*** TRUE DETECTIVE Season 2 ***

253,342 Views | 1788 Replies | Last: 8 yr ago by TX scallywAG
jschroeder
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quote:
People act like shows owe them something.
They do.
Objective Aggie
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AG
quote:
1. Anyone catch the BIRD on the billboard on the hwy?

I saw it and even that irked me.
M.C. Swag
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AG
quote:
That's up to you. If you think you wasted your time watching, then that's on you. Nobody makes you watch it. I stopped watching The Brink and The Strain because they suck. Some of the criticism on here is getting pretty silly. No it wasn't as good as season one. Yes it's better than most stuff on tv. People saying it's garbage? Give me a break... The Walking Dead is ten times worse than this.

People act like shows owe them something. Season One was so amazing... that's what we deserve and should expect now. Yeah, that would be nice, but it's obviously hard to recreate success like that. And True Detective is a different kind of show. It's a whole new story and cast... If this had aired before season one, I don't think it would have the criticism it does.

This was Kenny Hill trying to follow JFF... It was never going to live up to it.

I don't understand why it's cardinal sin to criticize a show? And "nobody makes you watch it" isn't the point at all.

What does the show owe me? Uh, besides the premium subscription I offer as paying customer? I guess nothing; but somehow that grants it immunity from complaint? And of course it's hard to re-create that sort of success, but should we lower expectations because something is simply difficult? If it were easy, Homeland would be the best show on TV.

And USC went from Carson Palmer (Heisman) to Matt Leinhart (Heisman). Texas went from Vince Young to Colt McCoy. There's nothing impossible about following up success with success.
Sex Panther
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AG
quote:

quote:
People act like shows owe them something.
They do.


You get the show you deserve
Redsurf03
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AG
Some great comparisons noted. Understand some of the criticism but am more forgiving of the presentation. Enjoyed the gritty nature and darkness that permiated the season. Course I like Cormac McCarty's (inc. The Counselor) and Michael Mann's movies in the same vein.
jschroeder
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quote:
You get the show you deserve
Huh? Are you just trolling?
agmag90
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quote:

quote:
You get the show you deserve
Huh? Are you just trolling?
Did you even watch the show? Good reference Panther
Ol Jock 99
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AG
quote:

quote:
You get the show you deserve
Huh? Are you just trolling?
He's playing off a line from this season you nitwit.
Belton Ag
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AG
quote:
So I'm not super familiar with California's various regions...how far north of LA does one need to drive to reach a redwood forest?
The news report said he was killed near Porterville, which isn't far from the big Sequoias he was running through, so it's pretty accurate in terms of geography.

If one were to drive from Laurel Canyon Dr, which is where he left the kid's school I think, it would take him about 4-5 hours to get to the spot where he stopped. That is, of course, he was able to get out of LA without being caught in horrible traffic.
Ol Jock 99
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Thanks. Good thing both he and Blackwater had full tanks of gas.
mhayden
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For those that thought this season was good -- can I ask why?

I certainly hope not because it was a solid detective and/or mystery story. The mystery of who killed Casper was answered in the final episode -- a guy that we saw on screen for 10 seconds and uttered 0 lines.

The mystery of who was executing the power grab on the corridor and the city was answered with a guy that had 2 lines of dialogue in Season 3.

The show basically plucked two random characters and there were your culprits. It may as well have been Stan that spearheaded the whole thing for as much as we knew about those two.

The big reveal on what was going on with the blue diamonds? Random character gives us the full rundown in a 5 minute interview in Episode 6.

The big reveal on who killed Casper? Velcoro magically comes up with it sitting in the hotel room - literally wraps it up in a 5 second "I've got it!" moment pulled out of nowhere.


So the mystery was secondary, this was a character show... Ok, well only 2 characters got any fleshing out in this show, VV and CF. VV's dialogue was horrendously bad and there were more than a handful of completing pointless, drawn out scenes... The train station scene about what they'd wear and throwing the rings away was just painful to watch.

RA? This actually would have been an interesting character with the way she acts towards other people (especially men), except we don't actually find out what happened to her until the last 15 minutes or so of Episode 6 in a flashback scene about the abduction. From there on I'll agree it was great ("he called me pretty"), but the show was wrapping up by that point.

