True Detective on HBO

[norton ash]

Loved, loved the T-Bone score for TD.

channeling the epic dread of those hazelwood /sinatra duets.

Zackly!!! I hadn't (consciously) thought of that but good call. As creepy as Ladybird or Phaedra... of course, nothing can ever be as creepy as Somethin' Stupid, though.

[IanEye]

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You must have found something similar to this.
They are not rare - we have one in Pelham removed from a site now beneath the Quabbin Reservoir.

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[kelley]

ian, this is excellent. i thought to add some dark ambient to the soundtrack equation given the chronology of the narrative circa 1995 and factor it by some of the 'hauntology' variables, but the aphex clip is just great and illustrates this very simply. thanks.

[lucky]

up to eps 4 (in the Uk the shows are 90 mins is that the same in the US?) how many in the series - is there a series 2? sorry , Im sure this is all in the thread but don't want to come across any spoilers as I've said

[lucky]

up to eps 4 (in the Uk the shows are 90 mins is that the same in the US?) how many in the series - is there a series 2? sorry , Im sure this is all in the thread but don't want to come across any spoilers as I've said

[FourthBase]

True, jerky. I would recommend abandoning this ship. Isn't worth it. Not at all.

Oh, Rust. What have you done?

In all sincerity, all the best to you, sunny. But I agree with Fourthbase.

That was a great three and a half minutes.

[RocketMan]

Lucky: Season/Series 2 is forthcoming with different director, story & characters, but that's all that is confirmed on the part of HBO. Nic Pizzolatto remains on board as scriptwriter/showrunner.

Here's filmmaker Paul Schrader's comments regarding TD on Facebook:

Finished True Detective tonight. Fabulous character complexity and plotting but in the end I was disappointed by its reliance on southern gothic and serial killer stereotypes. But perhaps that's the price to be paid to work in the commercial arena. Epilogue scene outside hospital was equally implausible and embarrassing. Great visual tableaux throughout but not so inventive when it came to coverage in dialogue scenes. Also, it watched it over the course of five days. Binge viewing not a great idea. Would have been better over five weeks.

[IanEye]

I just finished watching Top of the Lake and want to highly recommend it.

I watched the last episode of "Top Of The Lake" last night.

I thought it was very well done.

[RocketMan]

I just finished watching Top of the Lake and want to highly recommend it.

I watched the last episode of "Top Of The Lake" last night.

I thought it was very well done.

I watched it too, some time ago. It seems that misogyny and hegemonic masculinity is very much a concern in the culture right now. Top of the Lake was very good, I thought, except the colony of abused women headed by a slightly over-acting Holly Hunter was a bit too separate from the main storyline, like Campion wanted to cram that in there regardless of the main story. Also the dénouement was again too pat, like in True Detective.

Elisabeth Moss was exceptional. A pity she has to be a Scientology advocate.

[lucky]

just saw eps 5 - I know I'm behind but up to date in the UK - fuck me its good, a Malevolent uneasy feeling watching the series is running thro' me and I can't remember last watching a series where I'm counting the days til the next episode, A whole can of worms is now open and God knows what will crawl out....

[Wombaticus Rex]

I'm kinda stunned that it is formatted in 90 minute episodes on HBO.

If you're at EP 5 and there's another one, that indicates you're getting at least an hour more of on-screen content than the US did.

(6 x 90 = 540, aka 9 hours).

Stateside, we got 8 1 hour episodes.

[luv2dive]

I'm kinda stunned that it is formatted in 90 minute episodes on HBO.

If you're at EP 5 and there's another one, that indicates you're getting at least an hour more of on-screen content than the US did.

(6 x 90 = 540, aka 9 hours).

Stateside, we got 8 1 hour episodes.

Wombat, that is very interesting. I have satellite tv and record to DVD and watch later. When watching, I noticed that the "program number" listed for each episode was 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9. No episode 7. I thought it had not recorded an episode, and checked the website (darknessbecomesyou) which only lists 8 episodes. So I thought it very strange that the final episode was numbered 9. I wonder if the US audience is seeing something different than the rest of world? Did they ditch an episode (7?) And if so, why? Did anyone watching on cable or sat. notice this or was this only an issue on dishtv?

Things that make you go hmmmmm?

