Has anyone else been watching 'True Detective' on HBO? It does appear to play with crime, thriller tropes, the buddy cop tropes, and chronology very well.
Thoughts?
FUCK YES. I am on my way to downloading the 4th episode because I don't have HBO. MM is turning into one hell of a great actor. Have you seen Mud?
Everything about that show is perfect.
It's my favorite show on right now, alongside Justified. And yeah, it's got some of the usual detective-procedural tropes, but is way more noir than most shows of its ilk. And it's an anthology series: eight episodes concluding this season, and the next one will be a different story with different actors. I love that one guy wrote all of them and someone else directed all of them, instead of having a team. A very singular vision. You can also get that guy's novel Galveston for three bucks on Kindle right now.
The last half hour of ep 4 was some of the best TV I have seen in a very long time!!
Agreed with all above. That final 20 was as cinematic as TV gets.
Yes. That was far more stressful than anything i ever saw on Breaking Bad.
I wanna.
Thank you for the suggestion...
Yeah TV is the medium right now where some really progressive stuff is happening. TD is setting the bar high.
I'm glad to see vocal people about this show. The show's slow burn has been great, but after the energy of episode 4, I want more of that too. I've really liked Cohle's nihilism and pessimism. The 6 minute tracking shot at the end of 'Who Goes There' had my heart beating. You know Cohle will survive, but it was still intense, and to see what happens to him, when the 2012 detectives put together that he kidnapped the biker and who knows what to follow in order to get Ledoux, and that he wasn't seeing his dying father... that's a bomb I cannot wait to see go off, and the gunfight in the jungle, they keep talking about, the devil worshippers, the place they 'carried the kids out'. In these last 4 episodes, there's so much good stuff coming...
And soundtrack. F***ing Primus! (me = old)
Primus sucks :)
Dmcleod---maybe that will help you like Primus more.
Thanks for that...
I'm a huge fan of primus. And any big fan would know that "primus sucks" is yelled out at their concerts, and encouraged by the band. Diddlydoo
I hear it's awesome. Can't wait to get it in Aus.
me = not a big fan. (but big enough to recognize it)
I'm a musics nerd
Bosnian Rainbows at the end of the last episode, and yeah this has been a great show so far—I do enjoy and look forward to it.
One aspect I appreciate very much is how the show gets it “right” in portraying Louisiana—especially with the whole community vibe and how Woody thinks and behaves.
It's where I’m from and grew up, and rarely do I see it done right. Even with Treme—another show on HBO that’s set in New Orleans—as cool as it is to have a show like that, you can tell it’s from an outsider’s point of view or a romanticized version of the city. Plus it’s kind of boring if we’re being honest, and boring is the very last thing that New Orleans is.
I think Cohle brings out the best in Hart. He doesn’t like Cohle much but he sure does respect him. So does his wife. Hoping we get to meet this “Miles” guy they keep talking about.
What's the deal with Woody, though? Guy doesn’t age –looks the same as he did 20 years ago.
I rewatched the first two episodes last night, and I'm not buying Cohle as the perp or copycat. Sure, the interviewing detectives want us to think that (even more obvious upon second viewing they felt this way from the beginning), and it's how they framed up the end of this week's, but I'm wagering my chips on some religious element. Maybe that Tuttle guy, the reverend with the gubernatorial brother. People kept talking about the dead girl's newfound church, and saying it goes way up the chain, and that would satisfy both of those.
Absolutely agreed. Also there was that bit where Marty told the detectives that it was not they who were checking Cohle out, but the other way around. (wish I could remember exactly the phrasing used...) And it appears the inteviewing detectives don't know crap about the case---Cohle appears to know more. And isn't Tuttle dead in 2012? The only thing I got out of Cohle being in that picture at the crime scene was that he's probably been working the case the whole time, since he went off the grid.
Also I wonder if there is anything to Hart's older daughter having drawn those sex pictures and then also engaging in a lot of sexual activity when she's older. Is that just to show "oh, being a detective's daughter is hard." Or has she seen stuff? Maybe it's nothing... Ah, how this show gets you thinking all sorts of theories. Marty Hart: the yellow king. haha.
The detectives claimed the case files got lost in a hurricane, and that was one of their reasons for interviewing the duo. And yeah, Tuttle's dead now, which I assume we'll learn more about. Wouldn't surprise me if that part was Cohle's doing.
The preview for next week showed Hart raging at one of his daughter's menage participants in the jail cell, so we'll see if that plays. I just figured it's the usual absentee-daddy thing, yeah.