The rest of the characters had no fleshing out whatsoever.

So what did this show do well? Collin Ferrell.


It was a fun show, but it certainly wasn't some high brow mystery. It was a more dramatic season of '24'.

Objective Aggie
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Wired: We Mapped True Detective's Wildly Implausible Road Trips

Posted this but it got buried. Mandatory reading on the driving distance subject.
Ol Jock 99
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Are those city/county vehicles leased? I hope not.
MW03
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quote:
The show basically plucked two random characters and there were your culprits. It may as well have been Stan that spearheaded the whole thing for as much as we knew about those two.
Not sure that's a fair criticism unless considering we spent the entirety of Season 1 chasing flat circles, Reggie Ladouxs, and Tuttle braintrusts only to learn in the 2nd to last episode that it was a dude seen for about 25 seconds on a lawn mower with one line that was your murder.

Ol Jock 99
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Childress was hooked up with Reggie Ladouxs. Ladouxs was definitely part villainy...just not all it.
Redsurf03
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DragonBrag podcast probably helped my enjoyment of the show. Mike & Machine are ****ing hilarious.
Jim01
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It's all pretty much been said.

My one question. The black cop said "Casper didn't even want the first one."
CF: "The first one?"
Cop: "The little girl. That was Ben's illegitimate..." STABBY TIME!!

What little girl was he talking about? I don't remember ever seeing a little girl.
MW03
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Well sure. My point was only that giving Errol Childress an episode and a half of screen time as the villain to close out episode 7 and through #8 was not seen as a huge issue, but apparently it is now because we didn't see the orphan kid until the very last episode. I mean, the show started as being about solving the Caspere murder, but it became about discovering what was going on in Vinci, which is what the bulk of the show material was about.

And I hate defending it, because I also thought it was very sloppy at points, unrealistically "deus ex machina" convenient in others, and over-complicated throughout. Still, in the first episode or so, you have the Vinci VIPs telling Velcoro that the entire point of all this is to make sure Caspere's murder doesn't blow back on the city. And the entire show was about that very corruption they were trying to hide.

No, it's not genius television. And yes, I think I'll approach the rest of NP's work with a measure of skepticism from now on. Still, I'm glad I watched it, and overall I found it to be an enjoyable way to spend my Sunday nights this summer.
MW03
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It's all pretty much been said.

My one question. The black cop said "Casper didn't even want the first one."
CF: "The first one?"
Cop: "The little girl. That was Ben's illegitimate..." STABBY TIME!!

What little girl was he talking about? I don't remember ever seeing a little girl.
I'm pretty sure he was talking about orphan girl, stabby hood's sister.
mhayden
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quote:
The show basically plucked two random characters and there were your culprits. It may as well have been Stan that spearheaded the whole thing for as much as we knew about those two.
Not sure that's a fair criticism unless considering we spent the entirety of Season 1 chasing flat circles, Reggie Ladouxs, and Tuttle braintrusts only to learn in the 2nd to last episode that it was a dude seen for about 25 seconds on a lawn mower with one line that was your murder.



It's long been my opinion that the writing of the story in Season 1 was pretty flimsy -- the acting of Harrelson and MM carried the show.
Bunk Moreland
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Yeah, Laura/Erica.
mhayden
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quote:
Well sure. My point was only that giving Errol Childress an episode and a half of screen time as the villain to close out episode 7 and through #8 was not seen as a huge issue, but apparently it is now because we didn't see the orphan kid until the very last episode. I mean, the show started as being about solving the Caspere murder, but it became about discovering what was going on in Vinci, which is what the bulk of the show material was about.

And I hate defending it, because I also thought it was very sloppy at points, unrealistically "deus ex machina" convenient in others, and over-complicated throughout. Still, in the first episode or so, you have the Vinci VIPs telling Velcoro that the entire point of all this is to make sure Caspere's murder doesn't blow back on the city. And the entire show was about that very corruption they were trying to hide.

No, it's not genius television. And yes, I think I'll approach the rest of NP's work with a measure of skepticism from now on. Still, I'm glad I watched it, and overall I found it to be an enjoyable way to spend my Sunday nights this summer.

