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
* * * * *
Right. Have you ever been on one of those pendulum rollercoasters? The ones that swing back and forth, round and round, going upside-down, then backwards, then rock back-and-forth? Well, that's a bit like my experience with this season of True Detective. At first I was trying to convince myself that it was all fine, that I wasn't really about to throw up the fairground fish-and-chips I'd scoffed five minutes before because I'd be feeling the rush of zero gravity soon, and then I'd be having FUN, god dammit, isn't that why I came? But then the roller-coaster would do something weird, like change directions suddenly and slam me right in the coccyx, and I'd have to admit that, yes, I wasn't having the best time. In fact, I was having a rather shitty time. But THEN, it would change directions again and... oh, forget it. This metaphor's getting away from me.
In those early days, I was hoping True Detective was biding its time. I was hoping it was withholding its hand from the viewers, making them doubt whether the show knew what is was doing and then, suddenly, showing it knew exactly what it was doing all along, that these frustrations would feed into the experience of watching the show itself. You know, like the fourth season of The Sopranos. I don't think True Detective is anywhere near the same level as that, as last week's dismal episode shows, but I do think that things are finally, finally, finally coming together and beginning to make at least a modicum of sense.
I mean, if nothing else, the writing's a hell of a lot less goofy this week. (Ray threatens to kill someone with a cheese grater and Ani's sister describes something as "Fuck-a-roo", but that's about it.) We pick up where we left off, with a tense encounter between Ray and Frank. They need to iron out their differences, for sure, but neither one of them really wants to do that with bullets - though Ray can't let that business with the rapist slide if Frank really did lie to him. Neither one kills one another, which is to be expected, although a tiny part of me was hoping Ray might just shoot Frank and get it over with.
Instead, Ray goes to see the rapist in prison. Then he has a tremendously awkward visit from his son (and social worker) which prompts a bit of a man-panic. (It's like a normal panic, but more manly.) He snorts a bunch of coke and trashes the place, but ends up calling his ex-wife and agreeing that he'll leave the kid alone if she never tells him about who his real father might be. It's the best resolution Ray can hope for, and it all feels quite realistically drawn. Plus, Colin Farrell acts his butt off. His character might be a terrible detective, but he's easily the most human out of the entire bunch, and this may well be the climax of his emotional arc...
Elsewhere, Paul and Ani emerge from the Twin Peaks-y lodge in the middle of nowhere to be told an old chestnut of detective speak - they're acting "outside their jurisdiction." Nevertheless, the two begin to make real progress in the case. Paul tracks down the origin of the crucially important diamonds Caspar had in his possession, whereas Ani hatches a plan with her sister to attend one the deviant sex-parties that the guy used to frequent. Her knives skills are on-point, too - her sister is understandably put off by her frenzied stabbing of a wooden board while they try and have a chat, but it all pays off later when Ani finds undercover work to be significantly more challenging than she expected. And Frank takes one step forward, two steps back in his own investigation. He connects a missing girl to the Mexican drug dealers he had to deal with a few episodes ago, but when he arrives at their meeting to see her throat slit, he sees first-hand how much his power has diminished.
If anything, this episode is defined by clarity (at long last). People actually explain stuff to each other, like they do in most TV dramas - you can see why they started doing it in the first place. And by the time we get around to the gloriously effective final twenty minutes, it's like we're watching a different show. The party Ani infiltrates is effectively hellish, a Venice Beach Gomorrah, and it doesn't help that she's made woozy by the unwelcome drugs she's given - a production effect that, in lesser hands, could have been cheesy, but just about works given the setting. In between being groped by an old man and slicing up a security guard, Ani finds one of the missing girls - just as Paul and Ray eavesdrop on a revealing conversation between some familiar faces, and happen to nab some documents that threaten to blow open the case.
The whole "infiltrating a fancy party" thing is a bit of a cliché, but oddly enough, I think I'd rather have a True Detective that did those things than one that tries to be different and smart-arsed - just because we've seen how that usually goes. All in all, a good episode. And one that, hopefully, should lead to some real answers.
STRAYS:
- The bit with Colin Farrell and his kid shouldn't have made me laugh so much. But when he just said "'Kay" to Ray's declaration of fatherly love I just lost it. The way he said it was just too funny.
- YOU'RE PURE GOLD, JERRY! GOLD!
- Was Ani molested by the man in her vision? He had a definite "Bob" vibe about him...
- Someone said that one of the guys involved was a cop - my money's on Lieutenant Kevin Burris, a.k.a. the guy who keeps showing up at crime scenes too early.
- Great music this week, a real biblical vibe - it's Part II of Harmonielehre, "The Anfortas Wound" by modern composer John Adams.
