Active Member
Despite some good stuff throughout, I'm not feeling these last couple of episodes. Semyon is the only highlight for me, and despite some cringe-worthy moments Vaughn is the show's MVP to me this season.
I usually don't bail on a show I even half-way like (I made it through American Horror Story: Coven mostly with gritted teeth), but I feel like any anticipation for these new episodes was wasted from the beginning.
Stubby Member
I wish the entire season was as good as this last episode. I strongly believe what made season 1 so great was that every episode was directed by Cary Fukunaga, something a show rarely or has never really done before to my knowledge. I don't believe the hate for this season is unwarranted, it really too 6 episodes for it to get its shit together. I agree with @elevenism , there's a great story in there somewhere, it's just not being told right.
Only By Night
IMO, this season has been pretty great. Just because you may not remember some side character names, or who they are for that matter, or even struggling to even comprehend what is going on... just watch the season over again. I hate the comparison to the first season because we have totally different characters.. different story... everything is just different from the first swipe around. The story may be confusing to a lot of viewers, but I love shows that actually make you think and try to figure out what is going on all by yourself without everything being spoon fed to the viewer.
Farrell, McAdams, Vaughn (Holy shit is he knocking this out of the park), and Kitsch have all been great for their respective roles. They work with what they have, and I really do not understand all the hatred for Kitsch's acting chops in this show. Yea, the movies he has played in have been so-so to just awful, but I wouldn't say that the guy cannot act because he has had some pretty intense scenes in this season and has been pretty dam believable to me with his role. Vaughn and Farrell though steal the show here. Not only is Vaughn very believable as Semyon, he is proving he has the chops to act the way he pretty much started out in his career as an actor. Farrell on the other hand is a great actor that always picks shitty roles to play in. But this has been a great view nonetheless, and I cannot wait to see where the last episode will bring us.
But man... the last 20 minutes of this episode had me on the edge of my seat, and rooting for Paul to get out of there safe after taking out all of those scumbags. I wonder who they offed down there before Paul was brought in. Seemed to be an awful lot of blood on the floor, unless that was just water or something. Someone had to go, and I can say honestly that I was really sad to see him go off like that. Vaughn and Farrell have the most chemistry between each other with Vaughn spitting out one of the best lines of the season: "Don't you fucking shoot me, Raymond".
Stubby Member
i think this has been a pretty good season, that being said, it struggled out of the gate and was slow to start. the larger cast also seems to be something the show is struggling with, season one rust & marty were front and center every week, and their story was the main focus of the show, the crime & investigation was just a window to explore the two cops more.
season 2 seems on a different track, the cast is too big for the laser like focus on just 2 guys, and there seems to be more focus on the overall investigation(s). if i wanted to really pick at nits, the show seemed to waffle on the presentation of some points - most notably the parentage of "ray's" child.
it may be my failure as a viewer, or of the show, but there seems to be a lot of plot points that i'm missing because i'm not remembering some tertiary character's name or not getting whatever reference they are trying to make.
negativity aside, the past few weeks have been really good.
Vaughn & Farrell have been great (especially lately).
Active Member
So if Caspere and those cops used the stolen diamonds to buy their way into positions of power.... why did Caspere still have the diamonds?
Active Member
Also... I think Mayor Chessani was in the Dark Knight
Active Member
^^^^ I remember seeing him on Law and Order like 15 years ago. Played a bad guy duh.
More love for the show.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0138b0bf4ae4f
Active Member
That was honestly underwhleming.
Spoiler: I understand what you want to happen isn't necessarily a good thing for a show, but what ended up happening is basically what I predicted happening weeks ago. And some of the writing was atrociously bad. Frank getting stabbed because he won't take off a fucking suit? Ray running out of cover like a complete idiot to get sprayed by bullets? I mean, they could have at least been a bit more creative with these outcomes.
I don't know, maybe I need to give it more time to digest, but I honestly thought that this episode could have been handled a lot better.
Trollhunter
That was depressing albeit completely realistic. I'll watch it all again once the blu ray is out. I really liked it, though. Hopefully Nic Pizzolatto hasn't taken the whiny paper thin criticism to heart and will do a season three that keeps the theme of being completely different than the other two.
