True Detective on HBO

[Rory]

You feel manipulated by a television show?! Welcome! Come join us in 2015

[Hunter]

I think this is a good point that many may be missing, including myself. The same can be said of the first season also, the show is about the characters and their struggles and not about the crime. In the first season we all knew what was going on and how high it went but in they end the just got the lowest guy on the totem poll and that was the end of it and that was not satisfying to many of us but solving the crime isnt not the point of this show, the point is the struggles of the characters involved, the crime is just background noise.

From interview with Ferrel:

"He called his character “a bit of burnout, really,” something he was personally acquainted with.

“I dug deep into my not-so-distant past,” Farrell said. “I can’t remember so much (of that). .. I was at the party long enough. I was the party long enough. For me…. I’m very glad to be alive.”

“He’s somebody who, like many of us in life, is wrestling with events that took place in his past, and is trying to move forward from them, but trapped in this continual cycle of behavior he can’t get out of. I think fundmentally he’s a good man that made some very bad choices,” Farrell explained about his character.

True Detective opens with a murder, but Farrell thinks “it’s more to do with what’s happening with the characters than the solving of a murder, which is what I kind of felt about the first year anyway."

[Hunter]

Pizzolatto kept saying over and over last year when everyone was going crazy trying to make sense of the Yellow King thing that they were missing the point of the show and that ultimately that really had very little with do with the show overall, it was more Rust and Marty and then the sex cult and Errol even though to most of us the latter is much, much more interesting and real.

And everyone is doing it again with the whole Bohemian Grove thing and once again focusing on the crime and conspiracy involved when the show is really about Ray, Frank, Paul and Ani and thier own struggles.

[Forgetting2]

Interesting thoughts Brekin.

If Pizzolotto held the keys to any actual mystery or puzzle I’d be very much surprised. Hopefully he’s got a well-crafted plan for at least the puzzle of this show.

All I’d really like to see here, is these topics treated fairly, honestly and, hopefully, in a well-crafted dramatic fashion. If it’s one which stimulates thoughts and discussions about the settings and themes, then bonus. True, I felt a little let down by the ending of season one. But if one is looking for justice, truth, or the meanings in the depths of the mysteries, we all know it will never be found in the commercial world of television.

Pizzolotto says it’s about the characters, which is, by the way, what every dramatic television show always says… always… always. Hopefully he will live up to that. But he also says it will “explore the secret occult history of the United States transportation system.” (I presume he added the word ‘secret’ to soften the blow of the word ‘occult.’) So I’d say discussion of how well he’s done that is warranted, even necessary, considering the topics. Again, all I ask from the show is a fair and honest treatment, and a story that’s dramatically satisfying. (And I hope he presents things in a way that doesn't alienate the general viewing public, which is, as we know, predisposed to judge rather harshly.)

I don't know. Just some of my thoughts on it...

My only real complaints of the show, so far, I mentioned previously.

[Zombie Glenn Beck]

Going back to the first episode after watching 2 and 3, most of my complaints besides the snail pace, have disappeared. Especially with Frank. After seeing him kick ass in his natural environment that scene of him awkwardly giving a power point to a room full of suits has taken on a new meaning.

[Luther Blissett]

Wait…do we not know the secret occult history of the United States transportation system?

[Forgetting2]

Wait…do we not know the secret occult history of the United States transportation system?

Heh. I don't. Maybe someone here does. In general people here seem to know the 'genre', though.

[Hunter]

Wait…do we not know the secret occult history of the United States transportation system?

I read about it years ago, a lot of posts on reddit in the TD sub about it the last few days, this one is a decent primer, need to go to the actual post for embedded links and citations:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueDetective/ ... ry_of_the/

I did some digging around and I found this story that could very well be Pizzolatto's basis for season 2 of True Detective. What do you think?
The main investigation in season two could revolve around the dismantling of public transportation trolley lines by National City Lines, Inc. (NCL) beginning in the 1930s in what is also known as the Great American streetcar scandal. The contracted transit company NCL was a front company—organized by General Motors' Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. in 1922, reorganized in 1936 into a holding company—for the express purpose of acquiring local transit systems throughout the United States, but once NCL purchased a transit company, electric trolley service was immediately discontinued, the tracks quickly pulled up, the wires dismantled, and General Motors buses replaced the trolleys. Land around the Los Angeles area was also a hot commodity due to impending freeway construction.
Other wealthy individuals were also involved in this scandal, one major player being a Los Angeles judge who was also the silent owner of Cloverleaf Industries, which bought out the Pacific Electric system of trolley cars in 1945.
After Marvin Acme, the eccentric owner of a large tract of land (as well as the original Acme factory, yes, there was a real Acme factory!), near what is today central Los Angeles, was found dead of very mysterious and grizzly circumstances in 1947, his will was never found though he most certainly had one. A close friend claimed that Acme’s will stipulated that the ownership of the property should pass to the residents of his land, an isolated group, which many in the surrounding areas believed to have mysterious and inhuman abilities. The judge, despite (or perhaps because of) being born and raised by this mysterious cult, began using his power to not only keep those residents from owning the land but to remove them from the land altogether. On the business side, his company made an offer to purchase the Acme factory, which, while not located on the land in question, was being sold to the highest bidder in a package along with the land due to the lack of a will and legislation passed by the judge himself (legislation which was repealed just a few years later). On the private side, more dead bodies began to show up in grizzly and unexplainable murder scenes, many involving acid, which were mainly kept out of the press by the Judge’s ties to local authorities.
I won’t reveal everything that happened, you can read up on it for yourself if you want, and I’m sure some things will be changed around by Pizzolatto, but I think it’s a safe bet that this is the basis for the story we’ll see. The question that still remains, though, is who will play the two main investigators?

[Hunter]

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospect ... on-system/

That is a good article about the secret occult history of US transportation also.

[Hunter]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_M ... conspiracy

And the general motors streetcar conspiracy plays in to this as well, I dont know if TD will get it in to this deeply though.

[Forgetting2]

That's a nice puzzle.

[brekin]

That's a nice puzzle.

Watch it become a mystery.

[Forgetting2]

That's a nice puzzle.

Watch it become a mystery.

Hehe. We'll see I guess. Or... maybe not... hell, I don't know.

[Luther Blissett]

I was familiar with the Great American Streetcar Conspiracy, as I grew up in a place deeply affected by it and currently live in a still-running trolley neighborhood, and am of the mind to be the kind of person to visit RI. I didn't know about this judge and his acid-bath cult though. How bizarre.

[divideandconquer]

Never heard of the streetcar conspiracy before but it sure explains why America's once-excellent network of electric railways disappeared. Owning a car is almost as expensive as owning property between car payments, maintenance, endless mechanical/software problems that are getting harder and harder to repair on your own, gas, insurance, registration fees, etc. and it's going to get a hell of a lot more costly when they tell us we're not allowed to repair our own vehicles thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And If all of these trade agreements go through...it's a done deal. Good luck if you live in the suburbs not to mention some cities, and can't afford a car.

As it is, farmers can’t legally fix their own John Deere tractors due to copyright laws
http://theamericangenius.com/business-n ... ight-laws/
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

Automakers to gearheads: Stop repairing cars
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/20/auto ... r-repairs/