True Detective’s lame second act
Here are five reasons why the show’s latest instalment has failed to pass muster
HBO’s True Detective is a hard act to follow, even for itself. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson played disturbed, emotionally scarred police officers looking for a serial killer in Louisiana in Season 1 of the show, which earned critical acclaim and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Drama.
This time around, the blowback for Season 2 from fans and some critics has been near hysterical from “boring” to “slow, stumbling and ridiculous.” And that was some of the printable stuff.
Season 2 has a whole new cast of characters played by Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams, Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch. Like other anthology series, the show changes the cast and storyline each season.
This time it’s set in the fictional city of Vinci, Calif. It’s not as gripping as the original, but it’s far from a bomb. And the characters are infinitesimally more evolved than you’ll see in any episode of NCIS. But there are some major issues.
Here are five reasons why it failed to pass muster. Vince Vaughn thinks he’s doing Shakespeare Vince Vaughn, seemingly determined to put the ghost of Wedding Crashers behind him, amps up the drama quotient to near parody. He doesn’t completely massacre the role, but we keep waiting for Owen Wilson to jump out of the closet offering everyone a bowl of nachos. Too many directors The sublime direction of Cary Fukunaga ( Jane Eyre) has been replaced by Justin Lin ( Fast and the Furious franchise) and a whole bunch of other hired guns. Fukunaga’s discerning vision made the cinematography pop and his tracking shots were ridiculous. Without an auteur’s eye, this doesn’t feel as cohesive or nearly as artistic. Too many characters You may have felt like McConaughey’s nihilistic, existential speeches were so much claptrap and one long tryout for a Lincoln ad, but they worked. Especially in tandem with Harrelson’s more laid-back character. They played off each other like the quintessential oil and water. This time around the focus is diffused over many more characters, which means that the chemistry is harder to bottle. Writer Nic Pizzolatto’s self-indulgent prose Sometimes True Detective 2 seemed like one long My Dinner With Andre all set in a seedy bar with haunting wannabe Fado music in the background.
Mostly because Pizzolatto never wrote a scene he didn’t think he could make twice as long.
This works when you have two immensely magnetic central characters playing off each other instead of a bunch of good actors vying for screen time.
Pizzolatto was also accused of borrowing heavily from author Thomas Ligotti’s work in Season 1, which he denied. This time around, he’s definitely on his own and he could use a good editor with a pair of scissors. From serial killers to municipal politics Season 1was about one whacked-out serial killer. Yeah, it had a conventional get-the-bad-guy ending, but the build in tension from episode to episode was palpable. As far as I can figure out, Season 2 has something to do with a corrupt city manager. So lots of city politics, mixed in with some kind of transportation deal that will help break up freeway gridlock in California. It almost sounds like a plot for a CBC movie of the week. But seriously?