Season 2, Episode 1: The Western Book of the Dead
Season 2, Episode 2: Night Finds You
Season 2, Episode 3: Maybe Tomorrow
Season 2, Episode 4: Down Will Come
Season 2, Episode 5: Other Lives
Season 2, Episode 6: Church in Ruins
Season 2, Episode 7: Black Maps and Motel Rooms
Season 2, Episode 8: Omega Station
* * * * *
I have to confess: I don't really know what's going on. I mean, I know the basics - bad men are still doing bad things, blah blah blah - and I can still appreciate the Raymond Chandler-esque charm of the production, the setting, the characters, but as for who killed Ben Casper? No clue.
After chasing the masked figure through Vinci's underbelly, Ray and Ani sheepishly hand in their ruined cop car. Who torched it? Who knows. Ray mumbles something about the mayor, who seems to be gunning for Ani's stripes. They visit his daughter later, who confirms that he's a BAD MAN, but... that's about it. He might or might not have had something to do with a sexual harassment case against Ani that gets her suspended from the police department, a department where she seems to have slept with everyone in arm's reach. Though Ani does seem to be the Clarice Sterling of True Detective's warped world - she mostly spends her time in rooms full of leering men - and the gambling and the sex seem closer to coping mechanisms than hobbies.
Frank, meanwhile, vents his anger at some avocado trees. Then at his wife. Then at some drug dealers, then at a Mexican guy, then at his own staff. He marches about like a glowering dentist, trying to be Tony Soprano but coming across as more like AJ, whining and sulking when he can't get his way. I suspect much of this boils down to Vince Vaughn, who has proved to be a poor investment - we were hoping for a Matthew McConaughey-style acting revelation, a guy who could make even the most unintelligible dialogue sound convincing, but Vaughn's just flat, particularly in scenes with the much more competent Kelly Reilly. (She is, unfortunately, still a walking cliché.)
There's a bit of good stuff emerging from Taylor Kitsch at least. After spending a drunken night with the man he forcefully rebuffed last week he crawls into the street and, in a fit of rage, lets loose a barrage of expletives. He gets quite emotional in the car with Ray, too. (Is this the first time they've met?) "I just don't know how to be out in world, man," he says. "Look out that window. Look at me. Nobody does," replies Ray.
Are all detectives this neurotic? I suppose that's the thing about Pizzolatto's universe - it's a kind of hyper-reality, where people don't talk like normal people talk, instead mumbling dime-store philosophies about the nature of good and bad and light and dark and the like. It can be really frustrating at times, even unbearable - yet I can't look away for fear that I might miss something. After fumbling between gears throughout this episode it finally sticks with an exciting climactic shoot-out between the police and a gang of pimps - aside from a ropey explosion effect, the confrontation is both slick and brutal, and it ends on a nicely downbeat, sickening note as the detectives are trapped in a frozen tableau of despair. This season is undeniably worse than its predecessor, the writing far more grating - but moments like this show that True Detective can still deliver the goods when it wants to. Let's just hope it starts to make sense soon.
