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True Detective Weekly: Season 1 Recap & Season 2 Anticipation

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Season 1 Recap & Season 2 Anticipation

Welcome to True Detective Weekly! We'll be discussing each episode of True Detective Season 2 as it airs on HBO starting June 21. In the meantime, we sit down to talk about what we liked about Season 1, and why we're excited about the show's unusual anthology format. Join us, and send in your thoughts to [email protected]!

(Soundcloud page hopefully coming soon!)

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Hello! The Twin Peaks and Mad Men podcasts have been great, and i'm really looking forward to the True Detective podcasts.

 

Regarding the uniquely notable consistency of the first series of TD: besides having a singular writer (Nic Pizzolatto) and director (Cary Fukunaga) as has already been mentioned, the entire season was also shot by a single cinematographer (Adam Arkapaw). He's worked on some great stuff, notably 'Animal Kingdom', 'Snowtown', 'Top of the Lake', and the upcoming 'Macbeth'. His involvement was also one of the main reasons I became interested in watching TD in the first place, as at the time I had no idea who Cary and Nic were.

 

You've already gone over this a bit, but I too find the consistency in creative vision one of the major highlights of the first series. It forces every single minute detail into importance and to be considered with the larger context of the entire show, whereas in shows without such a singular vision, it's easy to overlook these details as periphery, or outright dismiss things when they don't work (e.g. much of the back half of Twin Peaks season 2). When things don't work or seem incongruent in True Detective, It's still fascinating and worthwhile to contemplate when you know there is a strong intentional choice driving these segments and their connections with the rest of the series.

 

Given what little I know about the production of the second series, I don't expect it to match the singular vision achieved in the first. Hopefully it will still be interesting and worthwhile to watch/discuss, as I don't think being directed/written/shot by a consistent group of people is a requirement for the show to be great. In particular I'm interested in episode three of season two, which (according to Wikipedia) will be directed by Janus Metz Pedersen, who is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker.

 

Regarding the single take shot, FILMCRITHULK wrote a great article discussing its use in True Detective and the art of long shots in general, here: http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2014/02/13/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-tracking-shots

It's a great read as usual, though I don't expect it to change anyone's opinion on the matter (namely Chris "it felt like a dead-end" Remo) :)

 

Cary Fukunaga himself also wrote about that scene for The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/mar/17/true-detective-cary-fukunaga-tracking-shot

The article also gives some idea how much directorial control he had over the entire first season.

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The single take is absolutely beautiful, there's no denying that. It's unfortunate then that the shot is inservice of such an unnecessary narrative detour. It makes me wish True Detective had only be seven episodes. We didn't really need to see Cohle resume his narcotics cover and reconnect with a biker gang. It presents nothing new about Cohle's character and just further adds to the infallible badassness of everything that he does.

 

Thanks guys for doing this podcast. I hope that season 2, if it cannot attain the same heights of season 1, is at least an interesting watch for everyone. Maybe Taylor Kitsch will finally catch a big break after this. (Poor Kitsch).

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It's worth mentioning that in true modern serialized TV fashion there were truly dedicated (obsessive) fans who dug deep into every little hint of mythology on forums and review comment sections, gathering all evidence into a giant lore poop trying to figure out Who Was The Yellow King?!

No matter how vague and unspecific you are when talking about folklore, you can't prevent a certain kind of fan from over analyzing it and somehow turning your show into a crazy fantasy tale of monsters and magic! The Yellow King was a wizard!

:tdown:

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What I'm looking forward to seeing with S2 is how they pull off that sense of not only place but genre that S1 hooked me with and so in that sense, I mirror what the guys talked about on this episode. Pizzolatto really made the series a love letter to Southern Gothic and everything is soaked in it. The thing is, there's no specific "genre" that encapsulates the overbaked, overly corrupt drugs-and-violence sins of Southern California, however there's enough cultural touchstones that can tie it all together both visually and narratively. In that way, the place drives that narrative - there's no way to not see these things when you do a slow pan over the burnt hills, factory wastelands of outer towns. 

 

I have very distinct memories of my dad talking about this stuff in particular, hence why I have such a fascination with it, especially as someone who grew up predominantly on the East Coast. It's so alien/alienating and makes for a great place to escape to in media. (But doesn't repeat the same 4 locations that other things that are shot in LA.)

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The thing is, there's no specific "genre" that encapsulates the overbaked, overly corrupt drugs-and-violence sins of Southern California, however there's enough cultural touchstones that can tie it all together both visually and narratively. In that way, the place drives that narrative - there's no way to not see these things when you do a slow pan over the burnt hills, factory wastelands of outer towns. 

 

I think that's what surprised me most about the first episode. Some of what I had read about season two was that it was going to be drawing on a lot of the hard-boiled/noir influences that seem most obvious for a story about corruption in and around Los Angeles (Chinatown and Raymond Chandler being the ones that came to mind for me first). It didn't really feel like that at all to me. I guess I won't say more since this is the anticipation thread, not the episode discussion thread.

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Gonna try to follow along w/ the s2 podcast though I'm having trouble accessing HBONow. Listening to your intro podcast plus another podcast on s1 has me really itching to figure out a way to see this. It's been such a long time since I watched a show in real time - I think Lost was the last tbh (and I didn't even follow its final season). Hopefully it works because among others things could be sort of a fun dry run for the new Twin Peaks (watching an episode, digesting my own thoughts, reading others' before the next airs, etc).

 

The single take is absolutely beautiful, there's no denying that. It's unfortunate then that the shot is inservice of such an unnecessary narrative detour. It makes me wish True Detective had only be seven episodes. We didn't really need to see Cohle resume his narcotics cover and reconnect with a biker gang. It presents nothing new about Cohle's character and just further adds to the infallible badassness of everything that he does.

 

^This. I enjoyed the episode but its standalone plotting felt odd in the context of the rest of the series, which was more like a tight miniseries or even movie. It felt the most "TV episode"-ish if that makes sense.

 

Best thing about that episode, besides the justly celebrated long take, was the actor who played Ginger: really great screen presence. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of him but I guess he served his purpose.

 

Kind of odd they don't really explain what happened to Ginger, though (someone on another podcast pointed this out). Cohle says he "left him in a ditch" but then what? Was he arrested? Did he escape? Did he die? The natural assumption is they had the cops pick him up, but wouldn't that incriminate Cohle since he wasn't supposed to be undercover? It doesn't really matter, but it does seem like an odd, accidental loose end.

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Maybe Taylor Kitsch will finally catch a big break after this. (Poor Kitsch).

 

I really liked Taylor Kitsch in Friday Night Lights (and boy is that show way better than I ever expected it to be in general, especially as a non-teenage non-American) and I feel he's never really gotten to shine in anything else, so I'm right there with you hoping this provides an opportunity for him.

 

One of the things I liked about season one was how successfully it managed to portray the 90s without bludgeoning you with it. A favourite phrase for me and the friend I watched it with was "You're the Michael Jordan of being a sonofabitch." It's both a neat phrase and a very 90s phrase, but without being over-the-top hey we're set in the 90s guys.

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Does this show being moved to the old shows home mean the season 1 rewatch isn't going to happen? :(

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Does this show being moved to the old shows home mean the season 1 rewatch isn't going to happen? :(

I wouldn't hold your breath :(

Maybe some day...

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