True Detective (HBO) - coming In January 2014

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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,479
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    When Marty managed to get into the house and entered a room, there was obviously a pungent smell and there was some scented trees hanging. There was a bath in the middle of the room and some blankets on the floor around it . Does anyone know what was in the blankets?
  • FrankieFixerFrankieFixer Posts: 11,530
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    The finale was a paint by numbers let down. The whole series just didn't really work for me in the way the story was told, although it had some good acting and it felt creepy down by the bayou.
  • flagpoleflagpole Posts: 44,641
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    saved up all 8, really excited.

    watched the first one. couldn't get it at all.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    The finale was a paint by numbers let down. The whole series just didn't really work for me in the way the story was told, although it had some good acting and it felt creepy down by the bayou.

    I don't really understand your description of it as 'paint by numbers letdown' - what were you expecting, what would you have done differently, how was it 'paint by numbers'?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    flagpole wrote: »
    saved up all 8, really excited.

    watched the first one. couldn't get it at all.

    Not to worry, it's not for everyone. Very little is, because there are very few things that *everyone* universally likes.

    Did you at least give it a second episode to sink in?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    dosanjh1 wrote: »
    I'm not blaming the network for anything, I just had an opinion. I'm allowed to express it aren't I?

    Of course you are. I just think it's a bit of a daft thing to be miffed about, an opinion I too am allowed to express :)
  • FrankieFixerFrankieFixer Posts: 11,530
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    Big-Arn wrote: »
    I don't really understand your description of it as 'paint by numbers letdown' - what were you expecting, what would you have done differently, how was it 'paint by numbers'?

    The Norman Bates like guy in the creepy Buffalo Bill house, getting shot at the vital moment and then Matthew McConaughey and his almost religious conversion was predictable and pretty ordinary.

    It felt like it was building to something bigger than shooting an inbred hillbilly in the head out in the sticks like they did with Reggie Ledoux. True Detective reminded me a bit of Carnivale or The Killing season 3, but those gripped me more. The green ears thing was a bit of an eye roller as well.
  • dosanjh1dosanjh1 Posts: 8,727
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    Big-Arn wrote: »
    Of course you are. I just think it's a bit of a daft thing to be miffed about, an opinion I too am allowed to express :)

    I'm not even miffed:D I really enjoyed both episodes, I just think a double feature length episode would have been better artistically. A better way to present the conclusion.
  • dosanjh1dosanjh1 Posts: 8,727
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    flagpole wrote: »
    saved up all 8, really excited.

    watched the first one. couldn't get it at all.

    Stick with it flags - you will enjoy, it really draws you in after ep 3/4
  • flagpoleflagpole Posts: 44,641
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    Big-Arn wrote: »
    Not to worry, it's not for everyone. Very little is, because there are very few things that *everyone* universally likes.

    Did you at least give it a second episode to sink in?
    dosanjh1 wrote: »
    Stick with it flags - you will enjoy, it really draws you in after ep 3/4
    I will re watch #1. Then try #2.

    It has an IMDb score of 9.4 which is incredibly high even for a TV show. So I'm prepared to try.
  • lightdragonlightdragon Posts: 19,059
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    The finale was a paint by numbers let down. The whole series just didn't really work for me in the way the story was told, although it had some good acting and it felt creepy down by the bayou.

    I've switched threads because I didn't realise this one was here, and I've been complaining about the massive let down it was.

    The story was obvious, everything important was a plot convenience, it explained very little, the ending was rushed and I felt it to be insulting.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    I've switched threads because I didn't realise this one was here, and I've been complaining about the massive let down it was.

    The story was obvious, everything important was a plot convenience, it explained very little, the ending was rushed and I felt it to be insulting.

    Eh?

    Can you explain what that all means?

