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True Detective - Season 2 - We get the Season we deserve - Sundays on HBO

C

Cornballer

Member
- Rolling Stone: Is 'True Detective''s New Season Truly Defective?
So here's the surprise twist: Rachel McAdams makes a hell of a cop. She's easily the best thing about the second season of True Detective. Her transition from mean girl to bad cop is amazing: She's a tightly wound, sarcastic loner with a thing for knives and no particular desire to hide her rage.

It's one thing for the doe-eyed starlet from The Notebook to cut it as a hard-boiled Southern California cop. It's quite another for her to be the most credible and convincing thing about the show — but here we are. The new-model True Detective would be lost without her. It's an old-school anthology series, where every season is a different story with a different cast — no more Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson on the Louisiana bayou. Instead, it's an L.A. County criminal-conspiracy story full of philosophical speeches — basically The Chinatown Monologues.
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- Slate: Angry at the World
The new season of True Detective is, especially given the burden of expectations, remarkably solid. It’s not a belly flop. It lacks the obvious hook of its predecessor, but I still am eager to see how it develops. And while watching the first three episodes, all that were made available to critics, I realized it was a kind of insanity to expect more. It is a sign of how far—too far—auteur theory has come in television (and also a sign of how great—too great—sequel mania has become) that any sane person could reasonably imagine that season two would be able to recreate the most magical and essential aspect of season one on command: the alchemical pairing of an actor like Matthew McConaughey at the height of his drawling movie star powers with a character as substantial and singular as Rust Cohle. Even the most powerful writer-king can’t summon the force of the McConaissance at his will.
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- Warming Glow: ‘True Detective’ Season 2 Review: So Is This Thing Good Or What?
Here’s what I’ll say: I was pretty skeptical heading into this. I had real doubts about the show’s ability to re-invent itself, and some of the casting, and whether I’d be able to get past all the hype of the first and fatigue of the whole #TrueDetectiveSeason2 thing. But after watching the first three episodes, I can safely say I’m in. There are some things that worry me a bit, sure. I watched all three episodes in a 24-hour span, and it might feel like it’s moving a little slow in one-hour increments spaced a week apart. And each of the four main characters is teetering a line between being complex/interesting and being a bit of a caricature. Right now they’re all on the good side of the line in my ledger, but I reserve the right to update that as the series progresses. A lot could go either way.

But is it good? Yeah, it’s good so far. If it all lands, it could really be something. And if it doesn’t, it could really get messy. Either way, it’s definitely worth watching.
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chris121580

chris121580

Member
I'm not going to read any reviews. I want to go in without knowing what reviewers are thinking and judge it for myself. Can't wait for Sunday!
 
D

dead souls

Member
Fjordson said:
Damnnn. I like Sepinwall a lot, bummer.

Hudsongameoverman.jpg
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That Sepinwall review is pretty brutal.

Sounds like Pizzolatto takes a shot at Fukunaga too:

Fukunaga may have worked himself to exhaustion shooting all of season 1(*), but the end result was a show that looked like incredible and distinct, and that had two magnificent performances at its heart. His replacements don't bring nearly as much to the table visually, other than a fascination with overhead shots of the LA freeway system. And where the show last season went out of its way to avoid showing you the many horrible things its heroes paid witness to, the new season has no compunctions about being graphic, including a loving glimpse of a corpse missing both eyes and its genitals.

(*) There were reports of discord between Pizzolatto and Fukunaga last season, and one of the new episodes features a visit to a film set with an Asian-American director styled to resemble Fukunaga, in a manner meant to be unflattering to one man, but which reflects more poorly on the other.
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What a fucking manbaby.
 
B

Blader

Member
Coming off that second trailer, I had a feeling McAdams would be the best part of the cast (for the record, I think Kitsch will be the second best and Farrell the worst; no idea about Vaughn). Hope she can break out of this and give her career the 180 it needs/deserves. I'm sure she's sick of playing the exact same love interest from movie to movie. A Most Wanted Man was a step in the right direction but hopefully this is what pushes it over the edge.
 
C

CassSept

Member
This thread made me finally watch Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.

If this season is bad at least I'll get one memorable experience out of the entire ordeal.
 
B

big ander

Member
Not gonna read any reviews in detail at least until after the premiere but that shot at Fukunaga--which it will undeniably be if it's as clear-cut as Sepinwall describes--is such myopic whiny shit lmao. Will turn the Marenghi comparison from a funny joke to an understatement
 
J

J.EM1

Member
Looking forward to it. Found it interesting that Colin Farrell's character works for a fictional police department compared to McAdams and Kitch's real-life police depts. Wonder why they wrote it that way.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Fjordson said:
That Fukunaga thing can't be true. Whaaat the hell. Awful.
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It's mentioned in a couple of other reviews, too:
Slate said:
Velcoro and Bezzerides work a movie set, because, this being California, the dead city manager was also a movie producer. The detectives briefly question the director, whose film appears to be a piece of schlock. He is a tall, trim Asian fellow with, yes, a handsome man bun, making him a not particularly pointed in-joke at Fukunaga’s expense.
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C

