True Detective

[ISiddiqui]

I think that also dovetails quite nicely with the earlier conversation between Velcoro and Besides when Velcoro points out that each of the people in the investigation aren't well liked in their respective departments.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I think that also dovetails quite nicely with the earlier conversation between Velcoro and Besides when Velcoro points out that each of the people in the investigation aren't well liked in their respective departments.

Yeah, although those departments may be hard pressed to shitcan them before the investigation is over, considering they wanted sacrificial lambs for this one in the first place. Unless they have other lambs around...

[stevew]

I never even considered Frank's wife here, what do we know about her? How long have they been married?

As far as Velcoro's kid goes, him having red hair has to have some amount of significance, right? I believe Mrs Frank also has red hair as well.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by stevew

I never even considered Frank's wife here, what do we know about her? How long have they been married?

As far as Velcoro's kid goes, him having red hair has to have some amount of significance, right? I believe Mrs Frank also has red hair as well.

Wait. Mrs. Frank was the one who raped Amantha? How's that even possible? You cray-cray... as Dutch's daughter would say.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Wait. Mrs. Frank was the one who raped Amantha? How's that even possible? You cray-cray... as Dutch's daughter would say.

No, but I was wondering if maybe her brother did? I dunno?

Amantha's step brother needs to end the whole Rent-to-own rims thing.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by stevew

Amantha's step brother needs to end the whole Rent-to-own rims thing.

Yes. This is horrible this idea.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Yes. This is horrible this idea.

My brother and i refer to the show as RTO:Rims when we text about it now. It's like an ongoing joke for the past 8 or so months.

[stevew]

So I guess this week's twist was so poorly telegraphed that I would have bet virtually anything that the dude Velcoro killed wasn't the rapist.

[Suicane75]

My wild theory. Vaughns girl can't have kids cause she used to be a man. A man who raped. She also used to bang the pouty closet case and I bet she even rogered McAdams a time or two. She had Stan, whoever the fuck he is, killed and is taking everything from Vaughn. I don't know why though, maybe she just misses her dick.

[stevew]

Believe it or not I could buy that

[Solecismic]

If it does turn out that Jordan isn't somehow involved with whatever is messing with Frank, I'll be disappointed. There have been more gratuitous lingering shots of Jordan than there were of the boy who got to "et tu Brute" all over the dying Jon Snow.

I LOLed when Colin Farrell was hamming up the reveal. Woody Harrelson himself must have stopped by the set to get him advice for that scene.

You know nothing, Nick Pizzolatto.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

If it does turn out that Jordan isn't somehow involved with whatever is messing with Frank, I'll be disappointed. There have been more gratuitous lingering shots of Jordan than there were of the boy who got to "et tu Brute" all over the dying Jon Snow.

I LOLed when Colin Farrell was hamming up the reveal. Woody Harrelson himself must have stopped by the set to get him advice for that scene.

You know nothing, Nick Pizzolatto.

I feel ashamed that I haven't picked up on those shots. The ones on the Jon Snow kid were absurd by the end.

[stevew]

What is Jordan's play? I understand maybe how she pushed Frank to get liquid from all the clubs and stuff so she could conspire to take all of his money, maybe working with Casparr too? She certainly looks like she could have been a hooker at the fancy hooker type events back in the day. I'm assuming when she said something about 3 operations, she meant 3 abortions?

So if she's involved and has bled him dry, is her next move to allow him to think that he's on the way to being on top of everything again and then to pull the rug out?

[Arles]

I'm kind of "pot-committed" to this season given there's only a few episodes left. But, I think it's been a bit of a disappointment so far. Everything is very scattered and I feel like the showrunners are trying to juggle 5-6 plot lines and dropping them all. I understand why they made the decision to really focus on the main characters and their internal strife - and I think some of that has worked well (Velcoro and Ani especially). But, the fantastic set of events put in motion to tie it all in (the new "suicide gang" off the books to fight crime) combined with the desire to spend large parts of the show on insignificant/random pieces (WTF is up with these blue diamond earrings?) has made this show more like homework than enjoyment.

Thrones found a way to weave in dozens and dozens of characters from different lands and I feel like it has more continuity/believability than this season of Detective. You could tell me tomorrow that Velcoro's ex's rapist is actually the former pimp of Frank's wife and both worked as hookers at the time and I would buy it.