    Plot conveniences? You're going to say the whole green fence thing, right? The thing is, the answers in any mystery are always in the last episodes, conveniently enough, because once you have the answers and know where to look you don't tend to need any more episodes. This has the effect of making things seem 'convenient'. Sure, it was a leap. But it was a logical leap, and it paid off. They still had to *get there*, which is what the show has been about the last 7 eps.

    Explained very little. Well, they explained pretty much everything that needed to be explained, including who the killer was, where he was, and how he was related to the rest of the family they'd uncovered through their investigation. I didn't think anything I needed to know wasn't explained, but maybe I can help you - what did you feel was left unexplained, and why do you feel it needed to be explained?

    The ending was rushed. Well, the ending went on for quite some time. There was a good 20 minutes after the killer was put to rest, for them to tie up character story stuff. Rushed? Which bit?

    You were insulted?

    HAHAHAHAHAHA sorry, what?! You felt *insulted* by one of the least patronising shows in recent history? Okay, if you say so. You're choosing to be insulted, I think, but please do explain how you were insulted, I'm intrigued! Honestly!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    flagpole wrote: »
    I will re watch #1. Then try #2.

    It has an IMDb score of 9.4 which is incredibly high even for a TV show. So I'm prepared to try.

    Yeah but what aren't you liking? It may be it's just not something you'll get into. If it's the pacing, you have to let go of that. Enjoy the ride. Real life isn't fast paced, and this show is spanning over a dozen years of character evolution and discovery. You have to let that breathe :)
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    The Norman Bates like guy in the creepy Buffalo Bill house, getting shot at the vital moment and then Matthew McConaughey and his almost religious conversion was predictable and pretty ordinary.

    It felt like it was building to something bigger than shooting an inbred hillbilly in the head out in the sticks like they did with Reggie Ledoux. True Detective reminded me a bit of Carnivale or The Killing season 3, but those gripped me more. The green ears thing was a bit of an eye roller as well.

    Well… I never felt it was building to anything bigger. It has always seemed remarkably low-key for a modern show, with nothing in the way of twists and big reveals. Just the slow, steady, almost plodding pace of real investigations, in a really slow part of the world, with really slow (in every sense of the word) people at the centre of the investigation.

    I expected a fairly standard ending in which they caught the guy, and moved on, and perhaps someone might die but hopefully not because I like these guys. That's what I got.

    I admit I had to fight the expectation of a twist or a big reveal, but by episode 6 I felt sure I could relax trying to spot any twists, because it didn't feel like that kind of show.

    The whole green ears thing, I can fully understand people rolling their eyes at. I liked it. A simple leap of logic. Sometimes that's how it happens.
  • lightdragonlightdragon Posts: 19,059
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    Big-Arn wrote: »
    Eh?

    Can you explain what that all means?

    Plot conveniences? You're going to say the whole green fence thing, right? The thing is, the answers in any mystery are always in the last episodes, conveniently enough, because once you have the answers and know where to look you don't tend to need any more episodes. This has the effect of making things seem 'convenient'. Sure, it was a leap. But it was a logical leap, and it paid off. They still had to *get there*, which is what the show has been about the last 7 eps.

    Explained very little. Well, they explained pretty much everything that needed to be explained, including who the killer was, where he was, and how he was related to the rest of the family they'd uncovered through their investigation. I didn't think anything I needed to know wasn't explained, but maybe I can help you - what did you feel was left unexplained, and why do you feel it needed to be explained?

    The ending was rushed. Well, the ending went on for quite some time. There was a good 20 minutes after the killer was put to rest, for them to tie up character story stuff. Rushed? Which bit?

    You were insulted?

    HAHAHAHAHAHA sorry, what?! You felt *insulted* by one of the least patronising shows in recent history? Okay, if you say so. You're choosing to be insulted, I think, but please do explain how you were insulted, I'm intrigued! Honestly!

