True Detective Series 3

[Twit 2]

I haven't watched series 2. Is there any chance of this being watchable?

[NoSleep]

I haven't watched series 2.

Count yourself lucky.

Is there any chance of this being watchable?

Hopefully.

[mothman]

I felt a buzz of sorts, watching the trailer, that I hadn't felt since seeing season one's trailer. That I don't recall feeling when I saw season two's. In fact I had to think really hard whether I had actually seen season two's trailer, that's how unbuzzy it was.

[Phil_A]

Jeremy Saulnier of Blue Ruin and Green Room was announced to be overall director of this season but ended up walking away after filming two episodes. Make of that what you will.

[non capisco]

Will it have dialogue as bad as series 2's "It's like blue balls.....of the heart.", I wonder? Or a scene as shoddy as when Colin Farrell had a nice time by himself at home with a load of booze and coke? That made Phil Mitchell's Eastenders crack binges look like something out of The French Connection.

Also, if you enjoyed series 1 and haven't yet seen the 2014 Spanish thriller 'Marshland' give it a go, similar vibe I thought.

Was the Saulnier thing a definite "this is shite, lads, I'm off" situation then? Smacks more of a scheduling problem than a sudden dawning realisation that the script he'd begun directing was too overwhelmingly appalling to continue with. Although, you know, I have seen True Detective 2.

[kitsofan34]

I think it would probably be a lot more likely to be how much of a difficult arsehole Nic Pizzolatto is to work with. Carey Fukanaga, director of series 1 recently talked about how he had to beg Pizzolatto to keep the iconic tracking shot from episode 5.

[Phil_A]

Was the Saulnier thing a definite "this is shite, lads, I'm off" situation then? Smacks more of a scheduling problem than a sudden dawning realisation that the script he'd begun directing was too overwhelmingly appalling to continue with. Although, you know, I have seen True Detective 2.

"Scheduling conflicts" was the official line but I think we can take that with a pinch of salt. I mean, if you were a director committed to shooting eight episodes of a TV show you'd make sure you had an empty calendar first, right?

There's also some rumblings that he had a falling out with Nic Pizzolatto, which I can believe as he (Pizzolatto) sounds like hard work to be around.

[non capisco]

"Scheduling conflicts" was the official line but I think we can take that with a pinch of salt. I mean, if you were a director committed to shooting eight episodes of a TV show you'd make sure you had an empty calendar first, right?

Yeah, that makes sense I suppose.

You'd think Pizzolatto would be more humble after the justified drubbing TD2 got, he's bloody lucky they're letting him do another one after that dog's breakfast. I just really hope all the characters don't speak in the same wearying, soliloqusing manner in this one, at the very least. "Hey, you know how you guys all loved Rust Cohle? Well, in this one everyone's like him!"

[mothman]

I think it would probably be a lot more likely to be how much of a difficult arsehole Nic Pizzolatto is to work with. Carey Fukanaga, director of series 1 recently talked about how he had to beg Pizzolatto to keep the iconic tracking shot from episode 5.

What the..? Hmm. Link, at all?

So does that mean s2's standout sequence - the disastrous raid that turns into a full-on running gun battle - was Pizzolatto's attempt to cash in on something that hadn't been his idea to begin with?

[kitsofan34]

Fukunaga revealed to GQ one point of contention was the tracking shot from the show's fourth episode.

"Nic wanted to cut it up in post-production," Fukunaga said of the nearly six-minute unbroken take, which follows Matthew McConaughey's detective through a bloody robbery. "He did not like that I was pushing for that one at all."

Fukunaga argued that the show could use a visual shake-up like a one take after several episodes full of talking and philosophizing. "I mean, there's nothing really that inventive about ['True Detective']," the director said. "It's just another crime drama." For this reason, Fukunaga wanted to do "something fun" and fought hard for Pizzolatto to keep the shot as a one take. When the episode aired, the long take was universally acclaimed and singlehandedly elevated Fukynaga's profile.

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/08/cary-fukunaga-explains-it-exit-fighting-pizzolatto-true-detective-long-take-1201998173/

[mothman]

Ta. Truly, hell hath no fury like a producer who's shown to be in the wrong!

[Mister Six]

You'd think Pizzolatto would be more humble after the justified drubbing TD2 got, he's bloody lucky they're letting him do another one after that dog's breakfast.

Especially cocky given that so much of series one was cribbed off Alan Moore, Lovecraft, weird fantasy writers, etc. It's like if the Stranger Things writers started declaring themselves visionaries or something.

[kngen]

Imagine watching that sequence and saying, 'Nah, needs cutting.' What a total fucking dunce. No wonder TD2 was so shite.

[thecuriousorange]

Will it have dialogue as bad as series 2's "It's like blue balls.....of the heart.", I wonder?