I won't argue with any of that, about sums up my thoughts on it. I just wanted to it to be a much more intelligent show than it was.
bangobango
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AG
quote:
For those that thought this season was good -- can I ask why?

I certainly hope not because it was a solid detective and/or mystery story. The mystery of who killed Casper was answered in the final episode -- a guy that we saw on screen for 10 seconds and uttered 0 lines.

The mystery of who was executing the power grab on the corridor and the city was answered with a guy that had 2 lines of dialogue in Season 3.

The show basically plucked two random characters and there were your culprits. It may as well have been Stan that spearheaded the whole thing for as much as we knew about those two.

The big reveal on what was going on with the blue diamonds? Random character gives us the full rundown in a 5 minute interview in Episode 6.

The big reveal on who killed Casper? Velcoro magically comes up with it sitting in the hotel room - literally wraps it up in a 5 second "I've got it!" moment pulled out of nowhere.


So the mystery was secondary, this was a character show... Ok, well only 2 characters got any fleshing out in this show, VV and CF. VV's dialogue was horrendously bad and there were more than a handful of completing pointless, drawn out scenes... The train station scene about what they'd wear and throwing the rings away was just painful to watch.

RA? This actually would have been an interesting character with the way she acts towards other people (especially men), except we don't actually find out what happened to her until the last 15 minutes or so of Episode 6 in a flashback scene about the abduction. From there on I'll agree it was great ("he called me pretty"), but the show was wrapping up by that point.

The rest of the characters had no fleshing out whatsoever.

So what did this show do well? Collin Ferrell.


It was a fun show, but it certainly wasn't some high brow mystery. It was a more dramatic season of '24'.


I liked the character arc of CF and VV. That was one of the reasons I did not like the ending. I think it would have been a much "tighter" show if they'd dropped the Woodrugh character. He wasn't even missed in the last episode and I don't think his death had any emotional impact on anybody because his character was such a caricature.

I was intrigued by the mystery. I personally think you got hung up on some stuff early on and then you started noticing every single little thing. I do the same thing in movies or tv shows when I'm just not feeling it, every bad piece of writing or acting really stands out when you watch a show that you feel that way about. This series started really slow, I thought the last few episodes were great television. I think the final could've been a great episode, and I thought parts of it were great, but the way they wrapped it up was terrible. I would've been fine with a big shootout for all the marbles at the train station. That was what I felt like the tone and the style of the show built towards, not some bleak death scenes with the bad guys winning it all.
Jim01
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AG
quote:
Yeah, Laura/Erica.
Ahhh, so he was screwing his own daughter? Lovely.
Belton Ag
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Thanks. Good thing both he and Blackwater had full tanks of gas.
IF Velcoro had filled his gas tank somewhat close to his kid's school prior to arriving there, which isn't shown (but come on, why would they?) he could have easily made it to Porterville on one tank of gas. Same with Blackwater.

mhayden
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quote:
quote:
For those that thought this season was good -- can I ask why?

I certainly hope not because it was a solid detective and/or mystery story. The mystery of who killed Casper was answered in the final episode -- a guy that we saw on screen for 10 seconds and uttered 0 lines.

The mystery of who was executing the power grab on the corridor and the city was answered with a guy that had 2 lines of dialogue in Season 3.

The show basically plucked two random characters and there were your culprits. It may as well have been Stan that spearheaded the whole thing for as much as we knew about those two.

The big reveal on what was going on with the blue diamonds? Random character gives us the full rundown in a 5 minute interview in Episode 6.

The big reveal on who killed Casper? Velcoro magically comes up with it sitting in the hotel room - literally wraps it up in a 5 second "I've got it!" moment pulled out of nowhere.


So the mystery was secondary, this was a character show... Ok, well only 2 characters got any fleshing out in this show, VV and CF. VV's dialogue was horrendously bad and there were more than a handful of completing pointless, drawn out scenes... The train station scene about what they'd wear and throwing the rings away was just painful to watch.

RA? This actually would have been an interesting character with the way she acts towards other people (especially men), except we don't actually find out what happened to her until the last 15 minutes or so of Episode 6 in a flashback scene about the abduction. From there on I'll agree it was great ("he called me pretty"), but the show was wrapping up by that point.