    By convenience, I mean Cohle rejoining the gang on the night they are going to be doing a robbery (don't even get me started on Hart strolling into the bar with almost a sign saying "I'm a cop" on his head, and looking for his friend, and nobody associates it with Lazarus Cohle). Hart going to buy a phone, then the bar and being picked up by the girl from the little whorehouse on the prairie. Not just the green ears, but the old lady being able to remb it almost down to the penny. The housekeeper suddenly not being senile when they need info. The catatonic girl becoming lucid long enough to tell Cohle what he needs. Those are ones off the top of my head, others could be overlooked as they were signposted earlier. *Edit* I forgot Cohle being a trap master cos he spent time hunting with his pa in Alaska.

    Unexplained would've been fine, if they had never caught the murderer it would've been fine. But if you are, why not explain why that one body was left in the open? Why kill the guy that had kept the photos / tape, but not go after Cohle, or even try to break into his storage space?

    Why did it appear that Hart's daughter may have been a victim of abuse? Then it's dismissed in the final episode(s) as "she still forgets to take her tablets". So is she supposed to be possibly bipolar? Could it be then that Hart is too (which explains a lot)? Why did you have Cohle appear to be a sociopath, and being aware of that fact in the early episodes, then just drop it?

    I felt the last episode was rushed in that I would've preferred either a faceless killer, or no killer at all. Giving us a glimpse into his private life made me want to spend an episode there, perhaps flashing back his life. Was he nature or nurture? But no we got chase killer, have fight, have conclusion. They could've dumped the golf and fishing trip with cop Bribetaker, and given me more at home with the Insano's (that one is just nitpicking and personal taste, I'm aware of it).

    By insulting, the cops investigating nowadays asking the killer for directions and not noticing his scars. By disappointing, I mean it felt very noir. Everything I have just complained about would've been perfectly fine, and I would've been hailing it as a classic, if it had ended that way. But happy ending, and quasi-religious conversion? Too much. You know how films change their endings after test screenings and tack on a happy outcome? It felt like that. A downbeat ending would've sat much better IMO (yes I think Cohle should've died, it would be fitting as this was the thing he was living for)
  • spectraspectra Posts: 2,747
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    By convenience, I mean Cohle rejoining the gang on the night they are going to be doing a robbery (don't even get me started on Hart strolling into the bar with almost a sign saying "I'm a cop" on his head, and looking for his friend, and nobody associates it with Lazarus Cohle). Hart going to buy a phone, then the bar and being picked up by the girl from the little whorehouse on the prairie. Not just the green ears, but the old lady being able to remb it almost down to the penny. The housekeeper suddenly not being senile when they need info. The catatonic girl becoming lucid long enough to tell Cohle what he needs. Those are ones off the top of my head, others could be overlooked as they were signposted earlier. *Edit* I forgot Cohle being a trap master cos he spent time hunting with his pa in Alaska.

    Unexplained would've been fine, if they had never caught the murderer it would've been fine. But if you are, why not explain why that one body was left in the open? Why kill the guy that had kept the photos / tape, but not go after Cohle, or even try to break into his storage space?

    Why did it appear that Hart's daughter may have been a victim of abuse? Then it's dismissed in the final episode(s) as "she still forgets to take her tablets". So is she supposed to be possibly bipolar? Could it be then that Hart is too (which explains a lot)? Why did you have Cohle appear to be a sociopath, and being aware of that fact in the early episodes, then just drop it?

    I felt the last episode was rushed in that I would've preferred either a faceless killer, or no killer at all. Giving us a glimpse into his private life made me want to spend an episode there, perhaps flashing back his life. Was he nature or nurture? But no we got chase killer, have fight, have conclusion. They could've dumped the golf and fishing trip with cop Bribetaker, and given me more at home with the Insano's (that one is just nitpicking and personal taste, I'm aware of it).