Banned
Disagree.Originally Posted by Frozen Beach
Spoiler: What was Velcoro supposed to do? He knew he was fucked. He had three guys surrounding him, and only a shotgun for defense. And in Frank's case, his pride was his undoing. They'd been alluding to it all season. Plus, he had $3.5 million in diamonds in that suit, didn't he? No way in hell I would let some thug take my diamonds on top of my suitcase of money either
Active Member
Spoiler: I think him staying in cover, then getting flanked and shot would have felt more realistic. I'm not saying Frank and Ray shouldn't have died. I just felt that the way both their deaths were handled felt pretty awkward. And I honestly think the premonition Ray had earlier in the season kind of spoiled the impact of Ray's death. I get pizza was trying to be creative, but it backfired for me.
[spoiler
Spoiler:Spoiler:
And in Frank's case, his pride was his undoing. They'd been alluding to it all season. Plus, he had $3.5 million in diamonds in that suit, didn't he? No way in hell I would let some thug take my diamonds on top of my suitcase of money either
I know about the diamonds. As above, the problem I have is I think it was handled awkwardly. The entirety of him snapping because they were trying to take his suit felt comedic. Why couldn't they have just searched him, then he makes his move and fails? I will say I like the desert scene where he's wandering, bleeding out and hallucinating.
Banned
Different strokes, I guess. The question is, will you be returning for Season 3?
Nothing in this season irked me the way it did a lot of others. Maybe I'm just naive to what makes for believable television/film or maybe I just really wanted to like this season despite what a lot of people were saying, and ended up doing just that. I can recall plenty of movies where I shut them off after 30 minutes because I thought they were fucking stupid, but I never once felt that way about this season
And man, will I be seeing Vince Vaughn in a new light after this, comedy or otherwise. Hopefully, if anything, Nic Pizzolatto isn't too discouraged by all the negative feedback from this season, but is irked enough to step up whatever game he is bringing to the next one.
Active Member
Considering this is an anthology series, of course.The question is, will you be returning for Season 3?
Quiet Member
awful ending to an awful season. i don't think it gets much worse than that for sophomore slumps.
Stubby Member
Good ending to a good season, still one of the best shows on TV.
BADGERS
As a whole, i actually liked it in the end. Some of its flaws were pretty offensive, but I have to credit its, depth, thought and care, even if they didnt always come together in the way i wanted. I had a really hard tine following the mystery, maybe i wasnt paying enough attention.
I have a theory that the writer deliberately made the mystery opaque and overblown, because of how people spent more timr looking at the mystery in season 1 than at the character developement, which according ti interviews was the point. That is REALLY the case here. The actual who dunnit and whats going on here takes a way back seat to the relationships of the characters, which is the part that kept me coming back.
The problem is, the mystery would always pop its head out in some stupid distracting way, like having Velcoro shot at the end of episode 2, or the shoot out at the end of four. If the show didnt play cheap with these big moments, i probably could have appreciated the character stories a lot more for what they were.
Active Member
It took a few episodes for me to really get into. But, it's definitely a good season.
Active Member
In the end, this season left me feeling bleh.
The real part of why the mystery was so confusing to follow was because it wasn't interesting to follow at all... I just found myself not caring and that would lead me to just lose focus on who connected to what.
Vince Vaughn and Colin Farrel were the only good thing about the show, I really liked their dynamic.
But the rest was all just noise, drowned out by an uninteresting plot and people I couldn't get myself to care about or into enough to follow every detail.
Only By Night
Man, the freaking tension in this episode! My hands were clenched the entire time. Really sad to see what all these characters were trying to do, and see everything just fall apart in the end. I really enjoyed this season for what it was, and loved how it kept me on the edge of my seat just waiting for everything to unfold. The noir aspect of it all I could never get enough of, and the writing was pretty awesome all around. Again, props to Vince Vaughn for knocking this out of the park.
Throbbing Member
"Oh dear. You stopped moving way back there..." Beautiful.
Active Member
That scene is a motherfucker. Frank is really the only character I liked throughout, despite some clunky moments. But that death scene, Jesus Christ. I felt like I was walking with him. I can relate to so much of that he went through (that we know of anyway), that watching him fight the absolute inevitable demise he's been left with is utterly heartbreaking.
