Agreed about the mayor. Really dumb character.

We're supposed to be afraid of him, as he supposedly controls the city of Vinci. Yet he's nothing more than a rambling drunk with terrible lines.

"blue jewels" was mentioned as being missing in ep 1 or 2 from Caspere, wasn't it?

I think they just finally came across the pawned items.

I also think the bad guys were tipped off to the police raid, and it was set up to get them in hot water/re-assigned/make the task force go away. The Mayor, his right hand man, and the police chief are all caught up in the thick of the ****.

The Vinci mayor is "untouchable," or has been. That has been alluded to the entire time.

His dad was into weird ****, he has been into weird **** his whole life. He has established relationships with the key players. He treated the "state investigation of Vinci" like an annoyance that he was sure would go away.

Ani does her little Q&A session at his house, and look how fast she's put on the bench at her office with an IA investigation. She still gets to work on the task force, and then look how fast the task force goes to ****, when it was seemingly starting to break the case open(exactly what the Mayor told Velcoro not to do).

I love the mayor's character. He's going to be the key to the whole cog.

quote:

---

What was the deal with picture from Summer Camp? Hippie Dad, Rick Springfield Doctor, current Mayor's dad.

They were all part of some summer camp cult back in the day? Interesting to see where that goes.

---

Pretty sure it is current mayor, not his dad. Current mayor looks roughly the same age as the aura guru and Rick Springfield.

The mayor's daughter "Here's some information to help the plot along... oh no, I think I've already said too much I'm leaving" is about as cliche as it gets.

quote:

---

The mayor's daughter "Here's some information to help the plot along... oh no, I think I've already said too much I'm leaving" is about as cliche as it gets.

---

Agreed.

Btw, Emily, that actress, was on either season for or five of Friday Nights Lights. I'd like to think Riggins joined the army, then became a California cop, while she went to high school in Texas to get away from her dad, but then got sucked back in.

Emily also used to work as a waitress at Baby Blues BBQ in Venice. I used to go there all the time. She even waitressed during FNL. She was also Jesse's girlfriend that last season or two on Breaking Bad. Quite the resume.

I'm still enjoying the hell out of this season, but I will say that so far it's missing its "soul"

Hopefully the chaotic pacing and sequencing, the random "remember he's a dad with a kid who isn't his!" scenes, and the confusion of the structure was for a reason, basically to make us feel as confused and muddied up as the detectives do trying to investigate a major homicide to a person with a ton of political and corrupt connections, yet doing so with no help(and in fact, in spite of) from their respective police departments, all as ambitious state level authorities want to get their name in the paper with big investigations, etc.

Just tangled up, and if that was the strategy for the first 4 eps, then I think the payoff will be worth it.

I really hope, and think, this flash forward might take place next week, and the storyline will get on a more level plane as we follow through the rest of it. I'm hoping the craziness of the shootout all but ends the task force, the officers are either let go, they quit, or reduced to beat cops/pencil pushers...and we see them go rogue in an attempt to take down the Mayor and whoever is really behind it all.

Put simply, they're spending WAY too much time focusing on character and not nearly enough time focusing on the case. Last season, Rust's character was revealed THROUGH the case. You almost got the sense that he couldn't exist without that case. But here, every character moment is independent of the case and I just don't care at all.

they were able to reveal Rust's character through the case because it was all a flashback. They could decide to show what details they wanted, etc.

This year we're learning about them and the case in real time. They are struggling with it for sure. That's why I'm kind of hoping we see a pivot after the big shootout, to where things get "normalized" through ending the task force, firing/quitting/demotions of the 3, and they have a bit more freedom(and less confusion from their commanding officers about what they should be doing) and we can see them start working the case without the side stuff.

Hoping for that at least.

Maybe WH and MM were good enough to cover up some of the bad writing and cliche characters. I have a feeling that they either really rushed this season or Nic isn't what people this he is.

A little of both, I think. That guy is so far up his own ass.

Why do you say that?

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/nic-pizzolatto-true-detective-season-2-better-than-season-1

quote:

---

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/nic-pizzolatto-true-detective-season-2-better-than-season-1

---

quote:

---

"It's very flattering, that '#truedetectiveseason2' thing people were doing with just two actors together and stuff," he said, "but why would I do another buddy-cop show? I think whatever I had to say about the buddy-cop genre I said. Do you really just want to see two stars riding around in a car talking?"

---

The man has a point. Nobody (at least consciously) wants a rehash of the same thing we saw last season.

quote:

---

He described the new season as a detective story in the manner of Oedipus Rex, in which "the detective is searching and searching and searching, and the culprit is him."

---

Can't wait.

quote:

---

Frank, a thug who tried to go straight but feels himself pulled back in, argues with a Mexican cannonball with silver teeth. In take after take, the cannonball delivers the same line: "You ain't that thing you used to was, Frank." Then the men fight, Frank twisting the Mexican's lip, riddling him with blows, and finally going to work with a drill that just happens to be at hand.

---

quote:

---

As some part of the success of True Detective is attributed to Matthew McConaughey. Credit and power are shared. But by tossing out that first season and beginning again, Nic has a chance to finally undo the early error of Fitzgerald and the rest. If he fails and the show tanks, he'll be just another writer with one great big freakish hit. But if he succeeds, he will have generated a model in which the stars and the stories come and go but the writer remains as guru and king.