[Project Willow]

It seems that misogyny and hegemonic masculinity is very much a concern in the culture right now.

It is indeed. There's a movement building in my local arts community as we speak that hopefully will result in a series of exhibitions next spring. I'm going to propose that it focus on conceptions of masculinity rather than be confined to exploring victimhood. I'm reading Salter's book on organized abuse right now, and he outlines what he thinks are the relevant historical social and economic forces that contribute to its existence today, which he says have created a sadistic masculinity. When I've finished the book, I'll probably start a thread compiling various recent critiques of masculinity.

Completely agree with your take on Top of the Lake.

[justdrew]

you're mixing commercial time into program time.

it's cut twice for 7part or 6part episodes running 45 or 60 minutes.

[Belligerent Savant]

.


Avoided this thread until I had a chance to view all 8 episodes myself.

WRex pretty much summed up my sentiments a few pages back:

I watched this show under the naive misconception that it was about two men investigating a murder they couldn't walk away from for the same reasons that made them broken, and hugely enjoyed it front to back.

Also, came across the below tumblr posting, responding to a New Yorker piece on the series finale, that echoes (at least in part) some of the comments in this RI thread:

http://laurabeckner.tumblr.com/post/798 ... ss-attacks

Amidst the ever-sprawling city of Los Angeles, you can feel a reverent sigh after the finale of a popular TV show. You enter in your pilfered HBO Go password and there is a collective petit mort as you indulge in the final hour of twisting storylines and leaping character arcs. Sundays just aren’t going to be same without “True Detective”. I miss those sons of bitches already. Don’t you? Everyone was watching and boy did it have everyone talking. A lot of talking about…the woman problem.

In last week’s issue of The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum wrote a review of the HBO series complaining bitterly about predictable women characters and anonymous female victims, claiming that the series was a bro-fest where leads Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey flexed their muscles under bouncing tits and spouted half-cocked nihilistic hot air, respectively. This particular drama, she asserts, didn’t succeed in showing us anything new about sex or the procedural crime show format.

Sadly, Ms Nussbaum’s POV got a lot of buzz and traveled beyond the columns of the intelligentsia’s favorite rag to dozens of other publications (Salon, Slate, Jezebel, etc.) and finally landed on KCRW. I listened to women’s complaints about the show that everyone was watching and I got upset, no, I was concerned. What message is being telegraphed to thousands of people stuck in their cars listening to the radio in the middle of a warm LA afternoon? That True Detective is a pretentious, boring, testosterone-infused waste of time and an affront to women. Speaking of nihilism, ladies, don’t read Nietzsche, he was a miserable woman hater! Don’t watch True Detective, it is misogynistic! Indeed, she is espousing a deeply outdated idea about female roles on TV in particular, and storytelling in general. And if you heed her warning, and refrain from watching, you’ll miss out on a lot.

Behind every good TV show (certainly every lavishly funded and touted HBO show) is a pretty interesting creative cat. True Detective was the result of much more than a lucky network pitch. Creator Nic Pizzolatto spent his formative years doing something very un-Hollywood, getting an MFA, teaching English at The University of Arkansas and publishing a crime novel set in Louisiana. Someone in development did their job right when they plucked him out of academia, recognizing a voice and world that feels wounded, dark and deeply Southern American. In an industry where marketing concerns can pollute the creative mind, Pizzolatto feels different and he is. Whether or not HBO has a clause about peppering programming with bare tit they were smart enough to win the bidding war for the packaged crime series, without insisting on a pilot, and allowed this newcomer to write every episode, sans writing staff. A boon for any novelist cum screenwriter and an exciting shift in how TV shows get produced, this alone should suffice as a fresh take on the procedural crime show. Whether season one has female leads or not, True Detective, the series, is paving the way for more risky and intelligent content to flash up on our screens. But before anyone else cries “nobody puts baby in the corner” don’t we need to ask, what is True Detective actually about? What is it about and really, why is everyone watching?

