HBO Television Show: True Detective

[Mecca]

I'm certainly old enough to remember how maligned that S1 finale was when it first aired. People were so pissed!

I think the loudest gripe was that the rich family didn’t have their empire come crashing down?

[epilogue]

the explanation was so bad

What didn't you like about it?

[Bi_3]

I'm certainly old enough to remember how maligned that S1 finale was when it first aired. People were so pissed!

I think the loudest gripe was that the rich family didn’t have their empire come crashing down?

Searching back here we all seemed very happy with it.

[E.H. Ruddock]

the explanation was so bad

What didn't you like about it?

To me it felt dumbed down. Like they didn't want to take the time to film scenes without narration to show what happened. Both the original murder of the girl and the murders of the scientists had someone laying it all out for us. It was lazy.

[Monkey_Driven]

The CGI in this was so bad.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[epilogue]

I'm certainly old enough to remember how maligned that S1 finale was when it first aired. People were so pissed!

I think the loudest gripe was that the rich family didn’t have their empire come crashing down?

Searching back here we all seemed very happy with it.

I do remember RM being mostly into the finale, too.

[epilogue]

the explanation was so bad

What didn't you like about it?

To me it felt dumbed down. Like they didn't want to take the time to film scenes without narration to show what happened. Both the original murder of the girl and the murders of the scientists had someone laying it all out for us. It was lazy.

Interesting. It didn't feel lazy to me. It felt thematically consistent. I guess they could have just shown the flashbacks. Or the could have just done the explanations via monologue a la The Leftovers. But do much of what the season was about dealt with unreliable narrators and "who is telling the story." I thought it worked really well.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[Bi_3]

the explanation was so bad

What didn't you like about it?

To me it felt dumbed down. Like they didn't want to take the time to film scenes without narration to show what happened. Both the original murder of the girl and the murders of the scientists had someone laying it all out for us. It was lazy.

Interesting. It didn't feel lazy to me. It felt thematically consistent. I guess they could have just shown the flashbacks. Or the could have just done the explanations via monologue a la The Leftovers. But do much of what the season was about dealt with unreliable narrators and "who is telling the story." I thought it worked really well.

I get that, but part of what makes unreliable narrators work in a story like this is that they follow the flow of a magic trick: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. In this case the pledge was actually the turn, so when the reveal (prestige) happened it was not the restoration of the pledge but the revelation that we had been fooled about which element of the story was actually the pledge in the first place. By doing this the whole story becomes nonsensical and the audience is betrayed.

Totally reminded me of this clip from Role Models: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxfNAh4w7CVx ... u4KbJnSlo8

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[epilogue]

the explanation was so bad

What didn't you like about it?

To me it felt dumbed down. Like they didn't want to take the time to film scenes without narration to show what happened. Both the original murder of the girl and the murders of the scientists had someone laying it all out for us. It was lazy.

Interesting. It didn't feel lazy to me. It felt thematically consistent. I guess they could have just shown the flashbacks. Or the could have just done the explanations via monologue a la The Leftovers. But do much of what the season was about dealt with unreliable narrators and "who is telling the story." I thought it worked really well.

I get that, but part of what makes unreliable narrators work in a story like this is that they follow the flow of a magic trick: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. In this case the pledge was actually the turn, so when the reveal (prestige) happened it was not the restoration of the pledge but the revelation that we had been fooled about which element of the story was actually the pledge in the first place. By doing this the whole story becomes nonsensical and the audience is betrayed.

Totally reminded me of this clip from Role Models: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxfNAh4w7CVx ... u4KbJnSlo8

I'm sorry you felt betrayed.

I'll be honest, as with most of your posts, what you said above is vague, so I'm not sure I can follow it exactly. But what I can gather is that you felt some sort of bait and switch. If you care to be specific about that, I'd love to think more about it. Otherwise, all I can say is that I didn't find any of the key story elements nonsensical (though some where convenient, others odd, others flat, others easy), and the story hangs together thematically, for me. I certainly did not feel betrayed by anything.

I do wish the show had a bit more runway. And it's clear there were some reshoots and editing choices made in the homestretch that maybe led to a messier final couple of chapters than I'd have liked. But I'm satisfied overall. Every season of TD has had this same problem. At this point, it's more of a feature than a bug.

[Bi_3]

We can start with the most obvious: 16 years before the story unfolds the Tsalal scientists made the most important discovery since fire and no one seemed to care. A discovery worth more than all the minerals in that mine and all the oil in Alaska combined. Did they never report back to Tuttle they found it?

[epilogue]

Yes

[Bi_3]

Yes

Then why was there no change in the station or it's staffing? No other companies or scientists research it? Armed guards like at the mine? It's a multi-trillion dollar discovery. Nothing else should have mattered at that point.

[epilogue]

Yes

Then why was there no change in the station or it's staffing? No other companies or scientists research it? Armed guards like at the mine? It's a multi-trillion dollar discovery. Nothing else should have mattered at that point.

There were changes in staffing. I can't speak to the armed guards. The discovery needed to be kept under wraps because of the pollution angle. Bringing armed guards doesn't really seem to make sense on that level. Nor would armed guards have necessarily prevented Annie from finding the secret station via the ice caves.

Maybe none of that is how shit would go down "in real life." But this is a TV show. It's a heightened reality that begins with suspension of disbelief.

Also, it really feels like I'm further and further away from whatever your original point was.

[bodysnatcher]

As someone who has only watched season 1 and this season, I’d say this show is batting about .250. Tbh don’t really get all the hype, by the last episode I was just thinking, “thank god.”

[epilogue]

As someone who has only watched season 1 and this season, I’d say this show is batting about .250. Tbh don’t really get all the hype, by the last episode I was just thinking, “thank god.”

[epilogue]

I've enjoyed every season to some extend or another. But I also think it's a highly overrated show, in general. There are always a couple of components that I adore (usually one or two performances, sometimes in the case of S1 and S4 the visual language), but there are always jagged or clunky or cringy things mixed in. I'm just a sucker for a detective story -- even a mediocre one.

[psychobain]

s1 is a masterpiece
one of the best seasons ever, by any tv show