And I didn't even like Vince Vaughn that much before, especially in comedies. But he's totally the MVP of what was otherwise a middling season for me.
Active Member
Holy shit, why is this season getting so much flak, when it's actually better than the first one?!
Maybe better is not the most fitting word, because it is an unfair comparison to begin with. Cohle (and Matthew McConaughey, of course) was superb, only Frank came somewhat close to him in season 2, but the first season was really all about Cohle and the mystery factor. The second season was more action packed, had more storylines and had that feel good factor of forging a team of unlikely allies. What can I say, I'm a sucker for stories when a common goal brings together such different folks - they always make the best teams!
The first episode sucked ass, I won't deny it. They really failed keeping up my interest, because they absolutely failed to make me want to know any of the four main characters. Hey, who is h-- CUT Oh, is she a --- CUT, so Frank is --- CUT , yeah, fuck you too! But from the second episode onward it got better and better. I liked the pacing, I liked the "oh shit, everyone's involved!". Now, I know season 1 had a similiar theme going with everyone's being involved, but it lead to nothing. We knew some higher people were in this, but that's all, the main focus was on Cohle and the serial killer himself. In season 2, those motherfuckers were right in front of us, so it actually made me emotionally invested to the twists much better than in season 1 whwere the conspiracy was basically "oh, and a bunch of faceless guys are in this too. move on."
I like dark endings, so I absolutely enjoyed the last two episodes as well. Woodrough was a fucking nice guy with tons of potential, he deserved to die the least. He was really the best of them. Velcoro was fucked up, but he did not deserve the shit he got. He was the biological father, he could never make a meaningful closer with his son, and did not get the chance to start a new life. Tragic, really. Frank... yeah, I think it was the most obvious, even from the beginning that he's gonna die. Guys like him always die, but he was my favorite. He died like he lived - reckless. Bezzerides was the odd one for me, because honestly, I couldn't give a damn about her. I never understood her motives, her pain, her plans... I don't think they did a good job with her, but her and Jorden being a team sounds really cool.
So yeah, fuck the haters, this was a great season, and I am glad they did not try to copy season 1. Matthew did way too good fucking job to try to one up that performance.
Active Member
this is about right
How Much Did Nic Pizzolatto Self-Plagiarize ‘True Detective’ Season Two?
Active Member
Gee, it's like season 1 and season 2 are of the same series!
I love getting all these infos, Nic really did a goob job of making memorable moments. My favorite from that list is the picture comparison, so good! Another one I like, which reddit brough to my attention: http://imgur.com/a/ZRpHE
Banned
Maybe it's a motif?
Trent uses them in his music all the time
Active Member
Yeah, if that article meant to mock the creator then it's a huge own goal.
Active Member
While a bit confusing with the plot, that is exactly how film noir works. I remember watching The Maltese Falcon for the first time and being confused for a bit. Dialogue today you call wackadoo dialogue or what Frank gets to say: "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it." No Sam Spade said that not Frank Seymon.
I didn't really understand why Jordan and Ani were together at the end. They didn't know each other.
I was nobody. Nothing.
i thought it actually turned out to be fucking great.
I just think it would have been better to binge watch it than watch it week to week the way i did, as the plot was so labyrinthine..
And i wished certain people had lived. As soon as he talked about meeting up, sigh. I said out loud, to my wife, "now you KNOW what the predictable thing will be. wouldn't it be cool if they defied tradition here?"
But, alas...
@Dra508 has a point about film noir.
as for Jordan and Ani...i think that they were like proxies for the dudes in a way?
Banned
Remember Frank asked Ani at the safehouse to find Jordan in Venezuela if he didn't make it, and to tell her that everything he said to her at the train station was still true, regardless of whether he lived or not
When Ani got there, she probably sought Jordan out to relay the message to her, and realized Ray wasn't going to make it either. They both had that in common, losing their lovers. And they were both burned by the whole corruption scandal, so naturally they were kindred spirits in wanting the truth to come out in some way
i'm too thin
Man, I just finally got around to watching this episode and it fucked me up. Damn, amazing.
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