It wouldn’t surprise me if the addition of so much pop music is intended to expand the audience? That said, yeah, it’s distracting - it takes you out of the moment sometimes.
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 19:23 (four months ago) link
I don't know that I'd cosign on "so much pop music", it's not THAT overbearing. The Beach Boys was corny, but I actually that the Spice Girls song was effectively used to inject a little levity into Navarro's character and build on the hints of vulnerability she showed Qavvik since she spends the rest of the show in projecting hardass mode.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 19:30 (four months ago) link
yeah i did like that one
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 19:35 (four months ago) link
one thing Lopez said in her interview was that her initial version of Danvers was a woman on the verge of a breakdown but i guess very mild Foster met w her & said she wanted Danvers to be more unlikeable. After some discussion eventually Lopez was like “so, an asshole?” and Foster was like “yes!” true legend behavior imo
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 19:48 (four months ago) link
She's a huge asshole, which is a lot of fun all by itself, but then there are moments where she smiles and you can tell that she (Danvers) gets real joy out of fucking with people. It's a great performance.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 19:54 (four months ago) link
Ecclestone needs to put his ‘pumping old man’ rapidly fucking sweaty arse into retirement, or on the other hand it was pretty funny! I prefer the procedural/arctic community soap opera elements to this than all the gobbledygook squiggle nonsense.
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 19:56 (four months ago) link
That might have been the worst sex scene I've ever watched.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 19:57 (four months ago) link
rmde
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 20:51 (four months ago) link
Tuttle
― Pierre Delecto, Tuesday, 23 January 2024 21:05 (four months ago) link
I had to re-watch the scene with Tim Buckley playing since I was focusing 100% on the version of Song to the Siren playing and missed the dialogue entirely
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 22:09 (four months ago) link
(and the second the Spice Girls song came on I just tensed up, expecting a ghost and/or car crash to be immanent)
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 22:10 (four months ago) link
I prefer the procedural/arctic community soap opera elements to this than all the gobbledygook squiggle nonsense.
I mean, a dark, gritty Northern Exposure reboot isn't the worst idea.
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Tuesday, 23 January 2024 22:34 (four months ago) link
Watching E2. Foster’s character is a marvelously hard person
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 00:29 (four months ago) link
I *do* adore “bury a friend”
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 22:02 (four months ago) link
I thought the first episode was terrific. Not so sure about second episode. Some weird tonal shifts from scene to scene and honestly a lot of the set-up for this season is daffy rather than eerie or mysterious. Like, for instance, a pile of frozen naked men, all in mid-scream, thawing out in a local hockey rink where people can apparently just come in and out without any kind of security?
It is hinting at supernatural elements which were absent in the previous iterations of this show. I think that will turn out to be a red herring and they will chalk up some of what we've seen so far to just being hallucinations related to their isolating circumstances. On the other hand, if they do choose to lean harder into the supernatural, then I'll wish they just gave this show a different name and let it be it's own thing.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Thursday, 25 January 2024 01:36 (four months ago) link
Yeah, Fiona Shawms character getting guided by a ghost to where the bodies were is…very different from Colin Ferrell et all descending upon a grisly corps on the Pacific Coast Highway.
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Thursday, 25 January 2024 03:09 (four months ago) link
Caught up. Is this a sequel to Dan Simmons the Terror? Maybe a bit too much of that going on.
― dan selzer, Thursday, 25 January 2024 03:53 (four months ago) link
did you all catch that Fiona’s ghost boyfriend Travis was Travis COHLE ie Rust’s dad (survivalist, alaska, died of leukemia)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 25 January 2024 04:43 (four months ago) link
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Thursday, 25 January 2024 05:19 (four months ago) link
Colin Farrell’s sad kid should appear as a ghost.
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Thursday, 25 January 2024 05:20 (four months ago) link
tbh i dont think it means much to the story, i just think lopez liked the idea of adding some easter eggs to tie it into the series
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 25 January 2024 05:46 (four months ago) link
The lady being led by Travis Cohle says something along the lines of “don’t confuse the supernatural for the psychological” re: navaro’s sisters visions of their dead mother, emphasising it’s probably all psychological. Seems to me that’s how all this will be explained as has been the case for all previous seasons. The mask will be pulled of the ghost in the final episode and the big corporation behind the white sheet will state “we did get away with it! But it woulda been easier without you meddling kids!”
― H.P, Thursday, 25 January 2024 05:59 (four months ago) link
lolotm
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 25 January 2024 06:18 (four months ago) link
What if the real cosmic horror was the world that surrounds us?
― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, 25 January 2024 06:30 (four months ago) link
The next episode better be a 50 minute long take of the dude who woke up with his hand breaking of giving us an explanation about all this nonsense. The final 5 eps can be Billie Eilish music videos I don’t mind
― H.P, Thursday, 25 January 2024 06:36 (four months ago) link
don't know that I'll ever erase the image of the 9th Doctor banging Clarice Starling from my brain
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Sunday, 28 January 2024 01:29 (four months ago) link
Was not expecting a slow haunting Lykke Li cover
― jaymc, Monday, 29 January 2024 03:49 (four months ago) link
So close to getting a ‘your mother sucks cocks in hell.’’
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 29 January 2024 03:49 (four months ago) link
choompa loompa
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 29 January 2024 05:09 (four months ago) link
goddamn they just keep turning up the dial on creepy-ass creepy shit
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 29 January 2024 06:00 (four months ago) link
Caught up on the show today. Disconcerting. (That is a compliment.) Yeah _Terror_ vibes a bit. Already sensing a too easy out/explanation with the supernatural stuff so I want it to absolutely lean in on the cosmic horror now.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 29 January 2024 06:53 (four months ago) link
HBO completely botched the Christmas Episode rollout for this series.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Monday, 29 January 2024 07:28 (four months ago) link
Man the writing in this episode took a serious dip….. the car ride prayer scene to the Qavik quid pro quo scene was maybe the roughest run of dialogue in this series so fair. Still love the setting and want to see how this all gets tied up in the last episode but lord, dunno about this particular ep
― H.P, Monday, 29 January 2024 12:57 (four months ago) link
I do like this Pete kid tho
― H.P, Monday, 29 January 2024 12:58 (four months ago) link
scientists discover virus/organism/whatever in the ice that drives people crazy with fear/hallucinate/bad-stuff, big mining has drilled down to it. Maybe the virus thing was a time bomb, mining company hit something, trying to get tsalal to ya know, fix their mistake. Hence miners have to be loners, can’t date outside. Clark breaks the rules, dates the girl, spills some beans, she gets the chop. Time bomb goes off, tsalal guys either run off to die as a result of it, or to try kill it off if it’s an infectious thing. Old mate Oliver up north wanted no part and ran away from it all. I dunno, I’m getting hung-up on the “she’s awake” thing, but it’s clear that something in the town, and most likely something environmental is causing people to hallucinate, stillborns to happen, and scientists to convulse. There’s dirty water being drunk. The hallucinations are easily passed of as “this is Ennis, these things happen” by hippie lady earlier. But whatever was merely hallucinations and stillborns in the past looks to be potentially something worse now.
― H.P, Monday, 29 January 2024 13:43 (four months ago) link
Episode 3 probably should’ve been two episodes
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 29 January 2024 14:30 (four months ago) link
I have a bad feeling Pete is gonna snap and do something crazy before this season is over you guys
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 29 January 2024 14:32 (four months ago) link
Ehhh I don’t know about the last scene of this latest ep.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 30 January 2024 04:58 (four months ago) link
I'm very interested in seeing how the Danvers/Navarro/Wheeler(?) stuff plays(played) out. My current theory is the flashback of Wheeler in the chair was accurate and Danvers was lying when she said "He was dead when we found him." Danvers killed him and they covered it up. Maybe this was the origin of the subsequent break between her and Navarro: Navarro likely would have approved of Danvers doing extrajudicial execution on a violent lowlife, but Danvers couldn't continue to work with someone who had seen her emotional nature take over like that. Somewhere in there, her kid dies; maybe she sees that as divine punishment, or maybe it's the reason she kills Wheeler. (Could his teenage wife have been pregnant when she died?) Danvers becomes a bitter asshole who quotes protocol at people, as a sort of atonement.
This, to me, is the most interesting part of the mystery, along with: What does the spiral on Annie K mean? Surely it can't be a symbol of evil, on this character who is presented to us as near sainthood. I have some theories but want to wait and hear what others think.
― The king of the demo (bernard snowy), Tuesday, 30 January 2024 13:39 (four months ago) link
I don't think it's a theory. What we saw (or as much of it as we saw) is what happened. Danvers = unreliable narrator.
― Great-Tasting Burger Perceptions (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 30 January 2024 13:56 (four months ago) link
Yeah I mean I'm taking the unreliable narrator part as a given, just trying to fill in the blanks on what actually happened that we haven't been shown yet, on that day and in its aftermath.