Vaping is "like sucking a robot's dick".

[iamcoop]

"Some people say it's not the size of the boat but rather the motion of the ocean. Well guess what, Ray? I can't even swim. Never even had a bath"

[non capisco]

"Oh, son. They chase you through the trees, son. There's trees all around you but they see you, son. They're coming for you, son. They get out their guns and there's nothing you can do, oh my poor son. You're cornered, son. They get out their guns and the trees can't hide you, o my son. They fire on you, son. The bullets rip into you, son. Have I made it clear you're in the woods, son? Their bullets rip into you, o my sweet son. They rip into in you the finale of True Detective Series 2, son, it'll be in the bit where you run into some woods, son."

(NIC PIZZOLATTO dusts his hands together in a 'job done' manner and congratulates himself on a brilliant dream sequence.)

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Series 2 was far and away the superior offering. The only interesting detail in series 1 was the vortex bit in the final confrontation, so we need that referenced in the next series. Also it needs to reveal that the whole thing is occurring inside Hell, which was the obvious interpretation of many odd moments in series 2.

[Peru]

Series 2 was far and away the superior offering

Ha ha, good one.

[SavageHedgehog]

I bought both seasons on DVD two years ago. I watched Season 2 first because I knew it had the far lesser reputation. I found it to bad in just about the worst way; about 30% actually pretty-to-very good, to 10% bad in amusing way, to 60% downright tedious. I still haven't got around to watching Season 1.

[NoSleep]

Season 1 isn't amazing.

[Jobey]

Season 1 is one of the best series of television I've ever seen and season 2 is one of the worst.

[NoSleep]

Season 1 started out very well but didn't maintain that standard.

[Funcrusher]

Season 1 isn't amazing.

Great build up, hugely disappointing pay off.

[mothman]

SPOILERS AHEAD. Since some haven't seen s1 yet..?

The thing that struck me - but it didn't really ruin the payoff, at least not for me anyway - was that after building up the idea of this great satanic paedophile cult with friends in high places, it turned out most of them were dead (or perhaps it was never that powerful to begin with), even before Cohle did for that ex-Governor or whatever he was. When the two leads finally team up in the present day and start investigating afresh, I recall being terrified for them, feeling certain that while they were doing their work in that closed retail property, anybody could watch them at it. I thought a load of hired goons would swoop in. But instead, it turns out there is no conspiracy (not anymore, anyway) - it's just one batshit-crazy sister-shagging redneck living in the middle of nowhere, who probably didn't even remember the two policemen who interviewed him while he was cutting the school lawn all that years ago. To me, that felt actually quite refreshing and aided in the deeling of optimism with which the season ended.

[NoSleep]

I was pissed off with Cohle's "conversion" (to a belief in an afterlife) right at the end.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I was pissed off with Cohle's "conversion" (to a belief in an afterlife) right at the end.

Likewise, thought that was bloody awful.

[colacentral]

I thought both seasons were pretty dross really; the first just had the benefit of a superior cast, and the occult element made the story of the first more engaging.

There was originally meant to be an occult element to season 2, relating to subway tunnels in some way, hence that whole sequence where your ex-army lad goes Ethan Hunt in the underground before getting murdered, and the thing with sex parties and killing prostitutes in log cabins. I think I read that it was removed from the scripts at the last minute to differentiate it more from the first season, and I think that was a big mistake.

[Mister Six]

Season 1 started out very well but didn't maintain that standard.

Aside from some lovely monologues for Cohle and some decent dialogue with whatever Harrelson's character was called, the writing is pretty dreadful: the plotting is incoherent, the Lethal Weapon 2 happy ending (and, as you say, Cohle's conversion) is laughable and incongruous, the "conspiracy" a damp squib, the various subplots just red herrings and the climactic "stars in the sky" speech lifted straight (almost word-for-word) from Alan Moore's Top Ten.

The whole thing only seems good at the start because it's so well sold by Fukunaga's superior direction and McConaughey and Harrelson's performances. As it goes on, it becomes clear what a hollow confection it all is.

Once I heard Pizzolato was the only linking factor between each season I jumped ship. Not surprised they're pulling in Mahershala Ali next season - they know they need some serious talent in front of the lens to make up for the absence of serious skills behind it.

[AllisonSays]

I thought season 2 was hilariously bad - that Vince Vaughan monologue about his childhood, the aforementioned sucking a robot's dick line, Colin Farrell's Ralph Wiggumish son - and I will watch the fuck out of the new one if it's anywhere near as funny as that. I liked season 1 but reading it backwards through the miasma of shit that was season 2, I was maybe giving the writing too much credit - I think we were supposed to find Cole superdeep rather than faintly ludicrous.

[the science eel]

Vince Vaughn was fucking ace in season 2 tho'. Really really good.