True Detective

[Andre Jurieu]

That scene aside, my favourite moment was the conversation in the bar where Cohle keeps trying to get Hart to stop talking about his marriage implosion--it's the only time I've ever seen that kind of scene played that way, with one character actively stopping the other from giving a long, grief-laden speech. This show has such a precise idea of who its characters are that it's never in any danger of running into cliche. Quite the opposite, it even courts cliched situations knowing its characters will dance around them.

In a similar manner, I was actually quite impressed with the scene between Cohle and Maggie, which was surprisingly abrupt and concise, where other series would have probably lingered a little too long on their interaction.

[flyonthewall2983]

I like how he left the table first, as if to say "fuck this shit" and move on. It echoes the scene in the bar quite heavily. On top of those amazing final minutes, the domestic stuff was quite uncomfortably real and felt wholly appropriate with the rest of the show. Woody's not afraid to show how how insensitive and unlikable this character can be, as to counter his charm in some of the other scenes.

[Mr Sausage]

What interests me is how the series' chief formal device isn't working the way you think: what we're seeing in 1995 timeline is not necessarily what's being told in the interviews in the later timeline. There are several points where both characters maintain the cover story about the father with leukemia (to the increasing skepticism of the interviewers) even tho' what we're shown is presumably what really happened. It's no surprise they wouldn't discuss the facts, given how everything they're doing is illegal and deeply troubling. The series is hinting that the 1995 sections are not strictly tied to the recollections of the characters; they can show us what they want.

[warren oates]

Two links about the literary and philosophical underpinnings of the show, with a special focus on the influence of Thomas Ligotti -- The Wall Street Journal and a fan interview in two parts.

[Roger Ryan]

Fukunaga says here it was in fact one seamless take
I'm surprised too, I was convinced there were some (seamless) edits in there.

At the very least I have to assume the helicopter that is perfectly timed to travel overhead as the camera tilts up was CGI (this moment I had pegged as an edit point), but that doesn't take anything away from a spectacular sequence. The build-up to the botched robbery was so riveting that I didn't think we'd get the pay-off in the same episode. That it turned out so phenomenal easily makes this the best episode since the pilot, maybe better. I'm very excited to see the final four episodes knowing that the story ends this season.

[domino harvey]

Someone mapped out the trajectory of the housing project raid here

Article on the show's numerous references to an obscure 1895 short story collection called the King in Yellow

[warren oates]

Not caught up yet, but that second link is excellent. And it speaks to all of the things I'm really digging about the carefully layered way the show is written. There is serious genre pleasure and plenty of "what happens next?" energy driving the narrative on the surface. And just beneath that, for anyone who cares to dig a little further, is a whole universe of influences and references that feels no need to alienate the wider audience, or to pridefully broadcast itself or demonstratively argue its own erudition ("wait, this isn't just a crime show!"). The twig constructions they've been finding are creepy in and of themselves. They might remind you vaguely of pagan symbols you would find in something like The Wicker Man or more specifically of props in the Blair Witch Project. If you know a little more about the history of weird stories, you'd easily peg them to Karl Edward Wagner's "Sticks." Same with the specifics of Cohle's pitch black philosophy. You don't have to know who E.M. Cioran is or to have read a book like Better Never To Have Been Born to understand where McConaughey's character is coming from. Yet if you have, it's even better. It all fits more perfectly than you can anticipate. You almost can't believe some French crime writer didn't think to create an anti-natalist nihilist detective character like this 50 years ago.

[Cold Bishop]

I haven't yet seen this and have been wary of reading up on it, but the references to Ligotti, Cioran and Chambers (who's not that obscure to fans of the genre) have me even more intrigued. Does the show actually dip into the so-called fantastique? Or is the influence something much more subtler?

[warren oates]

Just at the cusp of that stuff in Episode 3 (as far as I've gotten) it certainly seems increasingly headed in that direction, but probably in a way that's subtle enough it won't feel like some sort of left-field twist or a betrayal to the straighter crime fiction fans.

[Mr Sausage]

I haven't yet seen this and have been wary of reading up on it, but the references to Ligotti, Cioran and Chambers (who's not that obscure to fans of the genre) have me even more intrigued. Does the show actually dip into the so-called fantastique? Or is the influence something much more subtler?

Definitely much subtler. I have no idea if it's going to dip into the fantastical or not, but the references have menacing reverberations beneath the story and, if nothing else, add a metaphysical tinge to the atmosphere of moral decay.

[Polybius]

Yet another episode of things you didn't really see coming but which all seem perfectly apt once they've happened.

[feihong]

Yeah. Mr. Sausage called it, noting how the narration in the present day increasingly appeared at odds with what we were seeing play out on screen. In this episode they turned that sh*t up to 11. I haven't seen that done in precisely that way before--I thought the dissonance was exceptionally effective.

[Roger Ryan]

This show has become magnificent and it is delightfully more than what The New York Times review called "arty stasis". The review blamed the show's writer, Nic Pizzolatto, for writing the scripts like the literature professor he actually is, but his choices are what is making this short series so dynamic.

SpoilerShow

I especially loved how we are led to believe a tragic accident may have befallen one of Hart's daughters when the event the father is "mourning" is something much more ephemeral: the loss of his daughter's innocent nature and the way time and regret affect all families. Equally impressive is how the multiple time lines shown sustain the suspense and intrigue is a very organic fashion while being a literal acknowledgement of Cohle's philosophical statement that "time is a flat circle" with all time lines happening at once.