― The king of the demo (bernard snowy), Tuesday, 30 January 2024 15:16 (four months ago) link
I've been seeing the carpet in my gym differently.
https://i.imgur.com/9Ynr7TO.jpeg
― jaymc, Tuesday, 30 January 2024 16:32 (four months ago) link
O_O
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 30 January 2024 18:45 (four months ago) link
that's what you get for working out at Tuttle Fitness, imo
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 30 January 2024 18:48 (four months ago) link
They’re really going to have to crank up the pace in the last two episodes if they’re going for a self-contained resolution this series. There hasn’t really been any police work going on, per se, and they haven’t leaned in to the Laird Barron Alaskan cosmic horror angle that much.
― ShariVari, Monday, 5 February 2024 12:04 (three months ago) link
Six episodes doesn’t feel like quite enough for this season - eight might’ve been more realistic.
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 5 February 2024 12:05 (three months ago) link
lol
― Sam Weller, Monday, 5 February 2024 15:13 (three months ago) link
after four episodes this show has some fun dialog and great performances but there really isn't anything interesting going on. and how come whenever they're talking in the car it's daylight again?
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 5 February 2024 15:16 (three months ago) link
enjoying the Ninth Doctor sounding like Michael Rapaport though
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 5 February 2024 15:17 (three months ago) link
I think I was also confused because I thought Danvers was relatively new to this environment, that she had been transferred there in spite by Dr Who, so it was confusing that she had a whole family storyline that, apparently, was also set in this same town.
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 15:01 (three months ago) link
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 17:35 (three months ago) link
Some stray thoughts & questions:—I can’t remember if this was mentioned upthrasd or elsewhere in the internet but major kudos to the cinematographer for making a show set almost entirely at night but always keeping the action visible. All other tv shows please take note, it can be done.—re the mysterious tongue… one clue which I can’t put together is on that last night in Tsalal when Danvers and Navarro solve the mystery of the hatch - at one point Danvers looks under the table and sees a residue where the tongue had been. At this point weeks have gone by - what does that mean that there would still be some kind of substance still there?
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 17:46 (three months ago) link
At this point weeks have gone by - what does that mean that there would still be some kind of substance still there?
Ectoplasm, obviously.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 17:54 (three months ago) link
otm re cinematography — also the myriad ways they made all the different types of snow/ice look beautiful and/or creepy
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 18:11 (three months ago) link
my one complaint, or a complaint, and maybe it's a question of the shorter season, is at the end when beardo is like "we could've saved the world", I feel like the show could've spent more time setting that up, so you felt like these guys really felt like something was at stake. Not that that would justify killing Annie obviously, but it just seemed to come out of nowhere. Until then I read the tsalal guys as well-meaning scientists who maybe fudged numbers for their funder, maybe it would've felt more impactful if it built up the sense of what they thought was at stake instead of introducing it at the last minute?
Also, all of Clark's Carcosa-style sculpture work, his notebook, they did lay groundwork for him going insane. Just guilt about Annie with some fan-service for season 1 stans?
― dan selzer, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 18:59 (three months ago) link
I assumed guilt, coupled with his obvious loneliness, guilt over his distance from his son, slowly going a little batty in the long, dark winter. It may have been fan service, but I'm glad they just obliquely hinted at that stuff rather than leaning into it (obviously aside from THAT line).
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 19:03 (three months ago) link
yeah, and I know everybody already said this, but that pure groan-worthy cringe.
The falling through the ice a few times on the other hand I found very effective.
― dan selzer, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 19:05 (three months ago) link
Honestly, after the Tuttle namedrop earlier and the Cohle revelation, I was bracing myself for some dumb "oh look, Bobby Ray Tuttle killed those scientists because they found their new ritual sacrifice room buried in the ice" twist so I was pretty pleased by the ultimate reveal. The more I let the finale sit, the more I like it.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 19:10 (three months ago) link
otm - this was the weak part of the story. Like... in what was is the ancient DNA locked in the permafrost supposed to save humanity exactly? That it's worth secretly poisoning a whole town? That is a fairly large MacGuffin to just gloss over.
On the other hand I thought the twist with the ladies from the town was terrific, even as their story was only peripherally told in the previous five episodes.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 19:18 (three months ago) link
I think they mentioned in passing that they’d discovered the secret to ending cellular decay.
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 19:40 (three months ago) link
yeah like generalized “cancer” cure was i thought thrown in amidst the technobabble
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 20:43 (three months ago) link
That just feels so fantastical... like the writers were just throwing darts at why it would be important for scientists to be doing the work they were doing. It feels totally half-baked.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 20 February 2024 23:52 (three months ago) link
I’m telling you, they needed at least two more episodes to really make this a satisfying season.