Tuttle died when Cohle renewed his Louisiana driver's license. Seems like it could be connected.
Bosnian Rainbows at the end of the last episode, and yeah this has been a great show so far—I do enjoy and look forward to it.
God, I loved that fucking song. I bought their album and I'm totally ashamed that I'd never heard of them before hearing "Eli" at the end of the last episode. So fucking good.
There's a great article on i09 about the references to "The Yellow King", as well as a few other creepy elements within the show.
I could buy Cohle doing the copy-cat crime after-the-fact, but in a "passive" kind of way--not because he's psychotic (I believe he's the opposite of that). He's been gone for eight years, likely fixated on not having gotten the right killer earlier (Ledoux) based on what that dude who offed himself in prison had told him, and he's probably been trying to piece shit together, hanging out with rogue elements, and either killed that new victim outright, or someone close to him did, and he dressed her up to look like the first killing in order to flush the real suspect(s) out. I get the sense that Marty's much more involved in this than he lets on. His father-in-law is old-money, and probably one of those "higher-ups" spoken about, and may have even gotten his own grand-daughter involved in some way (explains her setting up her dolls in a sexual way, plus her latest shinannigans). In any case, I'm stoked to see how these last three episodes pan out.
I don't think Cohle did it. "why the antlers?" he says to Ledoux. I think it all might have driven him crazy, but I don't think he did it, or anything. He's the 'true detective.' that is, not doing it for a pay check.
And by it, I mean detective work, tyring to figure out who is actually the perp.
or someone close to him did, and he dressed her up to look like the first killing in order to flush the real suspect(s) out.
I could imagine Cohle re-dressing that scene, yeah, especially given the mock-surprise he seemed to register upon viewing the crime-scene pic.
There's a great article on i09 about the references to "The Yellow King", as well as a few other creepy elements within the show.
Thanks for article. I for one hope the references will prove to be more than treats for nerds.
Anyone wondering about Tate? Room full of deer heads?
And soundtrack. F***ing Primus! (me = old)
They've got some deep pulls on the soundtrack. Theme is by The Handsome Family and there's a scene with Vashti Bunyan song playing (though that record would've been impossible to have until it was reissued ten years after that scene. Big plot hole there..)
I was tentative with it on the first couple slow paced episodes, it plays with tropes in kind of an expected way by today's standards, and the self-referential, self-aware narrating is kind of like defining style of storytelling right now. It makes sense that this is getting pretty universal acclaim.
I have a few guesses as to what's been going on in the in between 10 years but I'm kind of okay with just letting the show surprise me. Marty isn't totally as in the dark as he's showing, surely. Cohle definitely is the same brand of pessimist he was at the start of the show, the drunkard Cohle might still be working the case but not as the same obsessive rogue, like he has some knowledge that now gives him a bit of peace with his philosophy. Maybe he did kill Tuttle and is waiting for the other pieces to fall, maybe it's something else.
Anyone see that Korean flick MEMORIES OF MURDER? Very much reminds of the tone of this show, especially with the "good cops getting it wrong" vibe, mixed with a little eldritch horror.
Yeah, that's a good movie. So many Korean ones are.
I'm surprised how popular this show is yet how few people read similar crime fiction or southern gothic. Maybe the genres'll get a commercial shot in the arm.
True Detective is in my view Twin Peaks meets Frailty. Hell yes on both counts.
I think people like the show because it is really good. And being really good crosses genres. Now that being said, I have no doubt that similarly themed work will get a bump.
Carnival and Deadwood added to the good qeue of deaded shows
@Nathan: yes, I think the depiction of the Delta part of LA below I-10 is definitely spot-on; I think Nic Pizzolatto probably insisted on it, as he is from the area. Not really any scenes in New Orleans, though. He gets so many subtle things that contribute to the atmosphere: A friend of mine thought the photo on the table in the home of the first victim's mom of the Fat Tuesday riders was the KKK; I guess she just saw the capuchons and jumped to a wrong conclusion. That Cajun tradition dates back to medieval France or earlier and there are clear ties to pagan rituals, which reinforces the whole voodoo vibe of the Yellow King.
I love this show. But I was so frustrated at the end of tonight's episode. I think Marty's daughter will be drawn into this somehow. I definitely don't think Rust is the doer; Scrivener is right about him being the True Detective. There's a struggle in each of the main characters between good and evil, reality and what seems true, corruption and decency.
I think we've seen the Giant (he looks like the Celtic Green Man in the sketch Rust has on his wall) in one of the early trailers--- far away, walking in the swamp, nude except for what looks like a jock strap and a WWII gas mask and carrying a machete? I think.