[Logan]

I'm way beyond calling it a "bit" of a disappointment but agree that taking all that time to get to this point was a really bad job of storytelling. If that episode came as episode 3 of a 13 episode season, it probably still would have felt drawn out. Instead it was in 5 of 8. This could probably be edited into a pretty strong show.

When they had an excruciatingly long scene with Frank and his wife, then finally moved on to something else, and then CAME BACK to another scene with the two of them talking adoption or whatever I literally laughed out loud.

[ISiddiqui]

So I'm thinking about this, but the absolutely horrible dialogue that Vaughn has to navigate would be GOLD from the mouth of Christopher Walken... but I don't think that was what the show was going for.

[panerd]

I will preface this post by saying that I haven't had to watch this the traditional way so I have watched all the episodes in the past two weeks. This show is being way over analyzed much like season one was the other way. Meaning season one was solid tv but not life changing and season two isn't too bad either but definitely not season one. It is supposed to be noir (like somebody has mentioned) and at least 2-3 of you guys don't seem to get that with your criticisms. It's been good. Of course I also like the leftovers and pretty much any non chick offering from HBO so take that for what it is worth.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by panerd

I will preface this post by saying that I haven't had to watch this the traditional way so I have watched all the episodes in the past two weeks. This show is being way over analyzed much like season one was the other way. Meaning season one was solid tv but not life changing and season two isn't too bad either but definitely not season one. It is supposed to be noir (like somebody has mentioned) and at least 2-3 of you guys don't seem to get that with your criticisms. It's been good. Of course I also like the leftovers and pretty much any non chick offering from HBO so take that for what it is worth.

No, I get what it's supposed to be, and it's laughable. And season one was great television. Don't make me go all Schmidty on your ass.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

No, I get what it's supposed to be, and it's laughable. And season one was great television. Don't make me go all Schmidty on your ass.

I guess my point was (and remember I already gave season one props as being extremely enjoyable) is that season one really wasn't as groundbreaking some peoples short memories have it. The plot was pretty cookie cutter and McConahey played the role of a guy whose daughter was killed really young perfectly. But people found all this deep philosophy in his really basic atheist rants on life and all these plot twists that if you go back and look never happened. Props to everyone involved for getting people so interested and getting them to so deeply speculate but the killer just ended up being a creep that had no semblance to the fan fiction that surrounded the show. Maybe they shouldn't have used the true detective name again but I have found the first five episodes to be enjoyable enough that I didn't feel it was time wasted.

[sabotai]

Missed the 5th episode. Started to watch it today when I decided to just not bother and went back to watching season 2 of the X-Files. Canceled SlingTV.

[bhlloy]

Even though the last episode was a bit more lucid and started to tie things together a bit there was still an absolutely absurd piece of coincidence to make it work. Really what are the chances that a missing persons case falls to the one cop in the entire state who would recognize those stones and the context of the photographs by sight?

[bhlloy]

DOLA - and if we're talking about foreshadowing and Frank's wife, my somewhat out of left field hunch is that she might end up getting killed off pretty soon. The fact that they ended on Frank emphasizing that he was alone, plus the gratuitous scenes that they'd finally made up, decided on starting the family and were happy together makes me wonder if she's not taking a bullet by mistake early on in the episode.

[stevew]

Everyone gets a lifetime to make their first album and only a short time to do the followup. I think that applies to this show as well.

And the guy they caught at the end of season 1 wasn't even necessarily the biggest bad, he was just as much of the case that they were going to solve. I'm sure those type of killings were going to continue.

[Logan]

I enjoyed Season 1 but thought it was overrated. Carried to a level about what the story itself deserved because of the performance of the leads.

This is nowhere close. The writing is shit. The story is shit. The pacing is shit.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Logan

I enjoyed Season 1 but thought it was overrated. Carried to a level about what the story itself deserved because of the performance of the leads.

This is nowhere close. The writing is shit. The story is shit. The pacing is shit.

So, would you say that watching this season is like "blue balls in your heart"?

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

So, would you say that watching this season is like "blue balls in your heart"?

Never even had a fuckin cavity!

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Logan

Never even had a fuckin cavity!

Instead of watching this show, you should mow the fuckin' grass. I don't want any of these kids getting snake bit.

[The Jackal]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

So I'm thinking about this, but the absolutely horrible dialogue that Vaughn has to navigate would be GOLD from the mouth of Christopher Walken... but I don't think that was what the show was going for.

Do you understand .. the CONCEPT .. of the tooth fairy?