Cornballer

Member
- Deadline video review
Telling a good police story is an art: The job and nature of the characters allow you to put them almost anywhere, but like a rat in a cage, once you’ve got ’em you’ve got to figure out what to do with them. As my video review above says, the very hardboiled and very good Season 2 debut of True Detective on HBO on June 21 very deftly takes us to some very familiar and very different places.
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In distinct contrast to the testosterone-fueled Season 1 of True Detective, McAdams is the real powerhouse here in a startling performance of sheer steel and raw wounds.
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H

Helmholtz

Member
Man... I had a bad feeling about this season after hearing the casting news and watching the trailers. I'll probably still check it out but I'm tempering my expectations that's fore sure.
 
K

Kastrioti

Persecution Complex
ibkjtWA1DAD14B.gif


I'm ready
 
U

User 85168

Banned
AVClub's review

Going straight is a struggle for True Detective
C-
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What’s lurking in the shadows of downtown L.A. is just a rack of dull suits. Corruption is a drag.
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Season two is serious people doing serious things all the time. None of these characters have ever found anything funny in their lives, and none of them have anything interesting to offer one another (or us) beyond solving the case.
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Yikes.
 
N

NotTheGuyYouKill

Member
I'm really hoping PIzzaman isn't so fucking high on himself he's floated away.

You can tell the dude had a bit of an ego last year, but he backed it up with a very intriguing, creepy philosophical horror story.

He seems to be going for a straight pulp crime story here, but drenched in philosophical monologues and soliloquies.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
psychological horror? why you using these meaningless buzzwords brah? this show never ventured into that.

it was a straight up detective show, set in louisiana backwoods. philosophical at times though for sure, but never really ventured into psych-horror. i'd love it if he did for a season though, and gave one director control again.

i hope william friedkin directed the later episodes. the list in the OP is a bunch of flunkies.

edit: lmao, i misread your post. wow.
 
N

NotTheGuyYouKill

Member
Discotheque said:
psychological horror? why you using these meaningless buzzwords brah? this show never ventured into that.

it was a straight up detective show, set in louisiana backwoods. philosophical at times though for sure, but never really ventured into psych-horror. i'd love it if he did for a season though, and gave one director control again.

i hope william friedkin directed the later episodes. the list in the OP is a bunch of flunkies.
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I never called it psychological horror. I meant it's a philosophical and horror story. I just meant at times it felt like a horror story that's kind of meditative the nature of evil and flaws of people.

My bad, but I didn't say it's a psychological horror story.

Edit: lol
 
D

duckroll

Member
dead souls said:
That Sepinwall review is pretty brutal.

Sounds like Pizzolatto takes a shot at Fukunaga too:



What a fucking manbaby.
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Cornballer said:
It's mentioned in a couple of other reviews, too:
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I don't understand this at all. I really want to believe it's just some poorly executed homage or non-malicious in-joke which went badly. It just seems so unreal. Fukunaga is still an executive producer on the show, his contributions to the first season is unquestionable. Why would Pizzaman need to take a potshot at him for no reason? Steinbeck would never have done this! T_T
 
V

Vagabundo

Member
Vastly lowered expectations once I found out there is no occult aspect to the show. Just seems a regular cop show from the trailers now.
 
T

The Driver

Member
Not really surprised if Pizza Man has flown off the rails. Idk, still hyped for Sunday but he definitely gives off an asshole vibe lmao.

What I wanna know if has it been announced if the opening song has been changed?
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
duckroll said:
I don't understand this at all. I really want to believe it's just some poorly executed homage or non-malicious in-joke which went badly. It just seems so unreal. Fukunaga is still an executive producer on the show, his contributions to the first season is unquestionable. Why would Pizzaman need to take a potshot at him for no reason? Steinbeck would never have done this! T_T
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EP is mostly just a title in TV. Probably just a contract thing that he gets his name on it.
 
D

duckroll

Member
TheKaeptain said:
EP is mostly just a title in TV. Probably just a contract thing that he gets his name on it.
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Right, but you don't decide to fuck with someone who contributed to making your show a success and is still credited on it for contractual reasons. It's unprofessional and really bad form!
 
A

Askherserenity

Member
AV Club review is pretty much exactly what I was bummed out about since the first trailer.

Looks so dull and boring compared to the first season.
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
duckroll said:
Right, but you don't decide to fuck with someone who contributed to making your show a success and is still credited on it for contractual reasons. It's unprofessional and really bad form!
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Dude there are so many unprofessional assholes in Hollywood. Especially showrunners. They have huge fucking heads.



I cannot wait to be one of them. lol jk
 
O

overcast

Member
Kind of seems generally positive, but definitely a step down. Sepinwell and AV Club being two standouts of particularly harsh opinions.
 
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