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True Detective - Season 3

Started by Puce Moment, January 15, 2019, 11:49:21 PM

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Puce Moment

Mumbling, macho conversations, bar room philosophising, ageing make-up, tinges of folk horror.....yes, it's the return of True Detective. Has a TV Drama dropped in quality so dramatically from its first to second season as this HBO oddity? Fukunaga's masterful directing plus some fine acting, and eerie folkish, supernatural undertones, led to one of the most week-by-week discussed shows I can think of. It all went a bit barry ballbags towards the close of the final episode, but nothing as shite as the second season offered up.

This all explains why the opening episode of season 3 has seen the lowest viewing figures of all three seasons, and perhaps also why there is little buzz, or even a CaB thread generating tons of discussion. It seems that we can forgive Lynch for his ropey second season of Twin Peaks, with a bit of time, but not the producers of True Detective.

The opening two episodes are now 'available'. The first is pretty much what I expected. A clear tonal return to season one, almost apologetically so, including some assorted creepy straw figures strewn around. The Dorff cop character is abysmal and at times it all feels very stagey and mannered. This is affecting my immersion into the story, which is clearly very interesting and well plotted, so far. Still, I like this, and will continue.

Anyone else?

magval

...STEPHEN Dorff? From Blade? From So Fucking What?

Ja'moke

Pizzolatto has gone back to all the traits which made Season 1 work (Southern Gothic, missing kids, brooding, hyper masculine, flawed hero types). You could call it regressive, but this is clearly his comfort zone and the first couple of episodes are pretty strong. Though a lot of that is to do with Mahershala Ali's mesmerising central performance, and the beautiful direction from Blue Ruin's Jeremy Saulnier. In fact, the acting all-round is top notch and lifts the weaker material to heights it probably doesn't deserve.

It could all fall apart towards the end like S1 did, but so far so good.

For those that care, I'm recapping it for TV Insider: https://www.tvinsider.com/743977/true-detective-season-3-premiere-recap/

Rev+

Quote from: Puce Moment on January 15, 2019, 11:49:21 PM
This all explains why the opening episode of season 3 has seen the lowest viewing figures of all three seasons, and perhaps also why there is little buzz, or even a CaB thread generating tons of discussion.

I was this close to starting one last night, but deleted it because I was waffling bollocks.

I will now waffle bollocks.

So much about this, including the end of the opening titles, seems designed to say 'don't worry, this is more like the first one'.  This makes it feel less like Pizzolatto going back into his comfort zone, and more like an attempt to win the audience back in the worst possible way.  That said, he's maybe realised that an anthology detective series isn't enough of a proposition in itself.  It needs to have a consistent tone and approach across the stories, because if you're operating in TV drama's most crowded genre you need to have something unique to offer.  The second series, apart from being rushed and featuring a gutted plot, just wasn't unusual enough.

This one has started well.  Ali is great - as is the ageing make-up - and the time switches are being used in a nicely sneaky way so far in order to limit our information without it being annoying.  It could all go to shit, but this seems to be very assured about the story it's telling.

Although the girl's fingerprints being in the system - er, probably not.


DJ Solid Snail

Enjoying it so far. I was a bit worried initially that Mahershala Ali's character was going to be slightly 2D and tediously unflawed - i.e. the always-right moralistic-to-a-fault small-town Black cop whose theories are ignored because of '80s Bible-belt racism - but thankfully the writing seems to be a lot more nuanced and original than that, and it's eschewing such obvious tropes. I'd much rather see this story about a driven, alcoholic veteran-turned-detective fuck up his marriage and lose his mind to Alzheimer's.

Definitely got a bit of a Paradise Lost vibe (by which I mean the doc on the West Memphis Three) from it and I'm wondering if that's going to be an important inspiration going forward...? The abandoned bikes in the woods, the small-town Southern setting, and the scene in which Ali's partner asks about the kid's Black Sabbath t-shirt all put me in mind of it. Seem to remember a line about catching the wrong man as well, so I'm wondering if it's going in a 'clueless police blame weird local teen' direction.

Really like the bits where it felt like Ali's character's brain was literally glitching out, like with his partner literally disappearing out of the frame as he realises he's back in the present. For those of you watching on TV, was there also a bit with glitchy artifacts on the bottom of the screen? Wasn't sure if that was just my copy or not (I have Sky, I just hate ads so I torrented it).