[flounder]

As bad as this season has sucked, I think last night's episode and the final 15 minutes of last week's were really good. Too bad we had to sit through 5:45 of crap to get there.

[Kodos]

Glad I punched out after 2 episodes.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Everything is fucking.

[flounder]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Everything is fucking.

Well, I'll grant that the dialogue still sucks

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by flounder

Well, I'll grant that the dialogue still sucks

There are always, at least, a few choice horrible lines per episode. I kind of look forward to them. But, I agree, last episode was a bit more interesting than the prior ones.

Curious to see how the finale unfolds.

[Chief Rum]

I started laughing when I saw Stan's kid throwing the ball against the wall by himself. It's kinda like the show producers said to themselves, "How can we make this kid seem all torn up and alone with his dad dead?"

The speech Vince Vaughn had with him after was a good one, so it kinda ruined my initial laugh moment at that, but leading up to that, I got a chuckle.

[Suicane75]

The...ambiance? For lack of a better word, has been terrific for the past two episodes. I still can't get over that I just don't give two shits about Gambit or Nympho. His death didn't resonate with me at all and I'll be so glad when I never have to see her do that crooked faced dough eyed thing again.

Now for the good, Ferrell has a meaty role yeah, but he's been awesome, the stuff with his kid is pretty damn gut wrenching. And Vaughn is the true MVP, he's been off the charts the past couple of weeks, bordering on brilliant. It's a shame it took 80% of the season before the script was able to catch up to what he was bringing.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

The...ambiance? For lack of a better word, has been terrific for the past two episodes. I still can't get over that I just don't give two shits about Gambit or Nympho. His death didn't resonate with me at all and I'll be so glad when I never have to see her do that crooked faced dough eyed thing again.

Now for the good, Ferrell has a meaty role yeah, but he's been awesome, the stuff with his kid is pretty damn gut wrenching. And Vaughn is the true MVP, he's been off the charts the past couple of weeks, bordering on brilliant. It's a shame it took 80% of the season before the script was able to catch up to what he was bringing.

I mostly agree.

I actually did like Kitsch's character more as the show has gone on, but I definitely didn't come to the point where I was surprised or upset at his death. I was more upset that as the only active law enforcement agent in the group, he wouldn't be around to help Ferrell and McAdams with official stuff anymore.

I actually liked McAdams character from the beginning and she has grown less interesting to me. I was mostly tired of her scenes the past two weeks. Kinda sick of trying to figure out what her exact psychopathy is.

Ferrell and Vaughn have been terrific of late. Totally agree there.

[Solecismic]

I lasted about 10 minutes into the seventh episode. I've never given up on a show that far in, but there's a bigger chance Bethe Correia could beat Ronda Rousey in a rematch than this show could redeem itself with a decent ending. There just isn't anything or anyone believable or likeable to grab onto. I know the dialogue is purposely overwrought - but the whole plot is basically the Three Stooges and Gilligan get off the island by building a coconut contraption that harnesses the power of a tornado.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I mostly agree.

I actually did like Kitsch's character more as the show has gone on, but I definitely didn't come to the point where I was surprised or upset at his death. I was more upset that as the only active law enforcement agent in the group, he wouldn't be around to help Ferrell and McAdams with official stuff anymore.

I actually liked McAdams character from the beginning and she has grown less interesting to me. I was mostly tired of her scenes the past two weeks. Kinda sick of trying to figure out what her exact psychopathy is.

Ferrell and Vaughn have been terrific of late. Totally agree there.

Hey, you know there is something about his sexuality. He might be gay. He's living a lie and can't get it up without Viagra to do his hot girlfriend.

God, I was so sick of this storyline after the first two episodes, every seen with him caused me actual terror because I wondered if they were going to go back to that storyline. They felt the need to beat us all over the head with that storyline for weeks.

[Suicane75]

Oh, and one more thing about this show that I mostly hate but have watched every episode of. What a fucking, epicfuckingmonumentingly waste of David Morse.

[nol]

This season is a lot more fun when you imagine it to be a somewhat humorous, over-the-top adaptation of neo-noir analogous to Quentin Tarantino's or Robert Rodriguez's treatment of blaxploitation films and B-movies.

Favorite lines of dialogue:

"You see me managing an Applebees?"
"I worked at one once."

"How have you been?"
"Drinking a lot."

"Maybe, and this is just a thought, maybe you were put on Earth for more than just fucking."
"Everything is fucking."

"You think you were Superman previous?"

"Am I diminished?"

