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
* * * * *
Oh, True Detective. I had such high hopes for you. When all the critics started a pissing match to declare what they hated about you the most after the first episode aired, I said, "Wait! It's just a set-up for the good stuff!" Then the third episode rolled around, and I began to feel vindicated. "You see? Nic Pizzolatto DOES know what he's doing! That was pretty good!" And yet, and yet...
Even by this point, I still can't decide if this second season is any good or not. It certainly has the elements, the production values, the star power of a good show. Yet the niggles in the writing haven't evaporated - if anything, they've gotten worse as the show's gone on, built up into an overpowering mass of ridiculous one-liners and exasperated characterisation.
Maybe I should stop waiting for True Detective to change and just accept it for who it is. It's not you baby, it's me. Then again, this episode really tries my patience. We've leapt forward in time since that horrific shootout last week - known on the news as the 'Vinci Massacre' - though how long, exactly, is somewhat unclear. (The show doesn't bloody tell us.) All we know is, Ray's lost his glorious moustache, which means he's beginning to look a bit like pretty boy Colin Farrell again. He's also become a security enforcer for Frank - though he doesn't quite have the mean edge he needs to threaten a group of starving immigrants who haven't paid their rent. Oh, and his ex-wife is still battling for custody. She wants to take a paternity test over their son, though why she needs that is beyond me - he's a fat ginger kid, of course he isn't Sonny Crockett's son. Seriously, these people...
Meanwhile, Ani is taking a sexual harassment course with a group of misogynist men. I'm going to list all the ridiculous lines I heard during the episode in a minute, but the first comes when she sarcastically describes her fondness for "big dicks" - she says something about them being "too big to handcuff". Has Nic Pizzolatto ever actually talked to a woman? The scene stinks of something that only a writer would imagine. Then Paul - well, Paul is still the same as ever, surprise surprise. Still repressing his homosexuality, still pretending he's happy with his upcoming marriage (though with the help of a few strong rum-and-cokes), still arguing with his shitty excuse of a mother. And Frank - Jesus, Frank - is STILL having dull-as-bricks conversations with his wife about children, though they seem to have cleared up any manner of conflict by the end of this episode. Hooray.
Now for the stupid writing. In a conversation with Ray, Frank suggests, "It's like blue balls in my heart." When recording a memo for his son, Ray philosophises, "It's only people who get exhausted." (I know from a documentary about wildebeest that this simply isn't true.) Frank walks into the backroom of his club, and his wife academically analogises, "We're in backslide city, Frank." NOBODY TALKS LIKE THIS. The whole reason this style worked with Rust Cohle was that people treated him like a kid who'd been sniffing too much glue, but Vinci is just populated by thousands of Rust Cohles - no wonder it's such a terrible place to live.
And despite jumping forward however many weeks or months or even years, for all I care, nobody has actually changed. I really need to stop bringing this up, but that was the beauty of Season One - we saw, bit by bit, how these characters changed over the years, how they broke out of their rut of a situation, went above and beyond the call of duty to fulfil their promise of becoming great detectives. But here, even though the police trio form a secret unit dedicated to finding the guy who killed Ben Caspar, their characters are just so static that I can't bring myself to care about them that much.
And the worst worst WORST thing about this series is that I STILL CAN'T STOP WATCHING IT. I get annoyed with it, and I'm all but ready to give up - but then something interesting happens that makes progress on the case, like Ray's brutal interrogation of Rick Springfield's creepy plastic surgeon, or Ani and Paul's discovery of a blood-soaked shed, that all but guarantees I'll tune in next week. You're toying with my emotions, True Detective. God, how did this all get so complicated?
STRAYS:
- Some people on the internet have started #SeymonSays, i.e. ridiculous lines Frank might say. Here are some of the best:
- "I'm so up to my neck in shit, I'm thinking about ordering a snorkel."
- "Never lost my keys. Never even had a fucking keychain."
- "You think adoption is the answer? Every last one of us is an orphan, just takes some of us a lifetime to figure it out."
- [Frank on his impotence:] "Sometimes it's not the milk that's bad, it's the cereal."
- That bar could probably be quite nice if they turned up the lights and fired Lera Lynn. Or at least let her take requests.
- What are the practicalities of handcuffing a large penis?
- Having trashed this episode, I do have to concede that Colin Farrell actually gave a really great performance, particularly when he heard the truth about the rapist. And I admit that things are starting to come together, plot-wise.
