Sean

True Detective Weekly 3: Maybe Tomorrow

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Something that I missed in the first episode is that Ani's full name is Antigone (her dad calls her by that when she goes to talk to him). Like her sister Athena, Antigone is a name that pops up all over Greek mythology, including the name of the daughter of Oedipus (like the complex) and his mother, Jocasta. Makes you wonder why Ani's mom walked into a river. I guess if you're going to crib your ideas from other authors, it's safer that they be dead for a couple thousand years (wakka wakka). 

 

Also, the name Antigone means "against birth". As it so happens, the brand of Rust's pessimism is known as Antinatalism which mean... against birth.  :wtf:

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I guess I'm still waiting for the show to feel like it's not going to be a mess.

I can't bring myself to care about Frank or Woodrugh, though I do know their names now, so that's something.

The show only gets really interesting for me when Ani and Velcoro are sharing the screen. I really like that they growing to trust each other more and more while still trying to keep distanced because of orders from higher ups. 

The mystery is just not working for me at all. I just don't care about most of the people involved. I don't care that Frank is out money because I don't like Frank. I don't care that Casper got killed because he seemed like a scumbag. Compare this to season 1 where the victims were people that I didn't want to see killed. 

I'm running into the same problems in this season that I had with Mad Men. I just couldn't watch that show because I hated everyone except for Peggy. With this season, I don't like Frank, I don't like Woodrugh, I like Ani when she's not sharing scenes with her family, and I like Velcoro only when he's around Ani.

As far as a TV show feeling like literature, The Wire is that to me.

And for the Fukanaga thing, I totally buy it being a Pizzolatto temper tantrum. And what's really irksome about it is that Fukunaga is a much better director than Pizzolatto is a writer.

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I actually like Frank, that whole pillow-talk bit about being locked up in the cellar by his father and everything being paper mache really got to me. His whole story arc is like a thesis on "maslow's hierarchy of needs": He was coming clean and seemed almost kind, in a weird evil way. But he is again going bad out of desperation for all that he has lost and needs to rebuild, and it is all reflected by his relationship with those around him (specially his wife). I am looking forward to see how far he goes to get it all back, and how much it will cost him.

 

The guy I can't stand, honestly, is Paul (the bike cop). The scars and sexual-orientation angst suggest he had it super rough when he was younger. But it feels a bit too silly how seriously he takes it when everyone else doesn't. Seems like he is fooling no one but himself, everyone just rolls their eyes at his act and I don't know how much longer they can keep that up without getting too frustrating. I'm hoping he just gets laid soon and is liberated, not sure where else that could go.

 

It does seem that the dialogue is a bit redundant or too explicit at times. Like how Ani's dad replies "I just did" when told to speak with his daughter. Or the gay dude at the bar saying he can be with women "in a pinch and with the right medication" (a callback to Paul's shower scene in the first episode), etc. But I guess some people may watch it without paying too much attention, and need those fallbacks?

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Something they touched on re: Frank on the podcast and how he doesn't know what he's doing - it seems pretty clear that Frank's survivalistic instincts make him a big fish in a small pond when it comes to low-level criminal rings, but that he's utterly lost when it comes to the high powered world of crime that only rich white dudes could conjure. He's clearly out of his element when he's not going to just kick the shit out of some lackey. 

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It does seem that the dialogue is a bit redundant or too explicit at times. Like how Ani's dad replies "I just did" when told to speak with his daughter. Or the gay dude at the bar saying he can be with women "in a pinch and with the right medication" (a callback to Paul's shower scene in the first episode), etc. But I guess some people may watch it without paying too much attention, and need those fallbacks?

 

I would put those in two separate categories.  "I just did" was completely unnecessary, as it was a character talking to themselves, aloud, about something that had just happened in front of the audience's face.  Similar to "I pissed myself", which was at least a little bit funny, but could have been shown instead of told.  The Viagra callback to two weeks prior was at least a believable part of the dialogue, and while it wasn't subtle, it did feel more natural to me than the apoplectic volleying.

 

The reality is, probably half the audience of a TV show is checking facebook during any given scene, and the people who are watching critically will often have to pay the price of a bit of hand holding here and there.  Thus far, this show has been a strange mix of convolution interspersed with some dumbed down exposition.  For instance, I have no recollection of Frank's murdered henchmen, or if I'm supposed to care about his death beyond there being a power play against Frank.  On the other hand, there will be an occasional line, like you mentioned, that seems meant for someone who has been listening to the show with their eyes closed.

 

I agree with Richardco, the Ani+Velcoro dynamic has been the best part so far.  I want to know more about Ani, in general, and I want to see Velcoro progress as a character.  Frank feels too heavy handed, and Paul may be on the wrong side of cliche at this point.  In any case, I'm still in for the duration, and am looking forward to S1 recap.

 

Btw, this is my first post, but I love all the podcasts and figured I may as well participate a bit!

 

Edit: Oh, one thing I wanted to note about Paul.  I do like that his orientation started out as only being hinted at, and became more obvious over time.