[domino harvey]

It seems like the show is gearing up for even more peripheral treatments of the crimes at the center of the narrative, since the real focus is the two damaged central characters. I could see the "big reveal" of whoever/whatever forces are behind the crimes happening in an offhand or tossed-away manner as we near the end and something else more pressing and personal is in the foreground. I've found the series has grown on me with each episode, which is how it should work anyways, and I reserve effusive praise for once the whole thing is over and the success of how all of its parts work together is clearer, but the potential for (continued/established/confirmed) greatness is there to be sure.

Also, I love that the series takes one of my old mix CD staples from nearly a decade ago for its theme song!

[Mr Sausage]

I'm not surprised to find out Pizzolatto was a lit prof, because according to him the series is ultimately about narratology.

I think the quietness of this episode is what unnerved me the most. It was brilliant; I'm still impressed at how well they're sustaining the atmosphere of the show. Earlier on this forum I said Justified was easily the best show on tv. Not sure where I stand on that any more, except that I know the "easily" ought to be removed.

[domino harvey]

I hope the success Fukunaga is finding here translates to a more trusting studio hand in his simmering adaptation of Stephen King's IT, which could really turn out to be something tremendous given his work here (and he's already shown his acumen with adaptation by making the best filmed version of Jane Eyre yet a few years back)

[warren oates]

I'm all for the character work, for the atmospherics for the sophisticated literary and philosophical background of the show. But further to Roger Ryan's spoilered point, I'd say that, if anything, this show hasn't gotten quite enough credit in this thread for the brilliance of its nuts and bolts storytelling: of just setting up and then paying off or challenging our expectations. So far it feels like the showrunner is playing us like a fiddle. The slow rhythm of those first three episodes and the clear structure of the interviews and the crosscutting between the present day and the 1995 storyline made it feel like maybe this is what we'd see for most of the rest of the show. So when all of that got upended in Episode 5 it didn't feel like some kind of badass rebuke to more conventional devices or crime fiction tropes so much as it seemed very much grounded in the best of those traditions -- albeit run through the sensibility of a true fan of the genre, one who's read in up to the minute and hyper aware of all the stuff we've seen before. It's not enough anymore to have to a few big twists in a crime story. The story itself has to be constantly evolving and mutating, offering us tectonic shifts that redefine what's possible in its next phase -- radically shifting points of view, killing off supposed protagonists, abruptly resolving storylines that seemed like they would be the main focus of the narrative to the end. I'm thinking in particular of the last decade or so of arty thriller films from Korea, like Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance. Or of the recent Prix Goncourt winning novel Alex, where such a shift happens at least two or three times.

Lest we forget: All of that is in the service of making us need to know and care deeply about what happens next. One thing Pizzolatto has said in all of those interviews is that he loves and respects the genre(s) he's working in. So I'm not counting on some kind of high-minded Sopranos-esque "blame the audience for wanting an ending" ending. I'm betting that, one way or another, he'll deliver the goods. It might not look like what we're used to seeing but it will feel just as satisfying.

[warren oates]

A round up of theories about who True Detective's Yellow King might turn out to be.

[Andre Jurieu]

I just kind of assumed it was one of the Tuttles, most likely Preacher Tuttle given the fact that religion seems to so closely associated with the Yellow King.

[warren oates]

I agree. The preacher in particular has been a prime suspect since he was so prominently introduced so early on. But if I were a gambling man, I might just see your Tuttles and raise you a backwoods pagan cult. At least I'm sort of hoping that, much as the show itself may be playing fair and may not tilt into full on weirdness, it will find a way to have the revealed killer be both surprising and inevitable.

[domino harvey]

I think it is not even a safe assumption that we'll find out for sure who or what the killer is

[Andre Jurieu]

Considering the series will carry on with a brand new cast every season, I wouldn't be surprised if we learn more about the the killer in the finale, but he/she/it isn't apprehended at the end of the season.

[Mr Sausage]

I think it is not even a safe assumption that we'll find out for sure who or what the killer is

Exactly. It's always been a strong possibility that this remains ambiguous, especially given how much the series focuses on the effect of the case on our leads, in which case the effect of it being essentially unsolved is major fodder for that kind of focus.

I will be truly disappointed if it turns out to be either of the detectives.

[warren oates]

I will be truly disappointed if it turns out to be either of the detectives.

Ditto that.

But I'm still feeling like many of you guys are not really listening to the parts of those interviews or the aspects of the series itself that are all about happily delivering the genre goods. I think it's a mistake to imagine that just because Pizzolatto may have all these intellectual interests and theoretical concerns that he'll be somehow leveraging that into a sort of conceptually pure act of audience alienation. The trick really, which I think the show's been pretty great at so far, is to find exactly the right balance between seeming not to do all the things we expect to see in a story like this and still doing many of those selfsame things in ways we're not anticipating. A good model for something like that is the end of Fincher's Zodiac, which, though ultimately unresolved, still allows its protagonist a measure of closure.

To Andre's point: I'd always assumed True Detective was aiming to be more of a single season anthology like American Horror Story.

[FerdinandGriffon]

I'd always assumed True Detective was aiming to be more of a single season anthology like American Horror Story.

They're going to have a tough time finding leads as charismatic as the two they have for this season. I have plenty of problems with the storytelling, but I keep on watching because McConaughey and Harrelson are so damn good, fully inhabiting their characters (hairpieces and all!) even in the not infrequent moments when the writing lets them down.

Though with all the (mostly justified) praise the show is getting, Pizzolatto (and Fukunaga?) will probably have plenty of big-name talent throwing themselves at their feet for S2.