Different than probably the majority of people on here, I far preferred this first episode of the second season to most of the episodes from the first season.
I found the cross-cutting between principal characters a much nicer effect than most people here seem to. I thought it was interesting to see each figure developed in similar ways across a number of scenes. To me it added a special charge to the ending shots, where the detectives were staring at each other. Over the episode we've seen each of them to be more perceptive, or at least more sensitive, than their colleagues, but also perhaps more prone to making crucial mistakes. So the look they give each other at the end suggests to me that these people are sizing each other up, and perhaps in some sense anticipating the challenges each will pose to the others. To me the episode was rife with tension in a way the previous season was not; each of these three detectives seems to be hurtling towards a breakdown, or an explosion of some kind. I hope what this means is that we'll be looking at characters who are more raw and exposed than those of the previous season. Cohle and Hart were very protected by the layers of story they were weaving from episode to episode. Their level of perception was high above the game, in a sense, and they were playing the forces around them. So far, Velcoro, Bezzerides and Woodrugh are much more vulnerable. They are not in control of their story; none of them know what their story is yet. They all seem less capable of having a handle on the story, once they begin to perceive the edges of it.
The things I could have done without in the previous season seem to be mostly gone in this one from the get-go. No one in the new season speaks with quite the tone of Cohle's overbearing monologues, and the "yellow king" stuff, which never really fully developed in season one, has no parallel in the new season.
Instead, we get a very clever interpolation of the recent turmoil in the city of Vernon, California, and the recreation of the atmosphere of Vernon in the town of "Vinci" is, I think, fairly apt. Lighter industry goes on in Vernon today than what seems to be going on in Vinci, but the way in which fancy buildings, intimate living quarters and slums all butt up against enormous, hulking factories is true to the look and feel of Vernon. And I like the idea of the detectives digging into a crime that is mysterious without actual mysticism.
I don't think it's too unusual that somebody wouldn't know about the small towns of the greater LA area. I've lived in SoCal my whole life and drive through LA fairly regularly, and looking at Google maps there's all sorts of small towns I drive past that I've never heard of- Barddale, Lakeview Terrace, Crecenta Heights, and other places. The thing about LA is that it's very spread out, and thus has a large periphery filled with small commuter towns that are easy to overlook. It also doesn't help that everything melds together so smoothly that you often don't realize when you enter a new city.
I'd like to back up this post as well, with my own similar observation. I live in Hermon, on the Northeastern edge of the City of Los Angeles, and I commute daily to Santa Monica. The drive is only 20 miles (and sometimes takes upwards of 3 hours with L.A. traffic), but my coworkers––most of whom live in Santa Monica or in neighboring communities like Venice––had never heard of Hermon. A city like Vernon, the clear basis for the city of Vinci, is relatively unknown to most people I know in Hermon, or in the San Gabriel Valley. The area is just so large that one is unlikely to have dealings in more than a couple of parts of Los Angeles county. The freeway shots associated with the Vinci scenes looked like the Golden State interchange, known as the San Bernadino Split, out near Pomona. If Vinci was out that way it would be far Northeast of central Los Angeles. Woodrugh was biking in Ventura county, on the 101, along the coast. If that is near his digs, it's unlikely anything in his life takes him near Vinci. Bezzerides is also a Ventura County sheriff, I think. It's Northwest of San Bernadino, very far away. It's unlikely that any of them know the small cities far, far East of them.
Another thing I noted and wondered about: I read a bit about the noir references in the show, and I began to see more of them. I assume that the Rachel McAdams character is named for A.I. Bezzerides, the screenwriter of Kiss Me Deadly, On Dangerous Ground, Thieves Highway, etc. Has anyone confirmed that in an interview? I haven't seen anyone else making note of that, but it doesn't seem like a coincidence.
I thought the first new episode was very thick with atmosphere. I liked Justin Lin's direction. People forget he directed Better Luck Tomorrow before all the Fast & the Furious movies, and I found some of the more incisive filmmaker who did Better Luck Tomorrow in the new episode. People in the new episode look at one another in ways that speak volumes. I like Cary Fukunaga's work very much, but I don't think the new season is suffering so far from his absence. There is a new tone that fits the new place. These characters are all miserable, and sick in their souls, and the new camera style, editing style, and the new location all speak to a slightly different feeling, of being burned out and on a collision course with loss, or an explosion of some kind. I think it's a very appropriate tone for L.A., both more immediate and more melancholy. I also was surprised to see Fukunaga's name still on the show, especially considering that advance reviewers mention an Asian–American film director character in later episodes which is meant to be a very unflattering jab at Fukunaga. I am sure those kind of behind–the-scenes politics are a grim and complicated business.
Anyways, I thought the show more streamlined, robust and interesting this time around...to me it seems a promising start. The most interesting aspect of the previous season was the way the title challenged us to evaluate the detectives the story presented to us, and make up our minds about them. Were they "true" in pursuit of their goals? Were they redeemable, in spite of their many compromises? The mystery hardly seemed to matter––which was good, because it didn't really develop as richly as it might have. This new season begins by inviting us to evaluate our new detectives in the same manner. They are all flawed, and compromised in similar, complementary ways. They are all deeply, deeply troubled. Are they redeemable? Can they live with themselves? And this time around, the mystery seems more urgent and interesting. Hopefully it can stay interesting, and keep developing in worthwhile directions.