Stray observation: Thought the Native American guy's acting was slightly hammy. That's probably my only criticism. The writing was superb for the most part. Pizzolatto's got a real ear for naturalistic dialogue.

Can't wait for the next of it. I hope because we got two eps at once, that doesn't mean we've now got to wait two weeks for the next one, does it?

up_the_hampipe

I really like this so far. Might be the most invested I've been in a True Detective storyline. It's a shame season 2 went down the way it did, as this would have been a perfect follow-up. Agreed on Ali, the make-up and the use of time jumps. A very promising start.

BlodwynPig

#6
Forests of Leng!

Edit: actually, the first season had The Yellow King, so there are definite links to Lovecraft here.

https://thatshelf.com/true-detective-season-3-horror-diary-the-forest-of-leng/

EOLAN

Most posts on Digital Spy seem to be complaining about Mahershala Ali mumbling his way through it. Never noticed it myself. Thought he just spoke in his characters accent with a bit of a low tone of resignation. Do they want him to enunciate clearly in her Queen's English and take away fr the atmospheric localisation of the piece? Well do they? (Not ready to join Digital Spy to ask myself naturally).

phantom_power

And Matthew McConaughey was the master of enunciation and clear speech in the first season

batwings

Quote from: DJ Solid Snail on January 16, 2019, 01:26:45 AM
Can't wait for the next of it. I hope because we got two eps at once, that doesn't mean we've now got to wait two weeks for the next one, does it?

The HBO schedule shows a new up (ep 3) set for Sunday night. Can't wait.

NoSleep

I've got the first two episodes but haven't been arsed to watch them as yet, remembering how great season 1 started off before descending from those heights, episode by episode.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: phantom_power on January 18, 2019, 09:13:58 AM
And Matthew McConaughey was the master of enunciation and clear speech in the first season

McConaughey and Harrelson are Exec Producers on this. Never watched season 2, were they involved in that?

Crabwalk

Exec Producers aren't really 'involved' in any meaningful way.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Crabwalk on January 18, 2019, 06:04:06 PM
Exec Producers aren't really 'involved' in any meaningful way.
Indeed. Stan Lee was Exec Producer on just about anything with a Marvel logo on it till the day he died. And probably beyond.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Crabwalk on January 18, 2019, 06:04:06 PM
Exec Producers aren't really 'involved' in any meaningful way.

I know, but wondered if there names appeared as if to say "this is like Season 1" or if there names were in the credits for Season 2.

robotam


Moribunderast

I'm one of the few people alive who didn't despise the second season (stop throwing things at me and let me finish!) but this season is already a very clear step up and back into the tone that made the first gain such a following. The show is definitely at it's best when dipping it's toes into the horror genre. As someone who now only watches dramas once all the episodes have aired - the slow pace and gradual dissemination of info is killing me but I'm also totally gripped by the story and really enjoying watching the pieces get slowly put in place. Mahershala Ali is tremendous in this, thus far, and I even thought Dorff was quite good in the latest episode.

Having read some pieces by critics, I feel like people took the "shitty" second season REALLY personally for some reason and it's hampering some's ability to be fair to this season. It's not getting bad reviews but I'm seeing some critics complain about the show being slow, the clues being withheld, the children not being "real characters" and all sorts of stuff that was equally true of the first season. The only thing this season is lacking in comparison to the first, thus far, is that it's not an unknown quantity and that it's yet to have a truly propulsive moment like the episode 4 shootout from Season 1. But it's early days and the plotting and characters have definitely got my interest and I could easily see this bettering the first effort by season's end.

NoSleep

This season feels a little like it's walking in the shoes of the first (after veering off a bit for the second). Good, but I'd have preferred to have seen something that broke the mould. Third time around for the wordiness.

MiddleRabbit

I'm enjoying it.  I avoided season 2 because of the crappy reviews and I didn't see how it could hope to live up to the first, which I thought was great.

As I'm off work with a bad back, I've been rewatching the first season and thoroughly digging it again.  I might give season 2 a go once I've finished the first.

Evidently, the folk horror elements of the first are back - I don't know anything really about he second season's themes - and the element of the disturbed cop are reprised too, although in a different way to MM's tour de force (cheers) performance.  I think Stephen Dorff's good too, although I've only ever seen him in Backbeat prior to this, which is a film I enjoy enormously - 'you got the tits right'.