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 00:31 (three months ago) link
yeah i agree with that for sure
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 02:29 (three months ago) link
Yeah I've worked in a lab processing fresh blood & tissue samples for DNA and RNA, and no part of the science here makes sense. It's not important though, I just treated it like pure fantasy magic and pretended to hear something other than the words they were literally saying.
― The king of the demo (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 14:42 (three months ago) link
^yeah the “explanation” was just a bunch of science words put together. I treated it the same way.
― that's not my post, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 16:55 (three months ago) link
Well I find it irritating how tossed off it was, considering it's the main driver for the scientists' behavior.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 20:05 (three months ago) link
Are you familiar with the term "MacGuffin"? Remember how in the movie Ronin everyone's chasing a suitcase, and at one point Robert De Niro's character literally asks another character, "What's in the suitcase?" and she says, "You don't need to know"? Same deal here. They were working on Magical Mystery Miracle Science Stuff.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 20:14 (three months ago) link
but WHY is that one ring so powerful
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 20:31 (three months ago) link
I don't need it to be scientifically accurate or even make sense. But a macguffin only works if you know it's there. This was more of a negative deus ex machina, something I just made up.
― dan selzer, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 21:03 (three months ago) link
overall this season (I didn't watch seasons 1-3) does feel like it had huge swathes of narrative edited out of it
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 21:05 (three months ago) link
Wouldn't the True Detective MacGuffin be the supernatural elements? The mumbo jumbo sciencey explanation (and most of the finale) was more like opening the Pulp Fiction suitcase and revealing that it was just full of LED lights.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 21:13 (three months ago) link
If you'll allow me to explain. *several centuries pass*
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 23:19 (three months ago) link
that's ok, seasons 1 & 2 are huge swaths of narrative that go nowhere (I like season 1 actually but the misdirection with the supernatural or weird elements is way more irritating there in the end). Season 3 is exceptional storytelling though, feels like everyone has over looked how good it is.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Wednesday, 21 February 2024 23:56 (three months ago) link
Never got past two episodes of season 2 but really liked season 3.
― dan selzer, Thursday, 22 February 2024 00:18 (three months ago) link
I'm still kinda annoyed that they just let the explanation of "yeah were researching something and it cures EVERYTHING" stand as a plot point.
― H.P, Thursday, 22 February 2024 00:31 (three months ago) link
And here we go
https://deadline.com/2024/02/true-detective-renewed-season-5-hbo-issa-lopez-overall-deal-1235834470/
Mostly I'm just amused about how much this'll piss off Pizzolatto.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 22 February 2024 19:27 (three months ago) link
it's a long fucking night, even the dead get bored
― mark s, Monday, 26 February 2024 19:37 (three months ago) link
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, February 20, 2024 bookmarkflaglink
Interesting contrast can be found in the new Apple show Constellation, where Jonathan Banks is fixated on the discovery of a "new kind of matter and a double quantum helix" or whatever it is he says. It's equal to True Detective insofar as it's a totally outlandish MacGuffin. But him telegraphing its importance early on, vs the way it felt kinda tacked on in TD, just shows that the right writer can make a macguffin feel meaningful.
Perhaps another reason why it felt like a harder sell in TD is because it felt like a piece of sci-fi storytelling in a show that, while flirting with the supernatural, was not a science fiction show. Whereas that's squarely Constellation's genre.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 26 February 2024 21:50 (three months ago) link
the moment Danvers got trapped, put her gun away and then proceeded to find some useful tool to break glass was offensively dumb by even this show's standards.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Tuesday, 27 February 2024 05:59 (three months ago) link
uh shooting toughened glass in a confined space? dude that would mean shooting herself via ricochet
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 27 February 2024 06:47 (three months ago) link
we're talking television show logic, c'mon. toughened glass bullet ricochet is the least of a screenwriter's concerns.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Tuesday, 27 February 2024 07:01 (three months ago) link
thing is that every circle is flat
― batman monster truck (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 27 February 2024 08:44 (three months ago) link
Good thing Jodie Foster is in this. Otherwise it would be some second tier Netflix horror schlock.
― calstars, Wednesday, 28 February 2024 11:47 (three months ago) link
Great interview with Reis here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/style/kali-reis-true-detective.html
Despite the taste of HBO fame, Ms. Reis has no plans to change: Authenticity is nonnegotiable with her. “On the red carpet, you’re supposed to wear Gucci, and I’m like: ‘Listen, I don’t wear heels. I wear all black,’” she said.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 18 March 2024 20:23 (two months ago) link