True Detective 2.1 FAQ
What’s it called?
“The Western Book Of The Dead.”
Who’s responsible?
Teleplay is credited to series mastermind Nick Pizzolatto, who wrote all episodes last year and all episodes this year.
Is it great?
It has a lot going for it, but it’s a far cry from season one. There are riveting sequences, but Pizzolatto’s writing on the new episodes feel a little sloppy and half-baked by comparison. It’s possible Pizzolatto had a lot more time to work on season one; perhaps writing another eight hours by himself was just a little too big a task a little too soon.
Is it good?
It’s plenty entertaining. I found myself watching the first three episodes twice, and never felt bored. And there’s no chance I’d miss one of this year’s episodes.
Are the first three episodes of season two as funny as the first three episodes of season one?
Absolutely not. Sadly there’s no equivalent to Marty Hart this year to comment on the pithy utterances of others. (No one should ever diminish the greatness Woody Harrelson brought to last year’s version.)
So Vince Vaughn isn’t funny?
Not so much. Vaughn is playing a dark, menacing and angry character here. He’s leaning into a serious persona like the ones he exploited early in his career in projects like “The Lost World,” “Clay Pigeons” and “Psycho,” and he’s highly credible doing so.
Is there time-hopping again this season?
Not as much, at least to judge from the first three hours. And scenes set latest in the chronology get far more screen time than they did last year.
Are any of the characters as much fun as Rustin or Marty?
I’m saying no. And maybe Pizzolatto is trying to make up for quality with quantity; there are twice as many leads as last year. Like Rustin and Marty, they all have personal problems. Unlike Rustin and Marty, they’re all tied to the murder of a municipal official who controlled a lot of purse strings. The four central characters are:
1) Frank Semyon (Vaughn), a mobster whose bid for big-money legitimacy now seems likely to ruin him financially -- thanks to corrupt Vinci city manager Ben Casper, who became a ghost shortly after Casper pocketed Semyon’s multimillion dollar investment;
2) Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell), a violent, substance-abusing Vinci police detective who must reluctantly double as a Semyon enforcer;
3) Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), a Ventura County deputy sheriff with a professional-hippie dad and a sister who makes her living masturbating in front of webcams; and
4) Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch), a war vet and California Highway Patrol motorcycle cop haunted by his experiences overseas.
Do the Sand Snakes visit what’s left of The Mountain to avenge the death of their father, Prince Oberyn Martell?
What?
How does it start?
With Velcoro staring at his beloved chubby ginger son.
The big news?
Farrell is the “Detective” lead actor I love the least but he does a superb job here. His is the character I find most compelling and I suspect most viewers will share my appraisal.
What else is HBO not telling us?
Justin Lin, who directed four Fast and Furious movies, directed tonight’s episode and next week’s. But if you told me Cary Fukunaga, who directed all of last year’s episodes, directed 2.1 and 2.2, I’d have no reason to doubt you. There are no flying automobiles or tanks that move as fast as sports cars.
What’s great?
Farrell’s Velcoro. The visit to Aspen’s home. Caspar’s house generally and the girl in the frying pan in particular. “I’m really close.” “You see that too, right?” “You don’t even have to tell the missus.” “You’re gonna run out on your dad?”
What’s not so great?
The scene with Woodrugh and his boss, featuring the lines “The highway, it suits me,” and “We’re working for America, sir,” is a bit much. Also I really, really would have liked to see the scene in which the senior reporter tells his bosses the investigative series their newspaper has been promoting isn’t happening anymore.
How does it end, spoiler boy?
“This is bullshit.”
... These are all excellent actors, most of them trying to push themselves out of their comfort zone in the same way McConaughey and Harrelson did, but with more mixed results. McAdams does very well at displaying a sharper edge than she usually gets to employ, and Farrell (hiding under a mustache so droopy, it must have been designed to put Rust Cohle's to shame) does what he can to find the man inside all the cliches. But while it's refreshing to see Vaughn embracing the darkness that typified many of his early roles before he became America's Favorite Bro, he struggles mightily to deliver the very mannered dialogue Pizzolatto has given him. And Kitsch simply doesn't have enough to play — or, at least, enough variety — to make much of an impression beyond his usual striking physical presence. …
... The writing is tighter. There are no dueling narrators telling the same story from different perspectives at different times. None of the characters go on extended philosophical rants about the meaninglessness of life the way Mr. McConaughey’s character did. … The actors are good, and their performances are particularly noteworthy because they are cast so far against type. …
... Season 2 of "True Detective" appears to have abandoned abandon; it is careful and controlled in a way that seems highly self-conscious. That may be intentional or even satiric; one hopes it is something other than reactionary. Television is increasingly willing to concede patience as a virtue, but only if there's a payoff. …
... There is something still lugubrious and overwrought about “True Detective,” but there’s also a mesmerizing style to it — it’s imperfect, but well made. You can certainly tell that it’s trying too hard, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide if trying too hard is a serious crime.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
... the new season’s more-is-more approach feels forced. Even the pretentiousness seems turned up a notch, and that’s a difficult feat considering season one’s Nietzschean “Time is a flat circle” yammering. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... The writers seem to have gone overboard finding layers and layers of trumped up psychology to make the characters more interesting. In so doing, they’ve also made them less credible. …
... The anthology follows its near-perfect freshman effort with a stellar cast … But creator and novelist Nic Pizzolatto strains so hard, the noir elements that worked so well in season one border on parody here. …
... It may be impossible for it to strike TV lightning twice, but “True Detective” in its second iteration definitely has a charge. …
... Three episodes in, the murder mystery is fairly intriguing, but the characters are not. …
… For season one’s Rust Cohle, time was a flat circle. Season two thus far looks more like a tangle, going nowhere interesting. …
... Although generally watchable, the inspiration that turned the first into an obsession for many seems to have drained out of writer Nic Pizzolatto’s prose, at least three hours into this eight-episode run. …
9 p.m. Sunday. HBO.