Here’s a hint, it’s not about the Yellow King or pagan stick pyramids, the torture of young girls, being a bad-ass bro, or the corruption running rampant through the Louisiana PD. Very simply, True Detective is about the relationship between two guys. Men who are arrogant, broken, destructive, smart, driven, and drained who keep crashing into each other against a bleak landscape, literally and metaphysically. And, contrary to what Ms Nussbaum thinks, it does not have the familiar footnote, “boys will be boys”. Heroic is a generous word for Rust and Marty’s lying, cheating, and flailing around in the shadow of a twisted crime that has dragged on for a decade. True Detective reveals layer after layer of futility in being a man in this world where atrocities occur and the question of who will answer for them looms like an existential heat wave. There is no nihilism; these men care way too much, about everything. Conscience, or lack thereof, is the show’s spinning compass. It’s true that women in Hollywood are often stuck playing victims but don’t point a tired finger at Pizzolatto’s missing girls, underage whores or the faithful wife. The real victims here are the detectives themselves, caught up in some kind of cosmic swirl.

True Detective ain’t about women, so complaining about how great it would be if it was is absurd. Even so, Pizzolatto sprinkles each episode with all sorts of clues about their rich inner lives and motives. If at first blush, they seem to play a distant second fiddle as saints and whores, I have to wonder whether if that’s because it’s all Rust and Marty are capable of seeing. That doesn’t mean that women aren’t getting shit done. When Maggie emerges from her domestic prison to seduce Rust and punish her cheating husband, she cuts through like a sharply smithed blade. Slate’s Willa Paskin agrees, “Maggie was the one with the agency: Rust and Marty both became, however briefly, pawns in her story.” If only the detectives’ missions were that quick and lethal in purpose and execution, but that would be a whole different show. The obvious complaints are that the women here are too pretty or too pure but I think Paskin has it right in asking if females are actually too effective for this messy and self-important world. As the final episodes unfold, it is clear that Maggie has made a clean break from Rust and Marty, and has obviously married a rich guy who lets her buy fancy things like nicely upholstered living room chairs and $150 Joie brand blouses. She got the last laugh, but just like the floaty female vocals in the show’s theme song, it’s a subtle one. And if Marty, bald and fat, sawing at a TV dinner alone in an efficiency apartment doesn’t send a chill through men across the country, I don’t know what will. The women in True Detective are playing and winning the long game.

Lastly, is it even possible for anyone to show us anything new about sex? Frankly, I don’t think that’s part of True Detective’s MO. The tits and ass that show up seem to be a standard vice, like booze or black coffee. Their predictability is in their necessity; a taste of flesh is something everyone in the impoverished bayou could use. Moreover, Marty’s conquests seem driven by biological imperative more than any real pleasure. Maggie’s moments of coitus are at once vulnerable and downright calculating, but never confused in purpose. Are people upset because a couple of guest stars had really big bouncy racks? My only thought was that Marty’s flings were pretty babe-alicious for blue collar Louisiana. But no more unrealistic than the full heads of hair that McConaughey and Harrelson glue onto their balding crowns. The Hollywood fairy is always going to clean up a few things here and there but let’s not cry out objectification just yet. Let Marty go ahead and sleep with the hot girl from T-Mobile who wants to try anal because before too long, all he’s got to cling to is Rust, in a very loose hospital robe. If only them staggering off together had a drop of homoeroticism; instead they merely exchange sad truths about their brief and haunted lives. Not that homoeroticism paired with philosophizing would be anything new. No, there is nothing new about sex here. Isn’t that sort of a relief.

Maybe I’ve misdiagnosed the sneer in Nussbaum’s articles, but it seems to me that she simply doesn’t like True Detective. That’s fine except that she feels the need to get on a hot pink soapbox and ruin it for the rest of us while whining about 2 dimensional female characters and unoriginal writing. Her argument, about the Hollywood model being broken, is a tired one and her vitriol has blinded her from seeing the gems that stud the surface of a drama that is so much more that just another detective show. As far as I can tell, True Detective is actually breaking out of the mold, alongside so many other excellent and complex series. Perhaps it is ever fashionable to criticize Los Angeles over in the big apple. Meanwhile, I’ve never had so many lively and excited conversations with strangers and friends about a TV show. True Detective has raised the bar for storytellers everywhere. What are Ms. Nussbaum’s final thoughts? “Boh-ring” punctuated with a faux yawn and a cheap Nietzsche quote. Instead, let’s have one from John Stuart Mill, a philosopher interested in the mercurial role of the second sex:

“In depth, as distinguished from breadth, I greatly doubt if even now, women, compared to men, are at any disadvantage.”