep family roots + connections to the institute, but the latter was a foregone conclusion and at a half way point of the season they shouldn't still be sketching plot points which are that broad. Frank taking multiple meetings that all essentially amounted to the same thing just dragged, the sexual harassment thing against Ani felt forced and also dragged, and everything with the bike dude again... dragged. The ep didn't even have that good hazy dreamy mildly hallucinatory feel from the previous episodes, it was just a bunch of procedural stuff happening without much dramatic impact.

The shootout was fine in of itself but nothing special. Like the last season's shootout it had a tenuous connection to the rest of the plot and felt completely out of step with the rest of the show tonally. But the last one was staged incredibly well so it made for a great a stylistic aside. This one was like some shit from a Sons Of Anarchy episode so it came off as "well it's guns and guns are more fun to watch than Frank talking about cavities, so that's something...." Ironically, there was a moment there where the bike cop looked like he knew wtf he was doing under fire for like half a second which almost briefly justified his ex-military character. Maybe it was even intentional! We'll see what comes from this in the next episode (probably not much)

[Cryptic One]

i wish it wasnt, but this show is really really shitty

the SOA comparison was dead on

[intuition]

i couldn't dedicate myself to being 100% out (ain't shit else on in the summer on sundays), so i put the episode on this afternoon hoping to catch a quick nap this afternoon. it worked and i fell asleep for most of it but, of course, the shootout scene woke me up because it was loud as fuck.

that being said, the shootout looked corny af to me. like a GTA V mission on tv. the filming looked low budget, like the beginning of a CSI Miami episode. also a building blew up and people were just chilling in that alley market like not giving a fuck, and then at least 40 people got shot and those 3 detectives are the only people left standing? if the next episode isn't all of them being on the national news cycle 24/7 for a week then there's absolutely no realism at all in this show.

[alpha]

Riggins character being bi adds nothing to story at all. They established he's conflicted and messed up in the opener, this gay stuff is just piling it on.

[907]

Riggins character being bi adds nothing to story at all. They established he's conflicted and messed up in the opener, this gay stuff is just piling it on.

How have they implied that he's bi? He had to pop viagra to get hard for a smoking hot woman in a thong, dude is pure homo and butthurt about it imo.

[Kace]

The ep didn't even have that good hazy dreamy mildly hallucinatory feel from the previous episodes, it was just a bunch of procedural stuff happening without much dramatic impact.

Noticed that too. Was this episode directed by someone else? They should've gone with just one director, the show has enough problems already.


The dialogue itself isn't even that bad, just the way they deliver it sounds so off at times. I wonder if that's intentional or the result of lazy casting/acting.

[Philaflava]

agree about vaughn. it was a hard sell at first but i think he has the best lines in the show. you really start to sympathize with him to an extent.

[seagrams hotsauce]

Can't understand the praise for Vince. Dude is basura and not at all believable as a tough guy. More like Vince VaUGHn.

Show is gaaaaarbage, that shootout was cool but only in contrast to the rest of the shitty, boring scenes that preceded it and not nearly as interesting/harrowing as the one-shot from last season. Also not really sure why the Mexican gang felt the need to massacre civilians, though I honestly couldn't tell if that's what was supposed to be being portrayed or if the civilian casualties were collateral damage because the direction was so confusing. Same hack director that did this bullshit

[Philaflava]

i can't defend this hot mess anymore. 3 more eps is just enough for me to stick it out but fuck this has been so uninteresting.

[drizzle]

Lol so they pretty much just laid out about 90% of the mystery, minus who the bird man was and a few obligatory twists, right?

Would be a riot if the dead partner turns out to be the bird man

[jamrage]

Same ol' same ol'.

Farrell still getting more interesting, especially since he killed the wrong guy. Kitsch is a worthless piece of shit, and McAdam's character is underutilized. But yeah, they just laid out most of what's going on with three episodes to go.

We can only hope that the season finishes on an up note and has better writing/acting next season.

[paul_smith]

Well, this was probably the episode that showed exactly how messy things have already gotten for the show. I just find it terribly annoying that the moment when they establish some type of atmoshpere (i.e. Mcadams and Kitsch entering guerneville) they decide to ditch that for a sequence of Vaugh (whose screen time on this show I otherwise really enjoy) and his wife staring at each other. Some mildly interesting developments but yeah, I officially cannot imagine how this can suddenly get better for the last three episodes but yeah, I'm naive enough to still believe

[djjeffresh]

We can only hope that the season finishes on an up note and has better writing/acting next season.

i haven't seen any announcements that a 3rd season is even happening. have you?