Spoiler thought, just in case: I reckon it's the black cop's wife who's in on it, unless I'm being misdirected.  She seems to be loving it a bit much.  Who was the bloke at the first meeting who'd driven her there?

Not quite up to the first season, but maybe that's not a realistic bar to aim for.  Still, they could have called it something else if they didn't expect comparisons, couldn't they?

Ant Farm Keyboard

Quote from: Crabwalk on January 18, 2019, 06:04:06 PM
Exec Producers aren't really 'involved' in any meaningful way.

Being a producer of some kind grants you a cut on the earnings the show makes, while being just an actor or a director usually results in no residuals, due to the "creative accountancy" studios are known to practice. Director Cary Fukunaga also get a credit (but is listed in the end credits) on season 3, despite having a huge fallout with Pizzolato during season 1. Like for McConaughey and Harrelson, it's a way to reward his involvement and the risks he took when the show started. Without them and the influence they still carry, the show may have never turned into a franchise, so they'll get a share even for later seasons.

up_the_hampipe

I am gripped by this story, perhaps more than season 1. Ali is so good at being old, the lost look in his eyes when he's forgotten something, haunting. Something suggested by his wife in his hallucination leads me to believe that he's going to do some dirty cop shit in 1990, potentially compromising the case.

BlodwynPig

Lovecraftian time travel. He goes back in time with the journalist interviewing him in a brown sedan to solve the case and must battle Shub-Niggurath in the Forest of Leng to save the children!

Mobius

Loving it. Want all the episodes now!

colacentral

I reckon the two ghosts are KKK; too much race talk to not be. The Halloween setting is misdirection.

I also reckon the "white woman" is the wife. I'm thinking the line about her book being "one of the greatest works of non-fiction" may be intended as ironic, i.e. it's actually fiction. There was also some line like "that was her first one, she wrote 6 novels after that," worded in such a way to imply the murder book was a novel. And her odd reaction to your man mentioning God / Hebrews during that episode when the religious element of the murder was being highlighted. Could just be alot of misdirection mind.

Ja'moke

I'm pretty sure a lot of that will be misdirection. If it's anything like the first series, and it is, then I suspect the investigation is not really important. The story is more about Wayne Hays, the detective... the true detective. The conclusion to the mystery, if we even get one, will most likely be underwhelming as it was in season one.

colacentral

The murderer will no doubt be some background character but I think the wife will be involved somehow - both previous seasons had a network of criminals but one minor blink and you'll miss it character as the actual killer.

The white bloke who called the wife into the car in the first episode, before she started dating Wayne. That's who my money's on.

I'd also note that if the theme is memory / misremembering, the description of seeing a black man and a white woman could be inaccurate, actually being the reverse.

Ant Farm Keyboard

A black man and a white woman are the most offending thing in the imaginary of many American racists/segregationists, because of miscegenation and the myths about black men being obsessed with having sex or raping white women (something that carries on today in the "cuck" stuff by the alt-right). The reverse (white man, black woman) doesn't carry the same undertones, and it's unlikely that people would confuse the two.
Besides, Pizzolato plotted and wrote the bulk of the whole season with a white cop for the lead, before Mahershala Ali was cast in that part.

MiddleRabbit

I thought the lad who played the  teenager who'd bullied he lad and nicked his bike did some outstanding lip trembling, snotting and crying.

I also particularly enjoyed he scene with the cops standing around together outside that teenager's interview room, letting him stew with the thought of 20 years' bumming in prison to look forward to, and Dorff's comment to Ali about how he seems to be working the 'bummed in jail' angle quite hard these days.  Also Dorff saying, 'Yeah, he's about done' being interrupted by a prolonged howl and him saying, 'Oh, not quite then'.

How the deaths are affecting the wider community and bringing out tensions that otherwise might be just about tolerated is well done: the trailer park scene with the black community was well done, and the native Rambo dude - who presumably gets fitted up for it in 1980, possibly to protect him from getting lynched, if not bummed - was interesting.

They're doing a good job of not streamlining an investigation, you know, it not existing in a vacuum.

Great stuff, I'm really digging it.

Viero_Berlotti

I'm enjoying this series but think it could do with a bit more inaudible mumbling to be honest.

Ja'moke

It could also do with telling us who is locked up for the crime in 1990 by now. Half-way into the series it feels like that mystery should have at least been answered.