True Detective

DickTrickle said:

Did you just shit on Jake Gyllenhaal? Maybe you need to take a rest there, champ.

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+1 to that. Even Dick and I can agree to this. Z slow down bro.

DickTrickle said:

Did you just shit on Jake Gyllenhaal? Maybe you need to take a rest there, champ.

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If season 1 was Brokeback Bayou he could have totally pulled it off.

popsicledeath said:

Strip out most of the components that go into a quality production and the production isn't going to seem high quality? That's some high level analysis.

And I'm not a huge defender of the season 1 writing in a vacuum. It's clear it took PizzaLotto many years to hammer that thing into something that could be elevated, as opposed to the sophomore slump that happened (as often does) when he was asked to do it again on short notice.

It's also clear season 1 wasn't just some shallow, dime store, plot driven story that was only made watchable by all the other elements elevating it.

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Something that doesn't get mentioned enough is that Picazooloota is from Lake Charles, LA, and knows Louisiana; he knows the terrain and the people, the kind of people who live there. I think you are exactly right about the time he took and the time he needed. I think that S2 has the elements to be great, it just needed another year or two for him to distill out what made S1 what it was. Instead they rushed it. I wonder if Nick himself realizes what made S1 so great. He seems like he is trying to variations on the theme to capture the magic in the bottle again that was S1: S1 is about two terribly flawed characters over the years, forging a bond like a married couple, partners, facing and overcoming the darkness within themselves and the Darkness within society. True Detective is about that: Overcoming the darkness within and the Darkness without. The antiheroes doing the things we can't do for ourselves ala the Dark Knight, which is part of I don't remember enough about S2 to critique it here other than the memes and the disappointment. I didn't watch S3; I will never trust HBO again on anything to do with race after The Watchmen BS.

I hear bad things about S4 but let's see if they can deliver.

Edit: of course what Harrelson and McConaughey delivered off the written script breathing life into the words on the page was amazing. As Popsicledeath indicates, it was no slam dunk going into S1 and then when you have S2 loaded with top tier acting talent, they couldn't turn what wasn't there, what needed more time to develop into spun gold.

Season 1 was all about McConoghay and Woody.

popsicledeath said:

A decent argument along the lines of the dumb point you're trying to make would be that Woody and Matty didn't just show up and read lines. By all accounts, they did a lot of production work and really threw themselves into the show and did a lot to help it along. And that was the difference in making something that could have been bad into something much better.

That argument has nuance, though, which doesn't seem something you want to acknowledge. Instead you just keep making weird black and white arguments, including trying to pretend Harrelson was considered some slam dunk dramatic actor, when there were a lot of doubts going into the show about him.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Gosling could have been amazing, actually, especially if they'd given the same care and attention to the project.

Season two specifically tried to put together an all star cast and it was shit. So you can or can't just plug in well regarded actors? Guess they just needed a dramatic legendry actor like Harrelson to show up and it would have magically been great.

In short, wtf???

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Yeah no shit the 2 big stars acting as the Executive Producers to do a passion project they would agree to star in to instantly get a green light because of their award winning track record brought an amazing product to the table.

And yes plugging in some name brands in season 2 desperate to play cross type for some critical edgy kudos face planted.

But none of this explains away my original point, the show follows the genre of over the top cheap noir old school detective pulp that women masturbate to when they aren't listening to serial killer podcasts.


Also I didn't completely shit on Gyllenhaal, I put him on the McConaughey side of the equation in the comparison. I was making the same point as above, the caliber of the actors to sell the 'cheap dime store' story more than anything.

Penance said:

S2 shouldve been In Bruges redux. Collin was absolutely wasted in that roll and Vince didn't fit at all. Imagine if they had brought in Brendan Gleeson.

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Farrell and his arc just didn't get any depth, some of the funniest and grittiest scenes were his, but they were so short and hollow the didn't keep resonating down his 'journey'.

Weird cosmic horror parts of it I'm very into.

Not into Turbo dike with shit in her face and body tats that rapes a dude in the first episode.

Seems like Jody has some accident trauma and maybe issues with being touched.

Animosity said:

Weird that the black chick cop bothered you and not the 16 year old lesbo making iphone porn lol

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Yeah with a minor. And she seemed like a teacher or something. Was hard to hear what the lady was saying in the snow. That definitely bothered me too.