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I feel you on not being interested in the mystery. I just don't really care about the case. Casper was a corrupt city official in bed with corrupt businessmen and mobsters. Also he was into weird sex stuff. It all feels so banal when compared to the strangeness of the mystery of season 1.

 

The mystery is just not working for me at all. I just don't care about most of the people involved. I don't care that Frank is out money because I don't like Frank. I don't care that Casper got killed because he seemed like a scumbag. Compare this to season 1 where the victims were people that I didn't want to see killed.

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i liked how the guys talked about that American Sniper poster on the podcast. It got a laugh out of me when I first saw it but it also works in the same way as the recurring e-cig joke. The second season seems to explicitly mention that this takes place in the present day and it places the story in a unique light. I wonder if that means there won't be any flashback jankery in this season, and why everyone has to annoyingly announce their past in dialogue  :P

 

Contrast that with the first season, which takes place in two stories 15 years apart. While the second half of the story is declared to be 2012, the story didn't rely on that fact in any meaningful way. It was more inline with Rust's own thesis about how time is really circular, and these events aren't temporally contiguous but are still important to one another. 

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Am I the only one who thought the American Sniper thing was a lampshade for Paul? Probably way too intentional but I still thought that immediately when I saw it. 

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Two thoughts:

 

We should take a moment to appreciate the perfection of the picture of Caspere that the investigators keep using. I haven't found an image on the internet after a quick search, but it's about the most generic civic official photograph that could've been made. He's slightly turned to the right with what seems to be the edge of an American flag in the background and even his hair is perfectly groomed. It's a nice detail on its own, but it also lends credibility to Caspere as a city manager. Otherwise, we only see either his over-the-top, almost comical interest in sex and his strange interior decoration. That photograph makes him more a character than a punchline.

 

Also, good discussion of the scene with Paul and his friend from the army, which I was similarly ambivalent about. I think it was saved from being truly cliche by the reaction of the man he was with. After he brings up their encounter he almost immediately regrets it and insists he shouldn't have mentioned it. I like the implication that either he has his own guilt or that he'd rather not bring it up and jeopardize their remaining friendship. It's an added bonus that he never specifies why he regrets bringing it up since the ambiguity adds to the scene.

 

Also yeah, that Paul/American Sniper comparison jumped out at me too.

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I liked the first scene, not least because the singer reminded me of young Michael Palin in a country singer getup. I was secretly hoping for the song to turn into a ridiculous Monty Python parody at some point.

 

-Velcoro is not a fit parent and I'm actively rooting against him losing custody. But I do still feel bad for him. I absolutely hated him after the first episode. Now I'm starting to like him merely because he seems to be one of the few people who isn't just the fucking worst human scum, like so much of the rest of the cast.

 

-Ani and Velcoro as a pair are far more interesting than Rust and Marty were. Marty was usually just an inept strawman for Rust to talk at. 

 

 

The show only gets really interesting for me when Ani and Velcoro are sharing the screen. I really like that they growing to trust each other more and more while still trying to keep distanced because of orders from higher ups.

 

[...]

 

With this season, I don't like Frank, I don't like Woodrugh, I like Ani when she's not sharing scenes with her family, and I like Velcoro only when he's around Ani.

 

These. After the couple scenes of Velcoro and his son, I was sure that I would actively detest him for the rest of the season, but now I'm mostly just hoping that he'd switch sides for good and help Ani burn that city down. I'm not sure if I want any more scenes with him and his kid, though.

 

I still don't know what to think of Paul. His backstory feels a bit too cliche (which is weird because many of the characters are more cliched than him, and they don't bother me nearly as much) and I haven't found his storyline that interesting so far. It is also the most loosely connected with the rest of the threads. On the other hand, it feels that there is some potential in his storyline, so we'll see.

 

 

I find the corruption / murder mystery really hard to follow at times, to an extent that I sometimes feel forced to pause the episode to check stuff like "Who the fuck is this dead guy Stan?" I hope things get a bit more clear in future episodes.

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I find the corruption / murder mystery really hard to follow at times, to an extent that I sometimes feel forced to pause the episode to check stuff like "Who the fuck is this dead guy Stan?" I hope things get a bit more clear in future episodes.

 

 

I think the only reason I had an acceptable grasp on the case in season 1 was because of how memorable McConaughey saying "Reggie Ledoux" is.

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As far as a TV show feeling like literature, The Wire is that to me.

 

I think of Deadwood that way, but both The Wire and Deadwood feel more literary than actually being literary because their scripts are written explicitly for certain actors to deliver in accordance with their strengths, rather than just being generally full of high-grade verbiage. Without the performances of Ian McShane or Andre Royo, a substantial minority of what's being said by Swearengen or Bubbles is trite garbage, but with those performances, it works to a degree that nothing except Vaughan's "basement speech" has worked for me thus far in this season of True Detective

 

Now that the show has found its pace, my biggest complaint with it is the fact that it feels too often like it's been written for a table read or a published collection of scripts, rather than a largely visual medium, which couples with my second-biggest complaint, that most of the supporting characters seem to have been cast for how they look, rather than what they can bring to the material themselves. McAdams, Vaughan, and Farrell (but not really Kitsch, sadly) are putting in good work anyway, but (just as an example) W. Earl Brown is being utterly squandered in a way that I find almost upsetting, given the absolute strengths of his performance as a recurring character on Deadwood and the continued power of his one-off roles in JustifiedA Single Shot, and Rectify, among others. He (and many other characters) are just there to be greasy sacks of shit on camera, and it's making me question the direction almost as much as the script's tendency to show instead of tell is making me question the writing.

