True Detective Catch-All (Night Country SPOILERS)

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Well, seeing how episode 2 of Season 2 pulled a Game of Thrones on us, I felt it was high time for a spoiler thread. Discuss!

I'm floored by that. That was the character I was most interested in, and now.... Crazy town.

Actually, where was he at the time? I have been a hard time keeping the locations straight.

Atras wrote:

I'm floored by that. That was the character I was most interested in, and now.... Crazy town.

Actually, where was he at the time? I have been a hard time keeping the locations straight.

Casper's 50 Shades bungalow in Hollywood.

That was crazy. He did all this promotion, was on all the talk shows last week talking about the new season, how excited he was for the writer, director, actors, project, etc... and then, boom.

It's not like the show can't still use him in flashbacks, but, yeah, his story was the most interesting, and had the best potential to tie all of the other threads together.

I didn't see enough penises and orgy pictures to think it was Casper's place...

He might have been shot by rubber rounds or a bean bag. I didn't see any blood.

With the first shot I figured he was fine, wearing his vest. But then the 2nd shot, up close and personal in the gut while he was on the ground, looked pretty lethal.

So, what are you guys thinking of this second season so far? I've read a few reviews that are kinda down on it, but other than my own personal burnout on grimdark, I'm kinda liking it. I feel it's kind of unfair for a show like this to have to live up the the sky-high expectations put on it by the first season.

mwdowns wrote:

So, what are you guys thinking of this second season so far? I've read a few reviews that are kinda down on it, but other than my own personal burnout on grimdark, I'm kinda liking it. I feel it's kind of unfair for a show like this to have to live up the the sky-high expectations put on it by the first season.

I'm reserving judgement for the show once I watch it start to finish.

I think the huge problem is what you mentioned about sky high expectations from the first season especially considering there was limited hype going into the first season.

I'm not sure the second shotgun blast wasn't aimed a little low. Caspere style.

Also my fear that Vince Vaughn can't deliver low-key acting is proving well founded.

Yeah I don't think anything can live up to the first season, but damn, I was expecting that in episode 2!

I'm actually pretty interested in the Vince Vaughan side of this story, since my initial thought was that he and Colin Farrell would be the McConaughey/Harrelson duo of this season. I'm still trying to figure out where he is on the criminal ladder, and am interested in how high up that ladder he ends up going.

The Farrell story was interesting and I definitely want to see how that story plays out, and Rachel McAdams seems like a badass.

I don't know what I think yet about Taylor Kitsch's story yet. I can't say that the Oedipus mythology is appealing.

And damn. Rick Springfield was creepy as hell.

Oh, and rewind has been my friend so far. There's a lot of dialogue that if you miss one sentence, you'll be headed a different direction than the show. That usually doesn't bode well for a television series...

I keep closed captions on sometimes. Music gets loud, dialog is quiet, it's infuriating.

Stele wrote:

I keep closed captions on sometimes. Music gets loud, dialog is quiet, it's infuriating.

Ooo, good idea, I'll give that a shot in ep.3.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

He might have been shot by rubber rounds or a bean bag. I didn't see any blood.

I agree. All the time developing his story, I can't believe they'd off him. Why did we have to spend all this time learning about his wife and kid? He's conveniently shot by the one type of gun that can carry non-lethal rounds. My guess is rock salt.

Stele wrote:

That was crazy. He did all this promotion, was on all the talk shows last week talking about the new season, how excited he was for the writer, director, actors, project, etc... and then, boom. :shock:

I was feeling pretty disappointed in the show, which despite being beautiful felt far too "paint-by-numbers", leaning heavily on dozens of cop tropes. That is... I felt that way until the end of episode 2, when it suddenly became way more interesting.

But I'm nearly certain that the end of episode 2 is a complete fake-out based on how disappointed most reviewers seem to be with the series. The AV club review of the first three episodes also described a "Lynchian dream sequence," and I think that's what we just saw.

Atras wrote:

It's not like the show can't still use him in flashbacks, but, yeah, his story was the most interesting, and had the best potential to tie all of the other threads together.

I didn't see enough penises and orgy pictures to think it was Casper's place...

I like the he's dead and now only flash backs angle.

They did allot of time jumping in the first season they could do it again. Revolve it around the obvious rape/murder of rapist + how Vaughn got to power etc. Conect it to the current crazy bird head killer and you have a mystery for McAdams to solve!

But yea I'm betting he's alive which is kinda meh if its not handled well.

Oh, if you can't wait to figure out what happened to Ray, the TV guide summary for tomorrow's episode will spoil it for you.

Spoiler:

Lame.

So yeah, that happened.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

He might have been shot by rubber rounds or a bean bag. I didn't see any blood.

We have a winner.

As you may or may not be aware of, Vinci is a fictitious location, however it is based on the real Vernon, California. Here's a summary of how corrupt Vernon was.

Real problem with the casting in this one. Vince Vaughn can only act out loud, whereas Colin Farrell is stonkingly good at delivering inner life if he gets a good role for it, like this one.

Rat Boy wrote:

As you may or may not be aware of, Vinci is a fictitious location, however it is based on the real Vernon, California. Here's a summary of how corrupt Vernon was.

As the comments point out, there are several other similar "Business-only" cities near LA. City of Industry, Commerce, Irwindale, Bell, and Santa Fe Springs.

Vinci seems to have pieces of all of them mixed in.

Maq wrote:

Real problem with the casting in this one. Vince Vaughn can only act out loud, whereas Colin Farrell is stonkingly good at delivering inner life if he gets a good role for it, like this one.

Yes, this.

I've been a big defender of this season, I really loved the first two shows. But this was a little boring. They really need to bring Taylor Kitsch into this or get him out. Spreading the story along four characters may just be too much.

I'm generally disappointed with this season so far, both in how the story is playing it really safe (the actual plot is crime drama 101 stuff) and in the complete lack of chemistry between the actors.

The Lynchian influences around the edges are welcome, but sometimes it feels like the show is trying too hard to add "quirkiness" now.

The astoundingly well realized visuals salvage the thing in my mind, but it's just barely holding on.

I think the stark isolation of the characters is deliberate, and not some failing of how the actors are playing their roles. I'm not sure it's a good choice though.

I'm holding out hope for the rest of the season nonetheless. I think the critics only saw the first three episodes too. There are interesting things they could still do with the foundation they've built, but they're really running out of time.

If you're interested in wasting a few hours or want to see some dots connected, Polygon has in-depth write-ups of the first episode and one of episode two and three. Fun thing you might not have noticed: the lyrics of the opening credit song are different each time.

No I didn't notice because I fast forwarded through it in week 2 and 3. What's with HBO and weird-ass credit sequences?

Game of Thrones is cool, but True Blood and most of their other shows are just weird for weird's sake.

I kind of adore the intro credits for this show.

The first season's opening credits were even better, though.

To quote Rust from last season:

"Boom boom boom. Heavy sh*t."

Well that was a bloodbath.

I think the problem with the first two episodes was as much me as it was the show. I wanted this to be a continuation of the first season. Not so much narrativly (though that could have been interesting), but I was looking for some of the dark impending doom and almost mysticism that underlay so much of the first season. This season isn't that. Once I divorced the show from what I loved about the first season, I've come to enjoy it for what it is. I don't like it as much as the first season- I don't find that it deals with as many big issues- but I do like it.

And yeah, that was a crazy ending last night.

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