TRUE DETECTIVE on hbo - Season Two

true detective official rankings: s2 > s1 >>>> s3

each are different, each are a version of a different type of quality

I'll throw in this firecracker tho- why anyone would tell you breaking bad is any better than any of the TD series is beyond me

True Detective S1 was a good piece of filmmaking but grotesquely overrated at the time (although opinion has shifted somewhat since then)

S2 is bad by almost every measure, but I treasure it as a monument to auteurial hubris run amok

S3 is fine. A retreat.

Breaking Bad is just better plotted, written and acted - and crucially, it's infinitely more entertaining. But Breaking Bad has suffered a backlash of its own in recent years, so i'm not sure your firecracker is quite as explosive as you think.

i thought the breaking bad plot was rubbish. all over the place, didnt follow any internal logic at any stage.

no better than the sopranos tbh.

i welcome judgment

true detective is a good example of ok tv that is written by some total dumbasses but has a lot of money spent on it, good casts and cinematography, so people imagine that what they're watching isn't fucking stupid trash.

the second season is its nadir.

third season was just blah.

first season definitely the best. the woody-mcconnaughey pairing makes it.

its an exercise in ppl deciding not to like something in advance, watching it and then telling you they didnt like it, citing the reasons they had stated in advance.

pretty much, yeah.

i rewatched it recently and it's definitely flawed, sometimes comically so; it's also often wildly entertaining, usually when farrell is onscreen, and while it steals massive plot chunks from chinatown and james ellroy's novel white jazz, i very much like both of those things, so w/e

I watched it last year, having just watched the first season, and having enjoyed that. very much disposed to enjoying it. having a staycation from work and just binging it in my underwear while drinking beer etc. and I honestly couldn't recount the plot because I just couldn't give a fuck about it.

I believe it was something to do with papers...signatures all over them

I'd read about how bad the second season was supposed to be, but I honestly don't think I went into it wanting to hate it--if anything, that often works in reverse, something's never as bad as what you're prepared for.

But I thought it was pretty bad (lots of posts earlier in the thread). It held my attention and kept me guessing, but it was just so heavy-handed--I don't think anybody smiled till eight episodes in--and Vince Vaughn's ruminations were like a bad film noir parody.

(You could say the same thing about MM's character in S1, but Woody Harrelson was there to mock him at almost every turn, so it worked.)

the genius of S1 (for me) was that it took "bad film noir parody" dialogue into gnostic/nihilistic metaphysical extremes...kinda making the philosophical subtext of standard noir into explicit text--which is maybe only a trick that works once but it worked great. MM is almost like an omniscient narrator of his own plot arc.

ok deeper in now, episode 5 down

no doubt the script absolutely clunks at times, and the plot certainly needs line level delivery to be elegant enough to smooth over some real stretches

and ok yes its so far probably better recut and sent out as a ninety minute movie, made in 2003

but im still fine with this

ok we finished it

twin peaks, sicario, lots of michael mann, explicit nods to twelve monkeys and a dash of terminator 2, some scenes were just plain comically acted and written but what a fuckin lash they gave it

hope they do a third one

chinatown, obviously, obviously

They did do a third one...

yes i know thats the joke the joke is that i watched this season now even tho it was years ago

its like true detective

how do ya like them flat circles

Goddamnit Rusty

All circles are flat, but none was flatter.

Rewatched S2E1, and it’s so not noir-for-kicks but really three fucked-up people who converge in the last scene, two wasted and the third on the verge of suicide, maybe all three on the verge of suicide, and then that helicopter shot at Nick Cave doing “All The Gold In California.” It’s so grim that it’s
not fun to talk about, but it works.

Sorry if this was posted before

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueDetective/comments/3e9k70/season_2_make_up_your_most_ridiculous_vince/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

trying very hard not to read the rest of the thread but i started this a few days ago and i think it's a million times better than season one, which had a largely terrible second half. s2 is like a long michael mann film

I’m so glad you’re digging the season, Brad!

yeah season 2 rules, the thought of sitting through s1 again is agonizing, culminating in woody's "green ears" breakthrough

s3 with some distance and perspective was terrible except for dorff

flabbergasted at vince vaughn's ability to make me feel emotionally for the dipshit character he plays

OMG thought it was my own little controp that i preferred S2 to S1. McAdams is really funny in this, esp the group counselling scene.

i... just love big dicks

all otm, didn’t watch s2 until recently on account of s1 being two fun performances drowned in bullshit but every second is a delight; the bullshit achieves sentience and yearns for a better life

i read the black dahlia the other day, wasn’t even close

about to start the final episode baby!!!!!!!! i am profoundly moved by this season of television

i can't believe people hated this, except i believe that they wanted to

its an exercise in ppl deciding not to like something in advance, watching it and then telling you they didnt like it, citing the reasons they had stated in advance. gripping stuff.

deems otm

shakey hating this should've been like a clear sign to me

have fun in the desert brad!

the pretentious dialogue achieves this beautiful textural quality in this show that i've never really encountered before. in the first season it felt isolated to like really actorly monologues and the obligatory metaphysical mumbojumbo; here it's like if a line of dialogue or a conversation runs on long enough someone will kind of lose and find their way through it impressionistically. i have no idea if the effect is intentional but it's there and i frankly cannot get enough of it

season 2 was filmed in a harsh off-putting light which I think did a lot of people in but which in retrospect was fascinating

If you liked S1, like I did, why would you decide in advance not to like S2? That makes no sense.

I loved S1, went into S2 with an open mind but hated every moment of it.

it's absolute dross!

the dead weight of the consistently terrible dialogue just crushes the life out of it, an unintentional horror show that left me groaning every two minutes between longer spells of being bored rigid.

in a world where Christopher Nolan makes a living who's to say what terrible dialogue is?

idk whoever wrote this shite makes it look like the dialogue in Batman's Stinky Dark Follow-through was the work of Arthur Miller!

I think that i agree with everyone

But mainly brad, and nv raises a huge point

If you liked S1, like I did, why would you decide in advance not to like S2? That makes no sense.

― clemenza

I cannot answer this for u clem.

This is ur journey

I can't remember how this thread goes, but although someone certainly could have decided not to like s2 in advance, I don't think anyone could have accounted for the particular type of badness exhibited here

It's sui generis if nothing else. And definitely one of the most memorable seasons of TV in the past decade or so

It kinda does for moody cop shows what twin peaks did for soaps

But unintentionally and not exactly

Are my thoughts my own
Am I steering this thing

Did i dream this belief
Or did i believe this dream

Obv with brad here btw, the four leads got a hard time from various sources for their performances in this and every one of them had moments or episodes where i was all in for them