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True Detective - McConaughey/Harrelson crime series - S2 starts June 21st

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Great episode, not as good as the last two, but still good, for very different reasons. Even when plot development is slow the show's dramatic force wins it over.
 
Which brought Rust back to the ground for us. For all his talk of enlightenment and metaphysical, he is just like any other guy with a functioning dick. I initially thought that when this moment would come, he would not succumb to it because he always kinda looked down upon people and their miserable lives playing whatever games called life, probably coming from an "above it all" mentality to boot.

I feel like that's a great point and it goes with how brusque Rust has been getting like last episode where he shows that he routinely doesn't give a fuck about people he interrogates. And the icing on that nasty cake was the "kill yourself if you get the chance" bit tonight. Ice cold. He's changed a bit from the infallible detective who everyone hates out of jealousy and all those emotions.
 
Well... that episode was a bit of a let down after coming off the previous two. Wasn't bad or anything, but more of a return to the first few episodes pacing. Hoping the last two really bring it home.
 
I thought there was no way in hell he was going to kiss her back and then of course he did it. At least now we know that Rust also can't spot "crazy pussy."

I wouldn't say she was crazy. She was pretty cold and calculating. She knew exactly what she was doing. I guess I'm nitpicking, though.

But I think it's more accurate to say that chole was vulnerable and couldn't resist even though part of him probably knew he was being used.
 
Which brought Rust back to the ground for us. For all his talk of enlightenment and metaphysical, he is just like any other guy with a functioning dick. I initially thought that when this moment would come, he would not succumb to it because he always kinda looked down upon people and their miserable lives playing whatever games called life, probably coming from an "above it all" mentality to boot.

I agree with what you're saying. It's Maggie's fault completely. But Rust could have handled the situation better instead of immediately going at it like a jackrabbit.

Ideally, yes. But that kind of resolve is conditional(not to go all Rust in this post, but so is just about everything) and Rust has a veritable cornucopia of mitigating factors. He's either on a binge or an alcoholic or both at that point, he's obsessed and absorbed in his obsession with no one there to even take his mind off it, forget an ally. The staring-into-the-abyss depression has been there since episode one, so it's redundant to even mention it. The dude is out there shining a flashlight in his dark apartment, watching the antler shadows move across the wall like a moment before she walks in. Shit's fucked up.

What Maggie does is so much more sinister, the opening scene where she's being interviewed drives that point home. She's speaking a lot like him when she's on edge or trying to sound particularly profound, she quotes him, we can tell she admires him. During that first dinner she pities him and that carries some weight, I suppose. But then she's been beating him over the head every chance she's had lately. She lashed out in the restaurant and that's fine, but now she has a front seat view to all of Rust's crazy and she takes advantage anyway.
 
Based on the discussion over the past few pages, we're officially done with the "Rust and Marty have been secretly working together and their fallout was fake" idea?
 
The way Marty was licking his lips when he was talking to Beth on the phone had me dying.

Speaking of which, people have been irked with the way female characters have been written on the show... how about HBO's/Cinemax's use of that actress? Every time I've turned on Banshee(hasn't happened in about a month, so maybe things have changed) she's nude. I thought we were breaking the cycle here. I swear, they just have a
female
cast they call up for sex scenes and she's the leading lady right now. She's hot, but comes with that aftertaste of exploitative pandering for our benefit.
 
Speaking of which, people have been irked with the way female characters have been written on the show... how about HBO's/Cinemax's use of that actress? Every time I've turned on Banshee(hasn't happened is about a month, so maybe things have changed) she's nude. I thought we were breaking the cycle here. I swear, they just have a
female
cast they call up for sex scenes and she's the leading lady right now. She's hot, but comes with that aftertaste of exploitative pandering for our benefit.

I watched Banshee 20min before this episode lol I also thought is the goth daughter the same in both as well?
 
Speaking of which, people have been irked with the way female characters have been written on the show... how about HBO's/Cinemax's use of that actress? Every time I've turned on Banshee(hasn't happened in about a month, so maybe things have changed) she's nude. I thought we were breaking the cycle here. I swear, they just have a
female
cast they call up for sex scenes and she's the leading lady right now. She's hot, but comes with that aftertaste of exploitative pandering for our benefit.
I don't even know what Banshee is but now I will watch it.
 
Based on the discussion over the past few pages, we're officially done with the "Rust and Marty have been secretly working together and their fallout was fake" idea?

