'True Detective' - Season 2

All Those Bad Crits

I'm not sure what to make of all the bad crits season 2 has been receiving. A lot of them seem centred around the fact that it's unlike Season 1 in so many ways. Some have been more scathing than others, but I'm yet to read a crit that makes a defence of the creative choices of season 2. It is a very different animal to season 1 - yes, we all loved season 1 - so the expectations were rightfully high but perhaps largely misplaced.

The most disappointing part of that difference for me is that the over all story has nothing whatsoever to do with the story of Season 1. Season 1 had so many mythic elements that fused into the occult and traditions of American Gothic as well as the Cthulhu mythos which made it resplendent. The continuous philosophical excursions made by Rust made for some delicious cogitation on the meaning of what we were seeing.

To be disconnected from all that wonder is a little sad. But that doesn't mean this season is so bad as to incur the contempt of all these critics. I guess I liked it and appreciated it a lot more than those critics. It's funny how they have jobs writing about TV and have so little idea as to what they are watching. After all, if you didn't get it and didn't like it, it's not much of a crit, is it?

Anyways.... the usual spoiler alert!

What's Good About It

The interesting choice with the series that they opted to completely start up another story with different characters. The casting choices are reasonably weighty, while the change scenery is incredibly stark. If the open blankness of the South in season 1 was haunting and evocative, the industrial sprawl in season 2 is menacing and raw.

The new characters are a revelation. They are in of themselves gripping and interesting figures, loaded with ambiguity. The moral ambiguity of Colin Farrell's detective Velcoro, the sexual ambiguity of Taylor Kitsch's Paul Woodrugh, and the emotional ambivalence or Rachel McAdam's detective Ani Bezzerides makes for compelling viewing. The urban industrial backdrop makes for the most harrowing of landscapes as it builds inexorably to the climax and denouement.

The supporting plot line of the gangster Frank ands wife Jordan is also gripping and full of interesting turns. If it were not for this subplot, we wouldn't get a picture of just how deep the corruption and conspiracy goes in the story. It goes so deep, event the principle outlaw cannot overcome its effects. The corruption is big, the compromised state is a plaything of he moneyed interests, and the little people get squashed. There is no justice, there is only retribution.

As a palimpsest of the post-GFC world, nothing could be more on the mark than the problematic with which the main characters wrestle. If the corruption goos all the way to the top and every stopping between, how can any investigation survive? What moral obligation can a detective exercise, becomes a very pressing issue.

What's Bad About It

Season 1 established that at least in the 'True Detective' series, there is metaphysical evil. In fact, after harping on for most parts of season 1 about the fundamentally meaningless-ness of existence, Rust encounters the sublime darkness that is worshipped by the cultists and he is transformed into  believer in death. It's one of the most amazing turnaround stories on screen. This series comes nowhere near that sublime aporia and awe-filled gaze into the heart of darkness.

In its place in season 2 is a more prosaic piecing together of an unspeakably awful conspiracy that is man-made and thoroughly degrading to humanity. The absence of the sublime drives the story into rather tepid retreads of other noir stories; but it never reaches into the heart of darkness like season 1 does. It's not that the evil isn't spooky in this series; it's that having seen the hint of the spookiest evil, it never comes close to discussing it; and that's the great shame. The missed opportunity to really develop the theme.

What's Interesting About It

Now having seen two seasons, we're getting a better view of the outline of the overall concept. It is in most part, a film noir sensibility played through a discursiveness on the nihilistic impulse in humanity. The characters have fairly primal needs and fears that drive them, and they barely keep it together for the story to unfold. All of the protagonists are like deer in the headlights, stunned at the sudden need to act. The antagonists are many and much less delineated than the protagonists; they remain murky and hard to fathom, their motives constantly shrouded by the apparent randomness of violence.

The patter of Frank played by Vince Vaughan gives us a view into what the world of gangsters might be, post-Tarrantino. Post Modern and self-reflexive, Frank seems to lurch from one state of discomfort to the next while offering expert commentary on his plight. Even his relationship with his wife comes with a commentary, almost in the third person; the self consciousness is oddly compelling as it is deeply ironic.

The night aerial shots over the industrial wasteland are amazing. They evoke  the opening sequence from 'Blade Runner', but it is actual and real. The brutal industrial facade of modernity is at times savagely beautiful and alarming with its barrenness.

