True Detective on HBO

[Phall]

I needed a cigarette after Ep.4. Blown away by this show. So. Good.

[cdlv]

any show that uses these songs for a soundtrack is alright with me!

[Hugh Conway]

T Bone Burnett did the soundtrack.

[Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo]

So. Good.

Real good. I read a review on Grantland before the series started and they thought it was too dark, too one-dimensional or something but I like it. Matthew McC is a total douche and he's made some really awful shit but when he picks good roles he can nail it, and for some reason I couldn't have pictured Woody as the straight man but the two characters are a pretty perfect balance imho.

[nickwm21]

Great episode last night.

[warthog]

Is it over? How many more episodes?
If it is over, I am not sure how I feel.

[nickwm21]

Is it over? How many more episodes?
If it is over, I am not sure how I feel.

Google is your friend. No fucking way its over....

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using TGR Forums

[Hugh Conway]

3 more episodes; but this cast is gone with this season. New director/cast next season, same writer (if/when it gets renewed)

[Labcabin]

3 more episodes; but this cast is gone with this season. New director/cast next season, same writer (if/when it gets renewed)

So Wooderson did do it?

[NoPostholio]

Every episode has topped the last. Excellent storytelling with so little time about the dissolving of the family. Paging neck deep for more thorough analysis....

[TahoeJ]

3 more episodes; but this cast is gone with this season. New director/cast next season, same writer (if/when it gets renewed)

Wait, what? Really? I kind of figured this season would end fully back in the present and we'd head into season 2 from there.

[NoPostholio]

HC is right - they are on the clock with 3 hrs to wrap this thing up....

eta - best use of a land mine since tropic thunder -

[groundcontrol323]

This thing watches like a Cormac McCarthy movie reads, just a little more supernatural

[warthog]

Good to hear. I thought I had heard 6 episodes.

I was worried they were trying to pull a "Usual Suspects", but without giving you the much needed flashback at the end.

[Hugh Conway]

An interview with the writer said 3 acts - first is episodes 1-3, second 4-6, third 7-8 with a change in tone between each. Looking forward to the end.

[buttahflake]

3 more episodes; but this cast is gone with this season. New director/cast next season, same writer (if/when it gets renewed)

there is a rumor floating about Denzel being one of the 'detectives', if, when it get's renewed.
that would rock, i'm picturing a gritty Training Day set.

i'm blown away by Woody Harrelson his character is perfect.

[neckdeep]

Every episode has topped the last. Excellent storytelling with so little time about the dissolving of the family. Paging neck deep for more thorough analysis....

Is Rust Cohle the Yellow King? It's hard to know what to think because the "unreliable narrator" element is so central to the narrative. And we have two unreliable narrators complicating things. Once the audience knows the narrator is fallible, anything contradictory is fair game. We're left wondering what to believe. It's something of a story telling cheat/twist to reveal an unreliable narrator at the end of a story (see Fight Club, Usual Suspects, and several bad films by M. Night Shamalama) and a self-defeating one too because revealing the fallible narrator in the second act builds uncertainty and dramatic tension. In other words, tension is traded away for a last minute gotcha that feels gimmicky. Meanwhile, our intense speculation about what happens next with Cohle shows how effective it is to reveal the unreliable narrator early. But, you'll have to see the work as a whole before you really know what to think.

My take is that, so far, seems like the supernatural references relate to criminal insanity (a human boogeyman) and not an actual metaphysical evil. "The King in Yellow" (which I've never read) is a 120 year old collection of stories that refer to a mysterious play that drives people to psychotic madness in the second act. The contents of the play are never revealed, rather it is the insanity in response to the unknowable horror that is the relevant thing. Insatiable curiosity or thirst for knowledge makes people want to see the play despite having heard the rumors about the consequence. So take that allusion with a grain of salt.

Ep 5 made a passing reference to Nietzsche but perhaps a more pertinent one would be: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." Seems a bit too obvious, tho.

[NoPostholio]

^^^great stuff neckdeep - thanks

[schuss]

I don't think either of the detectives are necessarily the killer, as the show writer said he's not looking to outright deceive the audience.

[neckdeep]

I don't think either of the detectives are necessarily the killer, as the show writer said he's not looking to outright deceive the audience.

There's been so many clues (red herrings?) pointing to Cohle's mental instability that, if it did turn out that he is the Yellow King, I don't think we could claim to have been totally deceived. But, like I said, it does seem a bit too obvious. Then again, this story has spent more screen time establishing Cohle's emotionally detached, misanthropic, violent and sometimes hallucinating character than it has devoted to revealing the underlying homicide case. Think about it. For a police procedural, this show is so long on character and far too stingy with facts to be a who-dunnit. It is over halfway done and we have virtually no facts pointing beyond Ledoux or Cohle. Nor do we yet have any indication that after Ledoux's death, Cohle pursued a case on the Yellow King or the rumoured millionaire satanists, the only mentioned leads beyond Ledoux. The case just ended. Kind of odd, if there really is another suspect or a conspiracy out there, that the relentless detective Cohle would simply walk away from those leads until 2002. But, hey, it's an unreliable narrator so, got to just sit back and see where it goes next. Ring-ring. The Blair Witch Project just called and said they want their creepy stick thingys back.


The film that leaps to mind for me also stars McConaughey and also features an unreliable narrator and an uncertain boundary between human and metaphysical evil. "Frailty"(2001) was Bill Paxton's directorial debut and it is one of those overlooked sleepers that is actually quite a good little film. Check it out while we wait for Ep6.

[TahoeJ]

I don't think either of the detectives are necessarily the killer, as the show writer said he's not looking to outright deceive the audience.

Me either. Too many things wouldn't add up, like obsessing for hours over random murders trying to find possible matches.

[NoPostholio]

I kind of concur with what ND said and believe that it might be Rust but only at the end maybe? Maybe he resurfaced in 2002? when other dude from church died and it happened then, a change from good to bad. That last line that neckdeep added stuck with me - that he got to close to evil. And when he was asking LeDeaux about why the antlers. Like he was checking if his assumptions about crown were right.

[Hugh Conway]

Hart's more likely than Rust, imo, or like the play, nothing.

[Tap]

Maybe it's the dude who mows the grass at the school

[bklyn]

My guess is one of the preachers from the first few episodes is in on it with the gov. Can't imagine those two actors from treme and boardwalk emp. played such small parts.