Yeah, I was fully on board with the idea that they were working together secretly, but not anymore.
 
I thought it might be useful to go back to the conversation that Maggie and Rust had in the diner, where Rust took up for Marty.

Rust (in interview): My old man always felt I let him down that way. I had no loyalty.

[Scene change to diner]

Maggie: A clean break is best now while they're still young.

Rust: Listen, that's none of my business, but I do need him to watch my back on this.

Maggie: This is how you all get warped. You always short-change the wrong things. *shakes head*

Rust: Short-change?

Maggie: Mm-hm. *pause* What else?

Rust: He wanted me to pass along a tide of apologies, which I'll skip...and he wants to see the girls (lights cigarette) if you can make time for it.

*inhales*

Kids are the only thing that matter, Maggie. They're the only reason for this whole man-woman drama.

Maggie: (shakes head) I'm sorry. What are you suggesting exactly?

Rust: Just that people fuck up. We age. Men, women. It's not supposed to work except to make kids. So if you can imagine Marty's behavior as an expression of weakness, pain, you'll see it's not about you.

Maggie: So end of the day you duck under rationalization same as any of 'em. You must have been a great husband.

Rust: *icy stare* *leaves table*
 
I wonder if this is the end of flashbacks really. I mean unless we get the aftermath of Rust quitting, Marty's Divorce, really there's nothing else to tell in the past. I think...
 
I thought it might be useful to go back to the conversation that Maggie and Rust had in the diner, where Rust took up for Marty.

What exactly are we supposed to take away from that now? I'm not being a dick, just honestly curious.

I wonder if this is the end of flashbacks really. I mean unless we get the aftermath of Rust quitting, Marty's Divorce, really there's nothing else to tell in the past. I think...

I'm not sure if we're going to see anything between 2002-now (aside from maybe Rust telling Marty about killing Tuttle...if that's what happened), but I wouldn't be surprised if we see more flashbacks to 2002 as they talk. I'm sure Rust is going to walk Marty through his investigation.
 
What exactly are we supposed to take away from that now? I'm not being a dick, just honestly curious.
I think one thing it shows is that she's an ice-cold jerk just like any of them, willing to hit right where it hurts. In that context, I think using Rust to hurt both Rust and Marty isn't out of character at all.

On top of that, I think she may well have gotten some physical satisfaction out of it. She wore that flaming red dress to try to entice the guy at the bar -- and she wore a red dress of a similar color to meet Rust for the above conversation. She may have wanted him all along, and this was a way to hurt Marty and satisfy her own desires at the same time.

Also, she wanted a clean break back then. She then did precisely what she could do to affect a clean break in 2002 as well. Might as well have cut with a knife.
 
I watched Banshee 20min before this episode lol I also thought is the goth daughter the same in both as well?

I don't know, probably? Every character is a familiar face on this show. When I saw the greek from The Wire, I was like, welcome back! Ofcourse, you're here too. What's funny is I barely watch any tv so the people who cast the show must have a similar taste or rely on the HBO network. Finale spoilars: Julia Louis Dreyfus is gonna show up looking for her political aid. Ben somehow escaped from the White House long enough to moonlight as police sergeant.
 
I thought it might be useful to go back to the conversation that Maggie and Rust had in the diner, where Rust took up for Marty.

Given this, and various other scenes, I find their falling out to be a bit sudden. It seems like this episode they slowly grew to hate each other. Sure Marty was bothered by Rust, and Rust was not exactly fond of Marty, but they never had any real hate for each other.
 
Perfect episode after the week of batshit speculation and theorizing. Focus right back where it belongs, on the brilliant characs. Looking forward to the internet being like "Eh, it was okay, maybe we hyped it up too much, internet, I don't know, what do you think?"

6 for 6. Perfection.
 
That fight between Marty and Rust was incredible.

I think Marty (and by extension Woody) doesn't get enough credit in his role. Dude is on point.

I think the last few episodes we see him step up his game.
 
I think one thing it shows is that she's an ice-cold jerk just like any of them, willing to hit right where it hurts. In that context, I think using Rust to hurt both Rust and Marty isn't out of character at all.

On top of that, I think she may well have gotten some physical satisfaction out of it. She wore that flaming red dress to try to entice the guy at the bar -- and she wore a red dress of a similar color to meet Rust for the above conversation. She may have wanted him all along, and this was a way to hurt Marty and satisfy her own desires at the same time.