---

Definitely some truth to this.

Pardon if this has already been discussed on the thread, but do y'all think the trail in the woods that's always shown as the last shot in the opening credits will have any significance?

I get the feeling that it's going to be the site of a big scene at some point.

quote:

---

Nic does not say exactly where the idea for the second season originated, but it seems to have grown out of the news, the B section of the paper, where reporters chronicle crime in places like Vernon, where immigrants toil in the factories of the rich. He established a few simple conflictsa killing and a cop, a gangster who wants to go cleanthen started writing. Casting began after he wrote the first two episodes. "Once I have my actors," he explained, "I find myself writing towards what I see in them, the strengths I think they haveeven strengths that may have gone untapped."

---

I believe this is the opposite of how writing is usually done. Most writers don't write for an actor.

quote:

---

The most surprising choice was Vince Vaughn as the criminal, the dark heart. Though Vaughn's career began with serious roles, he's made his name in the broadest kind of comedy. Nic recognized something elsethe flip side of all that manic energy, the threat beneath the energy of a film like Swingers. "I saw power and a fierce intelligence that you could imagine going unhinged," Nic explained. "I remembered his earlier dramatic work and knew people don't lose that stuff. It's just that they get pigeonholed."Here is Nic Pizzolatto, the movie-star whisperer. He'll do for Vince Vaughn what he did for Matthew McConaughey: bring out what's been obscured by the kind of movies he's made. "I felt like I could do a lot with the guy," Nic told me. "I could show people stuff from Vince Vaughn they hadn't seen beforethe Vince Vaughn they always wanted, without knowing it."

---

Truth. You can tell Frank is just a time bomb ready to explode. Many of us remember Vaughan's earlier roles and just how manic and creepy he could be.

quote:

---

"I had a big whiteboard which I covered in Post-It notes," he went on. "Every character was a different-colored note. I did horizontal bars for eight episodes. Some days, I set myself a certain number of pages or a specific scene. If I finished early, great. If I didn't finish on time, I had to stick around. I've learned to take care of myself. I get lunch, put on Seinfeld, and do 45 minutes of yoga. I become very raw emotionally [when I'm writing]a good steak could bring me to tears. I'm very porous. My membrane isn't solid. And then I gradually come out of that. And it's time to join the circus."

---

Geez.

It's just dust in your eye, blink it away, man...

quote:

---

I believe this is the opposite of how writing is usually done. Most writers don't write for an actor.

---

Think both happen a lot. Can recall hearing about some part being written for a specific actor a ton of different times.

Somehow Casper's killer is involved with Suicide Squad. There definitely is a guy wearing a goat head/mask in the trailer shooting up a bunch of people. Pizzolato is one layered SOB.

Anyone else keep getting the feeling that VV's red headed wife & CF's red headed kid might be connected some how?

Maybe the red headed girl has a crazy rapist brother that forced Them to cook up that cover story about the fake rapist?

quote:

---

A little of both, I think. That guy is so far up his own ass.

---

Plus his whole Cary Fu-kunaga beef sounds pretty childish and ridiculous.

Vulture Article that TexAgs stupid censorship code has a problem with


For those who don't realize it, the director of the Hollywood movie that Velcoro and Ani interviewed earlier this season, looked the way he did for a reason.


EDIT: Get the damn censorship fixed mods

Had to go back and watch the shootout again. The cop next to RM is the one who accidentally plugged the civilian. After that cop bit it, RM tried to take his gun because she was out of ammo. So her prints are on the gun. Not sure if that'll come back to bite her, but worth noting

quote:

---

Had to go back and watch the shootout again. The cop next to RM is the one who accidentally plugged the civilian. After that cop bit it, RM tried to take his gun because she was out of ammo. So her prints are on the gun. Not sure if that'll come back to bite her, but worth noting

---

Doubt it. Pretty easy to explain.

quote:

---

She was also Jesse's girlfriend that last season or two on Breaking Bad. Quite the resume.

---

Thank you. I knew I recognized her I just couldn't figure it out. And no offense, but she's not a very good actress.

I don't recall her (the mayor's daughter) on BB.

But wasn't she on The Bridge?

quote:

---

quote:

---

She was also Jesse's girlfriend that last season or two on Breaking Bad. Quite the resume.

---

Thank you. I knew I recognized her I just couldn't figure it out. And no offense, but she's not a very good actress.

---

She was also a sub-lead on Season 2 of The Bridge.

Great minds, etcetera, etcetera.

She was the mother of the little kid Walt poisoned.

quote:

---

Put simply, they're spending WAY too much time focusing on character and not nearly enough time focusing on the case.

---

But I don't care about the case. I have no sympathy for this victim. Or for VV losing his dirty money to a crooked city manager. I like season 2, don't get me wrong, but so far, every one has too much baggage. I have some sympathy for CF.

Now you've pissed someone off for spoiling BB for them.

Her named was, Epic, in Friday a Night Lights. Amazing the stupid things that stay in your mind!

CF's character is carrying it right now. I would've been fine with everyone dying but him dying in the last episode.

Funny thing is, with the whole recorder thing, I'm thinking he's the most likely candidate to NOT make it through the season.