[drizzle]

[Kace]

I also got this when I googled Bezzerides:

[drizzle]

That movie is dope. Lottapizza hilariously claims that this very specifically Green-named author, who's known specifically for Cali Noir, has the same name as a very specifically Greek-named character of this Cali Noir tv show totally by accident. Pizza apparently got the name from a phonebook....

[Tweak Da Leak]

Pizzaface's backtracking on influences is the best part of the show nowadays

[jamrage]

We can only hope that the season finishes on an up note and has better writing/acting next season.

i haven't seen any announcements that a 3rd season is even happening. have you?

They did so well with the first season that I find it difficult to believe they'd abandon the show after one subpar season. Especially when you can reboot it every single season.

[peanut butter]

Nice collection, but they forgot "Feelin a Little Apoplectic"


PEACE

[907]

Nice collection, but they forgot "Feelin a Little Apoplectic"


PEACE

[drizzle]

We can only hope that the season finishes on an up note and has better writing/acting next season.

i haven't seen any announcements that a 3rd season is even happening. have you?

They did so well with the first season that I find it difficult to believe they'd abandon the show after one subpar season. Especially when you can reboot it every single season.

would be a riot if they continued on with a different writer

[jamrage]

Dare I say that it was a good episode?

A couple really interesting/odd choices here:

1)Cutting from the Vaughn/Farrel scene right in the middle of it by quick cutting to the photos being taken of the other crime scene as if to trick us into thinking they were gunshots. You knew then that they weren't going to shoot each other when they cut back. I guess they felt like it was too long a scene, but I wish they'd had the balls to play out in one go. Bad move.

2)The symphonic music in the Eyes Wide Shut scenes was really distracting. Perhaps it was meant to juxtapose the seediness of the party with the "classy" music, but I had a hard time with it.

That said, I enjoyed the entire episode. Vaughn torturing that guy and his dealings with the cartel guys was interesting. His disgust with the cartel guys killing the girl and helping the little boy highlighted his internal conflict, and showed once again that he's the most compelling character on this show. Less Kitsch personal bullshit was great. I wish they'd just kill him already, there's no way he makes it out alive is there? Nice of them to finally return to McAdams's knife play and delve a little more into her backstory. She's still being underused. Farrell is becoming my favorite of all the cops, his character has had some great arcs. Again, this from a guy who doesn't think much of his abilities as an actor in general, but he's really well cast here.

[Philaflava]

Good ep but that orgy party was very contrived. Both Kitsch/Farrell conveniently appear at the right window, at the right time to see the deal go down and then sneak in like this is a Scooby Doo episode to steal the documents. Otherwise, I enjoyed but it definitely had some ridic scenes. Like Omar jumping off a 5th story balcony ridic.

[drizzle]

Thought it was awful. Most of the momentum in plot development they had from last week was undercut. Any tension they had in the opening standoff was diffused by cutting away from it for no other reason then to check in with the other cliffhanger... which also landed with little effect. Vince having the inspirational talk with the kid works on paper for his character but was played terribly, it felt like 17 hours long. Even worse, this is a scene predicated on a death of a character who was never properly established, and the significance of his death remains completely in the air, it was barely even referred to since it happened.

Velcoro's coke freakout was like the scene from Wet Hot where they go into town to party for an hour. Orgy scene was pretty ridiculous in an entertaining way, but any good fun to be had here was undercut by molestation thing which neatly doubles how clumsy and hacky Ani's character is.

Basically, any step into a good direction is sidetracked by two steps into some dumb shit, every time

[battlecatmeowstab212]

Basically, any step into a good direction is sidetracked by two steps into some dumb shit, every time

True Dexter

[Cryptic One]

2)The symphonic music in the Eyes Wide Shut scenes was really distracting. Perhaps it was meant to juxtapose the seediness of the party with the "classy" music, but I had a hard time with it.

i thought it was just me. i liked most of this episode, but that music was terrible

[chapter thrive]

a friend of mine put it as trying to be lynchian, but never going far enough.