Eaten By Despair

You get a lot of downer characterise the detective genres. They have substance abuse problems - most likely alcohol and tobacco products, but this might extend into recreational drugs. Even Sherlock Holmes was an opium addict so there's some insight there about the nature of detective work. Colin Farrell's character Ray drinks, smokes and takes drugs. He enters the series fully compromised, having committed some unspeakable act against the rapist who fathered a child by his wife - or so he believes. Dramatic irony being what it is, it turns out he did not kill the right man, but also, he is the biological father but he never finds out.
In the mean time, he only has this horrible despair eating out this character.

Desire runs deep in Ray precisely because the genre attempts to grapple with the nature of hope, and hope that emanates from illuminating the truth. To that extent Ray has hat in common with Rust from Season 1. Except in Ray is far less articulate and perhaps not as well educated as Rust so as to articulate his sense of hopelessness. He is aware of how deeply bent out of shape he is, by the force of this despair; he' just not good at explaining himself. Both season 1 and 2 hinges on this despair as the axis on which the story turns. If Ray were happily a crooked cop (a kind of psychopath), then the events would take a different turn. His despair marks him out as being vulnerable to the problems at hand.

Ani played by Rachel McAdam is thus like Marty Hart from season 1, where she is loyal to her appetites and not very concerned about the social damage this creates. The wanton-ness is less pronounced, but it is what governs her, and so she makes a good foil for Ray, but it is important to note that this character dynamic is a transplant from the dynamic in season 1. As with season 1, it is despair that provides the key to understanding the mission of these characters. Without their despair, they cannot dig deep down into their existential selves to do the right thing. It is in some ways very harrowing, but the characters are so gripping we keep watching.

Echoes Of Noir Films Past

The corruption plot and how far it extends reminds us greatly of 'Chinatown'. The prostitutes cut by surgeons to look better for a select clientele reminds us of 'L.A. Confidential'. It is some part 'The Long Goodbye' and some part 'Bullit'. All of those films spawned out of the 40s film noir genre, so the narrative is well-marinated in the juices of Californian crime fiction. The concerns are remarkably similar as it divides society into haves and have-nots, inside and outside, protected and unprotected.

The conspiracy in season 2 is deeply structural. It encompasses the criminal underworld money as well as private developers and bureaucrats as well as politicians and corporations. They are all rent-seekers, united in their cause to ilk the public purse for as much money as possible; so the question that gets posited is how are the police supposed to stop a crime of this scope and magnitude?

The story is believable. Variants of this story could be told anywhere, where business interests and government corruption intersect with such force and alacrity. We assume that the police are there to get the bad guys, but we are asked to follow compromised, broken and bent police officers trying to uncover the sort of corruption that is deeply ingrained in to the structure of our state and economy. There is no resplendent moment in season 2 precisely because this hell is man made. There is no metaphysical evil in season 2, simply the world made by bad men. It's not sublime, it's just grime and crime

The Shadow Of Celts, Shadow Of Canada

The characters have Italian and Greek names, but the thing that sticks out about the actors is that they're Irish and Irish extraction: Colin Farrell who is Irish; McAdams; Vaughn; Reilly; form 4/5 of the leading cast, their surnames screaming Irish origins (Kitsch being the exception). It clashes with the underlying Mediterranean heritage evoked by the character names. McAdams and Kitsch are Canadian, so that too adds to the level of seeming weirdness. In any case, none of them seem smooth or comfortable in their skins or in the skins of the characters. it's very strange to watch.

None of the characters strike you as native to the scene. Instead they feel like drifters and loners that blow into the world of the story. There is something angular and not quite right to their placement. Body language and demeanour betrays them as outsiders. As outsiders their characters are superfluous and expendable but also pregnant with potential to change things. It's an interesting dynamic compared to the run of the mill casting.

'True Detective'

Journey To Carcosa

These TV series that HBO produce are so compelling you can't help but sit there and binge episode after episode. Part of the beauty is that they let the writers take the lead and just let them go. The results have been far more rewarding than your average run of the mill Hollywood Action movie or Crime movie. The expanse of time allows for exposition to occur more naturally while we get to know and understand the characters. The ambiguity and ambivalence of many characters in the HBO TV stable stands in deep contrast for the need to resolve everything in the allotted time in the cinema. It is a little bit like the tables have turned. It used to be cinema that was afforded the time and TV had to rush from one commercial break to the next.

'True Detective' sits on the more exploratory end of story telling as well, with its non-linear narrative across many episodes. It takes its cue from classic buddy cop formats but veers wildly from the normal/standard sort of story lines, leading us into a very dark kind of universe.

Here is the obligatory spoiler alert!

What's Good About It

The standout element is actually the performances of both Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, followed by the script and direction. The directing is notable in that is one person doing all 8 episodes of season 1 and and the consistency is noticeable when compared to something like 'House of Cards' where they had a bunch of different directors handling different episodes.