[Arles]

I'd rate the first 5 episodes as a 2/10 and the last 2 as a 5/10. If I was starting from scratch, that would not be enough for an investment. But, it has gotten a little better to where I am actually somewhat interested in the final episode.

I agree 1000% on David Morse. I've always enjoyed him and would have like to see him get more screen time. Looking back, I've really enjoyed Farrell (one redeeming aspect of the show), somewhat enjoyed McAdams, Vaughn has grown on me (but was brutal that first half) and Kitsch's role was forgettable.

I'm going to have to be really convinced to watch season 3. It's a shame too, because I love the concept - but the execution has been dreadful.

[Logan]

This could have been a pretty strong crime drama with any semblance of an editor. Cutting out VV and his wife's frequent discussions about having kids, losing everything about the hippie cult (sorry to Morse, but McAdams could have had childhood trauma rise up in a much simpler way...and I see no reason Rick Springfield's doctor character had to have this convoluted link between that commune and the current investigation), dropping Kitsch's mother storyline, and not having so much revolve around fucking dead Stan would have eliminated two entire episodes easily, maybe more.

It leaves plenty of character depth and doesn't require Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to be played with every plot point.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Logan

This could have been a pretty strong crime drama with any semblance of an editor. Cutting out VV and his wife's frequent discussions about having kids, losing everything about the hippie cult (sorry to Morse, but McAdams could have had childhood trauma rise up in a much simpler way...and I see no reason Rick Springfield's doctor character had to have this convoluted link between that commune and the current investigation), dropping Kitsch's mother storyline, and not having so much revolve around fucking dead Stan would have eliminated two entire episodes easily, maybe more.

It leaves plenty of character depth and doesn't require Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to be played with every plot point.

I agree with everything you have there except for one thing: more Stan.

That may seem silly, but I think if you cut out all of the above, there is plenty of room to expand Stan's role early on and make him a character we care about. I view that as an opportunity to humanize VV a lot more, which I think they attempt to do in the current set with the conversations with his wife and his dealings with Ferrell.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I agree with everything you have there except for one thing: more Stan.

That may seem silly, but I think if you cut out all of the above, there is plenty of room to expand Stan's role early on and make him a character we care about. I view that as an opportunity to humanize VV a lot more, which I think they attempt to do in the current set with the conversations with his wife and his dealings with Ferrell.

Yeah I hear you. I was thinking more along the lines of, in removing the baby/fertility/maybe-we-adopt stuff, it removes the need to bring up his own childhood and how that link's to Stan's kid growing up without a father and the motivation we saw from him following that, etc.

There should be plenty of meat behind "gangster builds an empire, tries to go straight, loses everything before he really can" to drive a character on its own for an 8 episode season.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I agree with everything you have there except for one thing: more Stan.

That may seem silly, but I think if you cut out all of the above, there is plenty of room to expand Stan's role early on and make him a character we care about. I view that as an opportunity to humanize VV a lot more, which I think they attempt to do in the current set with the conversations with his wife and his dealings with Ferrell.

Here you go..

Eminem feat Elton John - Stan (Live) - YouTube

[bhlloy]

I'm watching it now just to see Frank let the world burn. I couldn't give a shit about any of the cops or their storyline. Doubt I will bother next season either.

I'm also on board with the wife being the big twist. Too much broody foreshadowing.

[ISiddiqui]

Really enjoyed the last two episodes and I'm actually pretty excited about the finale.

Btw, this is a great article from Slate going through the plot of TD in excruciating detail... it'll likely clear up a ton of confusion (it did for me):

True Detective Season 2: A guide to the plot of this confusing season.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Really enjoyed the last two episodes and I'm actually pretty excited about the finale.

Btw, this is a great article from Slate going through the plot of TD in excruciating detail... it'll likely clear up a ton of confusion (it did for me):

True Detective Season 2: A guide to the plot of this confusing season.

Dear Showrunners,

Your primary aim is to never require something like this.

Signed,
The World

[Arles]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Really enjoyed the last two episodes and I'm actually pretty excited about the finale.

Btw, this is a great article from Slate going through the plot of TD in excruciating detail... it'll likely clear up a ton of confusion (it did for me):

True Detective Season 2: A guide to the plot of this confusing season.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Logan

Dear Showrunners,

Your primary aim is to never require something like this.

Signed,
The World

To be fair, GOT is also very convoluted like this, and it's doing fine.

But, yes, generally, I agree with you.