    By insulting, the cops investigating nowadays asking the killer for directions and not noticing his scars. By disappointing, I mean it felt very noir. Everything I have just complained about would've been perfectly fine, and I would've been hailing it as a classic, if it had ended that way. But happy ending, and quasi-religious conversion? Too much. You know how films change their endings after test screenings and tack on a happy outcome? It felt like that. A downbeat ending would've sat much better IMO (yes I think Cohle should've died, it would be fitting as this was the thing he was living for)

    It sounds like you had problems with this from nearer the start that I had first thought. Initially I had understood you liked the series but felt let down by the ending
    Maybe on reflection you should now just accept it was just not a well written enough story for you and move on.

    It sounds like you were expecting something from this that most others were not.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 596
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    watch the lot over 2 nights absolutly fantastic HBO do it again ,just wish there was a second season with same detectives but i guess 1 case was there lifes work so not possible,,matthew mchoneky (howerver you spell it )stole the show
  • Jim_McIntoshJim_McIntosh Posts: 5,866
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    Awesome series but not the right ending to my tastes. I just thought the tone of that last 10 minutes was a little inconsistent with the rest of the season and the actual case was wrapped up a little too neatly when everything previous to that had suggested a sprawling web of underground criminality.

    As I watched the season progress I was actually thinking it was the best drama I'd ever seen on TV but I'd have made different choices as the writer for that last episode. Some of the fans' theories prior to the last episode airing were better than the actual ending itself (maybe).

    Stylistically, it's the best thing I've seen. Landscape, music, acting and the building of tension all as good as anything I can think of but just not quite perfect overall in the final analysis. It's still up there with my favourite shows of all time like the original Singing Detective, the original House Of Cards and Breaking Bad, and that's decent company to be in.
  • lightdragonlightdragon Posts: 19,059
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    spectra wrote: »
    It sounds like you had problems with this from nearer the start that I had first thought. Initially I had understood you liked the series but felt let down by the ending
    Maybe on reflection you should now just accept it was just not a well written enough story for you and move on.

    It sounds like you were expecting something from this that most others were not.

    Actually I loved it until episode 7, I was going around telling everyone they had to go watch it. :)

    I loved the moral ambiguity of the two mains. Hart being "moral" and a believer but being a cheat, liar, and with no impulse control, Cohle being a sociopath, atheist and being flawed but morally "better" than Hart.

    I loved that there might be a symmetry between the two on a family level. That Hart's daughter may have been abused, maybe even by him / that Cohle may have been the one that knocked over his daughter while drunk. I wouldn't have had a problem with those never being addressed, we could be here on DS and discussing it for ages. :D

    As I said I loved the noir feel, which is why I could take every woman being a hooker or a shrew. :D

    It's because the ending was so disappointing that the things that were left unanswered became a problem.

    I'm salvaging this by imagining it all ended with the scene where the police and ambulances turned up. Everything before and after is then open to interpretation. :D
  • Martin BlankMartin Blank Posts: 1,689
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    Just finished it...I loved it.

    It clearly wasn't about the case, so to speak, but more about the 'journey' of the detectives. It you see it for that, instead of expecting more from the conclusion of the case, then it verges on the poetic.

    If I want to know more about The Yellow King then i'll go and read The King in Yellow.

    ...and that tracking shot in episode 4 in the projects? Awesome TV right there.
  • henry_hopehenry_hope Posts: 761
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    "this is a world where nothing is solved" says Rust in episode 5 ,perhaps corroborated by the choice of ending.

    Its an odd thing for a detective to say,whose profession is based on the solving of crime.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    henry_hope wrote: »
    "this is a world where nothing is solved" says Rust in episode 5 ,perhaps corroborated by the choice of ending.

    Its an odd thing for a detective to say,whose profession is based on the solving of crime.


    I don't think so. It's been a recurring secondary theme in many crime novels I've read that detectives who see so much wrong and bad in the world come to realise that in the long run very little of the bad is removed, a lot of it remains, real crimes continue to be perpetrated behind doors and away from public sight and never reported let alone solved.