A lot of the philosophical issues being brought up by McConaughey's character Rust are very germane not only to the events in the script but to the wider world that encompasses the viewer. The film also harks back to the horror episodes of 'The X-Files' while not being as arcane.

What's Bad About It

Sometimes I felt that I wasn't all that interested in Woody Harrelson's character Marty and his impulses towards infidelity. Something has to be there, but half the time it seemed the sexcapades were pretty gratuitous and there to make up HBO's quota for T & A. Marty's marriage as a topic seems there to fill airtime. You can't but help feel they might have had a better thing they could have put in there in its stead.

What's Interesting About It

This is an interesting series because it leads you down a path thinking it's a psychotic serial killer that's doing the killings and then it becomes clear there's something about the symbol and cult that is doing the murders as ritual. The evidence is so grisly at some point, the characters are traumatised by the sight of the video and get very angry that they cannot "un-see" what they have seen. It is immediately reminiscent of the world of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction featuring the Cthulhu mythos and the various evil cults that carry out ritual slayings.

The ambiguity of the cult and whether it is supported by the fictional universe or not is also interesting.  It is not clear for a very long time whether there really is a metaphysical evil to which the sacrifices are made, exists in the fictional universe of these characters. To this end, the show spends a great deal of time with social realism stylings as well as extended speeches by Matthew McConaughey's character Rust where he gives remonstrations to the effect that the universe is essentially meaningless and there is no benevolent God. indeed, in the early going these speeches are so fantastic you think the series is about the bleak existentialism of this character juxtaposed against the existentially stunted Marty played by Harrelson.

The writers make a good deal out of covering their tracks  as to the metaphysical status of the diagetic space. The unknowability is undercut by several factors. One is the structure of the narrative for the most part involves the two main characters being interviewed by police officers in recalling their version of events. In some instances we are shown the recollection presented is an outright lie, which opens the door to the possibility that what we hear from these characters is definitely not the gospel truth. Half the time you are watching to see if the inconsistencies somehow fractures the narrative to reveal that maybe one of the characters is crazy enough to be the serial killer - It's that well-covered, most of the time you're looking at the wrong clues on screen.

There are of course hints along the way, with the mention of 'Carcosa'. The curious thing about it is that you don't know if the cult is acting on the fiction written about Carcosa or whether Carcosa actually exists as an entity within the fiction of 'True Detective'. When they finally track down the last remaining killer, they are led into a space that the killer identifies as Carcosa, but then Rust has a transcendent, inter-dimensional experience that is totally out of tune with his character. He has a fundamental shift in his perception of the universe as a result of what he experiences.

Pulp Fiction Style

It's 20years since 'Pulp Fiction' won Cannes and we are still seeing the far-reaching influences of that film. The relationship between Rust and Marty get introduced to us through a series of conversations in cars which is a technique straight out of 'Pulp Fiction'. The two characters have metaphysical concerns which seem wildly at odds with the apparent evidence on screen. The vagaries of the odd things that happen to people, the coincidences an chains of consequences are tightly wound in this series. It even shares the same concerns - where somebody is concerned with the metaphysical, nattering on and on about it until it is revealed that the metaphysical is of the deepest concern. In this instance, Rust is entirely concerned with Nihilism and the meaningless ness of everything only to come across the darkest secret of the universe and it shatters his sense of reality.

Inevitably Harrelson's Marty is equally imbued with overtones from Harrelson's previous characters as Marty proves himself to be a very unimaginative cop who is way too easy on himself. He is too likeable to be a genuine anti-hero, and he's too dislakeable to be a hero, and so his journey meanders in a way that dots the 'i's an crosses the 't's of cop show staples such as the affair, the drinking, the divorce, the domestic discord. All this is used as a foil for what is essentially a story about Rust's uncovering of the metaphysical mystery.

The back-and-forth narrative structure also lends itself to the wobbly story progression as the audience is led through at various points, the possibility that Rust is in fact the killer on the loose.

'Call of Cthulhu' Sanity Checks

You always have to laugh when a character is shown something and it is so hideous they react violently. The audience never gets to see the contents of the VHS tape, but the people who are shown the tape are never the same again. it's like something straight out of the 'Call of Cthulhu' role playing game where players have to roll for a 'sanity check' every time they come across a hideous fact. While nobody has successfully brought a genuinely sanity-twisting version of Cthulhu story to the screen, it is cool to see the name of Carcosa in the story leading to a truly Lovecraft-ian sanity-bending moment. Especially when you get to the end and realise that what you had been watching was a 'Call of Cthulhu' scenario.