 

All that said, this was a perfectly competent episode and I agree with a lot of what the Thumbs were saying in the podcast about it. I'm just not feeling Sean's "rich ensemble" or the upshot of a script full of half-weight litotes, which bums me out a little

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Molly Lambert continues to write great stuff about True D, this time specifically on Ani: http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/cult-of-personality-rachel-mcadams-brings-ani-bezzerides-to-life-on-true-detective/

 

I agree with Lambert's point that there is a lot to Ani's character that we don't generally get to see with female characters on TV. This season of True D is really trying something different from season 1, and it's genuinely interesting to watch. I usually cannot stand when people say to not criticize a a TV show until you've seen all the episodes, because it generally reads as a excuse to by pass bad writing or plotting, but I really do feel that some of the criticism against True D needs to be pulled back a little until the season has run its course.

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W. Earl Brown is being utterly squandered in a way that I find almost upsetting, given the absolute strengths of his performance as a recurring character on Deadwood and the continued power of his one-off roles in JustifiedA Single Shot, and Rectify, among others. H

 

I get the feeling he will be more involved soon, seems like he is spying on the case for someone.

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I get the feeling he will be more involved soon, seems like he is spying on the case for someone.

 

I hope so! He's a really solid actor and has a particular ability to come off as both sympathetic and a dirtbag simultaneously.

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I hope so! He's a really solid actor and has a particular ability to come off as both sympathetic and a dirtbag simultaneously.

 

Sympathetic Dirtbag: the W. Earl Brown story

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I find the corruption / murder mystery really hard to follow at times, to an extent that I sometimes feel forced to pause the episode to check stuff like "Who the fuck is this dead guy Stan?" I hope things get a bit more clear in future episodes.

 

Thus far, this show has been a strange mix of convolution interspersed with some dumbed down exposition.  For instance, I have no recollection of Frank's murdered henchmen, of if I'm supposed to care about his death beyond there being a power play against Frank. 

 

I still have no clue who Stan was :D

It is such a shame that death was handled so unceremoniously and with a character no one cares about, because it takes away so much power from the killer. If you think about the scene where the first body was found, the tension was almost palpable and the ripples it caused were immense. 

But killing random henchmen like that doesn't add any tension, just some mild annoyance. Like a cat hiding random dead mice around the house for shits and giggles.

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Yep, Stan was literally nobody, outside of his being an employee of Frank.

 

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to the episode tonight!

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Just watched Ep. 4 and I don't know what to say. I'm out of breath. I feel like I need to walk it off or something. Fuck.

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Just watched Ep. 4 and I don't know what to say. I'm out of breath. I feel like I need to walk it off or something. Fuck.

 

I want so badly to post about it, but have to wait until the Ep4 thread appears.

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Yes, that was something.

 

As for episode 3 and the show in general, I care so little about Frank's storyline it hurts. And that Lynchian blue stage performance opening made me feel cosmically embarrassed.

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I have two issues with Frank. Issue one is that Vince Vaughn is all wrong for the role of Frank Semyon as he has been written. I am willing to consider that he might someday fit in some gangster role in something, but this sort of quiet, restrained gangster trying to make good, with the flowery dialogue and the menace that's supposed to be lurking underneath the surface? Nope. I'm not 100% sure the dialogue here is worthwhile to begin with, but Vaughn can't deliver it. Maybe someone like Ian McShane or Walton Goggins could (not that I'm sure either is precisely right for the part either or would have been available). I dunno. That's not what we got.

 

Issue two is that although it seems like Frank may well be the ultimate target of whoever or whatever's behind the Caspere case, his storyline to date seems to be pretty much spinning its wheels. I don't know about you guys, but I pretty much got that he had been moving out of the gangster business with this land deal and Caspere's murder has pushed him back into it. I got that in episode 2, in point of fact. But that's been pretty much what every subsequent scene with him has had to contribute: yup, he's going gangster again. Yup, his former associates aren't so sure they respect him anymore or thought they were done with him. And yes, everything else in his life is falling apart too. Got it.

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I never even considered Vince Vaughn to be an actor of any import until I saw True Detective season two.  Now I think he's pretty good.  Has he been in anything that wasn't a peurile comedy or a Jurassic Park sequel before this?

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Yeah, I also don't think Vince Vaughn is that bad in this role. Maybe because I haven't really seen him in anything other than trailers, so haven't typecast him?

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I never even considered Vince Vaughn to be an actor of any import until I saw True Detective season two.  Now I think he's pretty good.  Has he been in anything that wasn't a peurile comedy or a Jurassic Park sequel before this?

 

Off the top of my head there's Gus Van Sant's Psycho and Swingers.

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