    I think Rust was making a similar comment - that there's more to crime and to evil than the small set of crimes they're looking at here. They might get this guy, but there's dozens more that never get caught.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,056
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    Awesome series but not the right ending to my tastes. I just thought the tone of that last 10 minutes was a little inconsistent with the rest of the season and the actual case was wrapped up a little too neatly when everything previous to that had suggested a sprawling web of underground criminality.

    But this very fact was referred to several times as we got to the last few episodes - that there was clearly more than one man involved here and even if they got him they wouldn't be able to nail everyone. In fact that *very* specific issue was spoken of in the final episode I think.
  • Jim_McIntoshJim_McIntosh Posts: 5,866
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    Big-Arn wrote: »
    But this very fact was referred to several times as we got to the last few episodes - that there was clearly more than one man involved here and even if they got him they wouldn't be able to nail everyone. In fact that *very* specific issue was spoken of in the final episode I think.

    I didn't buy that Rust would let the case go just like that. Everyone gets old and dies or commits suicide leaving the crazy redneck and his sister(?) and a shootout at the end to tie things up. No explanation of why the initial body was put out on display when others hadn't been. Hints throughout the show that the Hart family might be closer to the case than first thought which was then dropped or considered a red herring.

    I just think it would have been more consistent to the tone of the show if they'd had a different ending scene. Have the shootout, let them think they've got their man, but show the audience that there is a larger machine behind the scenes protecting the higher-ups.

    The buddy cops, finding God, "we've solved it as good as we ever will be able to" ending didn't feel right based on everything that came before. They completely changed Rust's character. NDE or not that seemed jarring.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,660
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    I didn't buy that Rust would let the case go just like that. Everyone gets old and dies or commits suicide leaving the crazy redneck and his sister(?) and a shootout at the end to tie things up. No explanation of why the initial body was put out on display when others hadn't been. Hints throughout the show that the Hart family might be closer to the case than first thought which was then dropped or considered a red herring.

    I just think it would have been more consistent to the tone of the show if they'd had a different ending scene. Have the shootout, let them think they've got their man, but show the audience that there is a larger machine behind the scenes protecting the higher-ups.

    The buddy cops, finding God, "we've solved it as good as we ever will be able to" ending didn't feel right based on everything that came before. They completely changed Rust's character. NDE or not that seemed jarring.

    You and I seem to agree on a lot of these points, Jim.

    As for remaining unanswered questions, who called the guy who committed suicide in his jail cell after promising to tell Cohle about the Yellow King?

    Who were the other men that killed/abused the Fontineu girl?

    Why start displaying the bodies differently in 2012?

    Honestly looking back at all the misleading red herring stuff that amounts to a lot of misdirection but no consequence or conclusion, this show could have been paired down to 6 episodes with a cleaner, more direct narrative (two cops over 3 time periods solve one crime) and less pretentious dawdling (is Cohle gifted with some sort of cosmic second sight? Why are a Southern cult raping and killing prostitutes and children? Why are the Tuttles leaning on the authorities without any concern from the feds about corruption? What is Audrey's problem?) and achieved the same result in less time, with far fewer dangling threads that we know won't be tied up.

    I also get the feeling the last 2 episodes had a "Hollywood rewrite" like Scream 3. The kind of ending they mock in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang where suddenly everyone that should be dead is alive and well, making jokes in their hospital ward.

    I do wonder if McConaughey only agreed play Cohle if he got redeemed in the end, "I'll play the role and hope open the doors for you, but I want to have some say in the act 3 resolution, Cohle should have a spiritual awakening because he thought he felt his daughter and father's presence as he slipped into the afterlife. So now, he believes the light is winning even though they only got one guy at the end of what may have been a 40 year murder spree across three generations and he's lived a Hellish existence for 20 years that causes him to meditate on the idea of crucifixion in between drinking himself to death. How's that sound and we do that before I call HBO and my producer buddies, alright guys?"

    It's the cynic in me but I just find it so hard to believe you'd build all that mise en scene and mythology in the first act to pee away a satisfying conclusion to pay it off.
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