HBO Television Show: True Detective

[tommy]

I enjoyed season 1 a lot, but I have this nagging feeling that it was actually an ok detective show elevated by Woody and McConaughey.

[digster]

It definitely does feel, in retrospect, like there was some stuff left on the cutting room floor (or maybe there was some negotiations beforehand; I'd have to imagine the budget-per-episode on this was pretty high and maybe they lost an episode during the pre-production phase). But it sped through things it really couldn't speed through, the big reveal at the end being the biggest example of that. I think it was an idea that could have worked, but trying to sell that turn in what felt like 90 seconds was impossible to do.

This actually mirrored season one for me, in that the first half of the season was incredible and evocative, while the show started showing its stitches in the last half and kind of sputtered out in the last episode or two (which to be fair, is the most likely way mysteries tend to falter. Plot contrivances and weaknesses aren't contrivances and weaknesses at the start of a mystery, just more things you don't know).

I'm always game for this kind of horror/thriller setup, however; I wish there were more of them.

[VinylGuy]

I did a recent rewatch of S1 and still a damn impressive show. The cast is top notch and the directing too; perhaps this show never got another director like Fukunaga.

This season was just a very bad joke. A strong pilot followed by some deep hints to S1 just to give the most boring finale ever. There were a lot of moments were the whole thing was just embarrassing.

I felt bad for Foster because we was awesome.

[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.

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.

The point was that it used the whole "surprise you've been invested in the wrong elements of the story this whole time" trick as a crutch to create layer after layer of 'member-berry powered but ultimately pointless fluff around a plot that ends up no deeper that the median Law and Order episode because everything interesting about the story (hidden secrets of indigenous cultures, immortality, broader conspiracies and connected lore, etc.) was misdirection. It was almost like a satire of season one in that sense, in that it played on the viewer's expectations of what the spiral and Tuttle ultimately mean to the detectives encountering them as a way to trick the viewer into believing there was more here than there actually was.

[Coach]

I just wanted to admit this now: I actually killed Annie K.

[Coach]

I am also responsible for how the drums sound on DM.

[tommy]

I am also responsible for how the drums sound on DM.

Please don't tell me that you also kidnapped the Lindbergh baby...

[Bi_3]

I am also responsible for how the drums sound on DM.

[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.

[Coach]

I'll do better with Season 5 and PJ's next single, promise

[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.

The point was that it used the whole "surprise you've been invested in the wrong elements of the story this whole time" trick as a crutch to create layer after layer of 'member-berry powered but ultimately pointless fluff around a plot that ends up no deeper that the median Law and Order episode because everything interesting about the story (hidden secrets of indigenous cultures, immortality, broader conspiracies and connected lore, etc.) was misdirection. It was almost like a satire of season one in that sense, in that it played on the viewer's expectations of what the spiral and Tuttle ultimately mean to the detectives encountering them as a way to trick the viewer into believing there was more here than there actually was.

I guess you're gonna need to spell out for me what you think the switch was. What elements were we invested in? How were they the wrong ones? What should we have been invested in? I don't know which elements you're talking about.

How is the plot of TD S1 any deeper than a median L&O episode? The plot of that season was pretty basic when boiled down and stripped of all the extra stuff that was just window dressing.

What about hidden secrets of the indigenous cultures, immortality, broader experiences and connected lore was a misdirection?

If you attached more meaning to the Tuttles and the spirals, I think that's on you. I don't think there was ever a promise unfulfilled where that stuff is concerned. I'm sure I'm not alone there.

[Mecca]

I enjoyed season 1 a lot, but I have this nagging feeling that it was actually an ok detective show elevated by Woody and McConaughey.

And the visuals; the narrative style; the light supernatural elements

The whodunnit of it was just a red herring to tell the story of two men on the wrong side of themselves coming to terms with their past and righting wrongs.

I especially enjoyed Rust’s evolution from nihilist after his daughter’s death killed his marriage to the guy looking up at the night sky believing that the light was still fighting against the darkness

[bodysnatcher]

By the time I got to the finale I had to google who Annie was to remind myself.

[epilogue]

I enjoyed season 1 a lot, but I have this nagging feeling that it was actually an ok detective show elevated by Woody and McConaughey.

And the visuals; the narrative style; the light supernatural elements

The whodunnit of it was just a red herring to tell the story of two men on the wrong side of themselves coming to terms with their past and righting wrongs.

not unlike s4

[E.H. Ruddock]

By the time I got to the finale I had to google who Annie was to remind myself.

But you should have known because of the spirals.

Also, i still don’t quite understand what was going on with the tongue

[bodysnatcher]

By the time I got to the finale I had to google who Annie was to remind myself.

But you should have known because of the spirals.

Also, i still don’t quite understand what was going on with the tongue

Whole thing just felt like it was written by some film school pseudo-intellectual

[Bi_3]

I think the tongue being infected with immortal microbes was intended to represent how Annies activism couldn’t be silenced and she was speaking from beyond the grave to help unravel her murder.


No theories on this guy though:

[bodysnatcher]

L

Spoiler: show

AME

[Ello Sailor]

Lol. TD reddit is popping off:

So, Annie “slipped in” to the secret research station one day. Went down the hatch and found a SUPER secret research station.

She snooped around looking at scientific papers and plastic tubes and then, with no prior education in the incredibly specific fields of science that these men spent there lives in, immediately deduced that the scientists were polluting Ennis from having just briefly read the aforementioned papers and plastic tubes.

She then goes on a rampage smashing random pieces of equipment around the lab. Then apparently stops? Pulls her phone out, and records a video, in which she reveals In a terrified manner that she’s found something terrible. The evidence of which she just seemingly destroyed btw.

She then is murdered by (up until the story needed it to be different) previously mild mannered hermit scientists.

Did I get all that right?

[Ello Sailor]

I still think Prior's wife kicking him out because he worked late a few nights investigating the murder of half a dozen scientists is the stupidest thing about this season. Just brain-dead shit.