The rest of the characters had no fleshing out whatsoever.

So what did this show do well? Collin Ferrell.


It was a fun show, but it certainly wasn't some high brow mystery. It was a more dramatic season of '24'.


I liked the character arc of CF and VV. That was one of the reasons I did not like the ending. I think it would have been a much "tighter" show if they'd dropped the Woodrugh character. He wasn't even missed in the last episode and I don't think his death had any emotional impact on anybody because his character was such a caricature.

I was intrigued by the mystery. I personally think you got hung up on some stuff early on and then you started noticing every single little thing. I do the same thing in movies or tv shows when I'm just not feeling it, every bad piece of writing or acting really stands out when you watch a show that you feel that way about. This series started really slow, I thought the last few episodes were great television. I think the final could've been a great episode, and I thought parts of it were great, but the way they wrapped it up was terrible. I would've been fine with a big shootout for all the marbles at the train station. That was what I felt like the tone and the style of the show built towards, not some bleak death scenes with the bad guys winning it all.

I was on board with the finale being good until the tracking device... I even let it pass when the black police chief flat out said he wasn't going to reveal anything because Velcoro might have a wire, then sat there and revealed everything. Almost cop-movie-parody-like, but not any worse than the scene at the mansion where the villains discussed their evil plans then put the evil documents in a desk drawer.

But I think the tracking device on the car just blew the whole episode for me because up until that point the saving grace of the season in my opinion was Velcoro, his actions, and how well he was played. But not just how ridiculously obvious it was on the car, but how a few jabs at it with the knife and then absolute despair. A tracking device he spots on the car is what is the end of the road for Velcoro. Hell, him trying to work the damn voice recorder and slamming into a car on the highway would have been better than that.
R0GUE
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AG
quote:
quote:
Yeah, Laura/Erica.
Ahhh, so he was screwing his own daughter? Lovely.


Wait. What? I don't think she was Caspere's daughter, she was the jewelry store owners daughter. Now maybe she was "like a daughter".
Complete Idiot
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quote:
quote:

quote:
People act like shows owe them something.
They do.


You get the show you deserve
Sometimes the worst show is the best show. Know what I mean?
mhayden
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quote:
quote:
Yeah, Laura/Erica.
Ahhh, so he was screwing his own daughter? Lovely.

Not that it really matters, but I took it as the lady they killed was pregnant with Casper's kid and that they would have killed the two young children had they known they were there because "he didn't even want his own kid alive, much less her's".

I may be wrong on that one though.
Belton Ag
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quote:
Wired: We Mapped True Detective's Wildly Implausible Road Trips

Posted this but it got buried. Mandatory reading on the driving distance subject.
I don't get why they are harping on the driving to the "Institute" in this article. In the show they never say where it is, yet this article makes the assumption that it's "up north."
bangobango
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AG
quote:
quote:
quote:
Yeah, Laura/Erica.
Ahhh, so he was screwing his own daughter? Lovely.


Wait. What? I don't think she was Caspere's daughter, she was the jewelry store owners daughter. Now maybe she was "like a daughter".
No, she was Ben Caspere's daughter. That's why they killed the jewelry store owners, because the woman was pregnant with another child of his.
The Debt
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quote:
quote:
quote:

quote:
People act like shows owe them something.
They do.


You get the show you deserve
Sometimes the worst show is the best show. Know what I mean?
I hate all of you.
Sex Panther
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AG
quote:
quote:
quote:
quote:

quote:
People act like shows owe them something.
They do.


You get the show you deserve
Sometimes the worst show is the best show. Know what I mean?
I hate all of you.


That's pretty strident
R0GUE
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AG
quote:
quote:
quote:
quote:
Yeah, Laura/Erica.
Ahhh, so he was screwing his own daughter? Lovely.


Wait. What? I don't think she was Caspere's daughter, she was the jewelry store owners daughter. Now maybe she was "like a daughter".
No, she was Ben Caspere's daughter. That's why they killed the jewelry store owners, because the woman was pregnant with another child of his.
Ahhh ok, I didn't hear that the first time around. Good catch.
Counterpoint
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AG
Most of this season was like blue balls...in my heart. But I liked the last episode.

 
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