Looking forward to next week!
I always assumed that was Reggie Ledoux, with the underwear and gas mask just being part of the meth-cooking uniform. Either way, I love how they shot it like Bigfoot.
I can't explain why this show appeals to me so much when usually I react against hyped TV like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, etc. Maybe it's because the hype I've heard is from actual people, not 'news' programs. Don't have HBO, but I might just go ahead and buy this whenever they release it.
Gordon: I assumed the gas-mask dude was Ledoux as well. Maybe I'll go back later and compare tats, just to be sure. And yeah, I totally loved the bigfoot "shot."
JYH: No hype here. This is a show that truly doesn't shy away from the abyss.
This piece in the New Yorker addresses some of the predictability aspects of the story and characters (specifically the women...) http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2014/03/03/140303crte_television_nussbaum?currentPage=all
What the author FAILS to acknowledge here is the Epoch of The McConaissance, which I directly attribute to at least 40% of the show's success, the remainder of its brilliance attributed to Harrelson, the writing, filming, soundtrack, etc. Everything works so fucking beautifully together, as perfectly executed as Canada's performance against Team USA in yesterday's Gold medal Men's Hockey Game.
I read that article too (and seriously, how predictable was that article??)---thing that got me is that it is not like the men in the show are shown to be really awesome role models either. I don't see a lot of articles being written that complain of how men are protrayed in television. (Don Draper, Walter White, Fox Mulder, Home Simpson, most men in Game of Thrones, Adam in Girls, etc---all cheaters, drunks, weirdos, egomaniacs, etc) Frankly all of the characters, with the exception of Marty and Rust, are not particularly developed, but then the show is not about those other people either.
Hark. Exactly. Difficult men are defining a new era of TV as art. Hardly an indictment.
@drea: Haven't read the NYer story yet, but Woody Harrelson had no part in writing the script--that's all Nic Pizzolatto-- or the directing. Don't know about the filming; he and Matthew McC are both executive producers along with 3 others, I beleive. I agree both main actors are brilliant here (and MM has a great!!! a*s, imho).
@Scrivener: I think one of the themes here is the way women are treated; I've read several comments on other websites about the 2 main characters being misogynists, but I think it's done on purpose for its relevance to the plot. We have yet to see what will happen in the final episodes; I'm wondering why Beth followed Marty from the video store to the bar, and I think we'll see more of Maggie. I agree the 2 men are not role models, but I think they help raise the question about character and what is a "good" man? Maggie thinks Rust is a good man, and Beth tells Marty he is (although I think Beth has shown up to keep tabs on Marty and by proxy, Rust, for the mysterious "other, big people" involved in the Yellow King's doings.) There is good, even if superficial, in each of them at times, although I think the scales here tip in Rust's favor. As Flannery O'Connor wrote, a good man is hard to find.
I'm looking for Marty's oldest daughter to be involved in some of this at the end, probably as an innocent bystander. There's some strange things going on here; anyone using an 1895 book that inspired and informed some of Lovecraft's fiction with a little Voodoo thrown in is bound to have an interesting ending.
As I said at beginning, haven't read the NYer piece, so if I'm repeating stuff, sorry.
What i like the most about this show and what keeps it from failing to its obvious tropes and keeps it separate from other detective procedurals is that the mystery of the show isn't the case, it's who Rust is and who Marty is in relation to him. That's the big mystery, the case takes a back seat to it. Other detective procedurals don't really do that, it's the other way around.
My inside voice is Cohle's outside voice. I restrain myself from saying this to people a couple times per day on average.
-justwords
Agreed---Marty's daughter will be involved---too much foreshadowing with the barbies, the journal, and the 'menage.' Beth also appears to have been the perfect catalyst to wreck Marty and Rust's working relationship and end with them both leaving the police department. (yes, Rust was already on leave, but he quit after the fight).
I think the show is interesting that the two leads worked in the police--a job supposedly about protecting people---women and children---and yet they seem more caught up in delivering justice and punishing. The things that motivate people...
Though back to the NYer piece---it is a good point that there are not a lot of 'serious' television programs with dark complicated women as the lead. But to lay that at TD is unfair. (speaking of which---what is out there with a dark compicated woman as the lead these days? Nurse Jackie? (she's mean, she's an addict, she uses people, she tries to be good--but mostly fails--good at her job though, very competent.) Female antihero--- where are they?
The Killing, The Americans, and to a degree, The Bridge, come to mind. The The The.
I haven't seen them---so sorry if the question I am going to ask is basic sounding---but are they good and bad, not just a lead?