Ahhh, gotcha. I don't necessarily think she was necessarily a jerk in that situation. She was deeply hurt by Marty, and was hoping to have some sort of compassion from Rust, when he's really more concerned about himself than her. Obviously what she said was hurtful, but it was somewhat justified in that scene.

With the new situation, she could have just told Marty that she knew about Beth and was leaving for good this time. I understand she wanted to force him away to make it easier on her (since she made the mistake of letting him back last time), but yeah...it was total manipulation.


edit: and I love his broken tail light at the end. It shows that he's still living in that time and that mindset, and he never moved on past the case.
 
I think one thing it shows is that she's an ice-cold jerk just like any of them, willing to hit right where it hurts. In that context, I think using Rust to hurt both Rust and Marty isn't out of character at all.

On top of that, I think she may well have gotten some physical satisfaction out of it. She wore that flaming red dress to try to entice the guy at the bar -- and she wore a red dress of a similar color to meet Rust for the above conversation. She may have wanted him all along, and this was a way to hurt Marty and satisfy her own desires at the same time.

Also, she wanted a clean break back then. She then did precisely what she could do to affect a clean break in 2002 as well. Might as well have cut with a knife.

Ahhh, gotcha. I don't necessarily think she was necessarily a jerk in that situation. She was deeply hurt by Marty, and was hoping to have some sort of compassion from Rust, when he's really more concerned about himself than her. Obviously what she said was hurtful, but it was somewhat justified in that scene.

With the new situation, she could have just told Marty that she knew about Beth and was leaving for good this time. I understand she wanted to force him away to make it easier on her (since she made the mistake of letting him back last time), but yeah...it was total manipulation.

I think if anything you take from the situation that she's tired of being a victim, and that she wanted to hurt Marty and take away from him something he prides himself on. His Manhood. It was amazingly manipulative and incredible. If it was just a spur of the moment thing or something of passion or weakness like Marty's crimes it'd be different but it seemed more or less calculated (with both Rust and Marty). Either way, I'm not faulting her, I'm just saying she obviously wanted to hurt Marty, and went straight for the...er...throat.
 
I think if anything you take from the situation that she's tired of being a victim, and that she wanted to hurt Marty and take away from him something he prides himself on. His Manhood. It was amazingly manipulative and incredible. If it was just a spur of the moment thing or something of passion or weakness like Marty's crimes it'd be different but it seemed more or less calculated (with both Rust and Marty). Either way, I'm not faulting her, I'm just saying she obviously wanted to hurt Marty, and went straight for the...er...throat.

I don't really fault her either...I just wish she didn't have to hurt poor Rustin to accomplish her goal :(
 
I get confused with the 3 time lines sometimes. I get the first and last but the middle is randomly thrown in as well.

There is no more 1995 at this point, that episode was 2002 and the interviews with Marty and Maggie were in 2012 along with that last scene.


Nice episode, kind of a "connector" episode, but still good stuff.

Also butts
 
I'm sure that this has been mentioned before and I'm not sure if it has any relevancy at all, but with all the deer imagery (antlers and what not) I thought this was interesting: Martin Hart.
 
I love the contrast between Marty and Rust. The former is an unstable hothead, and the latter has this sort of unsettling quiet demeanor
 
Ahhh, gotcha. I don't necessarily think she was necessarily a jerk in that situation. She was deeply hurt by Marty, and was hoping to have some sort of compassion from Rust, when he's really more concerned about himself than her. Obviously what she said was hurtful, but it was somewhat justified in that scene.
Going to have to disagree here. I think she has known for a long time that he's damaged goods, and that he was quite likely changed by what happened to his daughter and marriage. She has no evidence that his cold-blooded assessment of the world today has anything to do with what he was like as a husband and father.

Rust, on the other hand, is saying just the kinds of things that he has always said. For her to expect compassion from his is just as foolish as expecting compassion from a glass of water. Neither Rust nor the glass really care about her feelings.
 
So glad this show is living up to it's potential so far really have been enjoying this since the first episode hopefully we get a proper conclusion to this story.
 
When I saw the greek from The Wire...

Don't mean to be a dick, but you're thinking of the actor who played The Greek's middleman, who is in tons of stuff and was really good in NYPD Blue.

You can scroll through your cable guide and still find Gilligan's Island and all sorts of shit, but no NYPD Blue. Seems wrong.
 
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