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

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Thanks! I guess I should follow this thread more closely but I'm afraid to read someone's theory about the end and if that theory ends up being true it would ruin it for me a little. I want it to be a surprise until the very end...

I usually watch the episode a day after it has aired and most of the time the page count goes from 130 to something like 139. I don't read everything either.

Theories are mostly spoiler tagged though.
 
I wasn't paying attention. I was watching Walking Dead at the same time.

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It's a character study disguised as a procedural, I guess.

That's exactly what it is. People will always be the most interesting thing in a given story as long as they are written and acted well. Whodunnits, plot twists, big action set pieces - these are all just fluff in comparison.
 
I guess you could argue that it's a procedural, but it definitely doesn't follow the same formula as CSI or other shows. It's a character study disguised as a procedural, I guess.

Yeah no doubt it is a character study. I agree with you.

I am not sure about the procedural part though. There is no case of the week. It is one long story spanning 8 episodes. There is no procedure.
 
- Buzzfeed: The "True Detective" Creator Debunks Your Craziest Theories
As Sunday’s finale looms, Nic Pizzolatto discusses the first season’s arc, crazy fan theories, misogyny, female nudity on the show, and Season 2.

Good interview. There's a few sort of spoilerish comments on this season, but they're mostly along the lines of swatting down some of the more ridiculous fan theories.

Some info on S2:
Let’s assume there’s a second season. Since you’ve said you don’t like serial killer stories, I wonder what other sort of crimes there are that can sustain an eight- or ten-episode anthology?

NP: Oh, all kinds of conspiracies suggest themselves. Especially if, like me, you’ve been reading about the last 40 years of Southern California government.


Forget it, Nic, it’s Chinatown! I assume you won’t say more than that, but please do feel free to, of course. How long did it take for this show to come together, and given its scale and that you’re the sole writer and the bar for casting is high, does it seem like something that could happen once a year?

NP: Man… I’m tempted to utter just one word, but I can’t. I gotta stay mum on the next season till it’s more concrete.

With this season, once I started writing in earnest, it took about three and a half months to get the scripts. Episode 1 was written in mid-2010, and 2 was written in mid-2011, but I rewrote them and all eight were done by early August 2012; then we moved into pre-production from September through most of January. Then shot a full six months. Then did post from July 2013 to January 2014.

It’s very possible to do it once a year; the main thing that slowed us down was having to wait to do all of post-production until after we’d wrapped. I’d like to get two or three scripts exactly where I want them, then start getting the gears rolling in earnest. Casting is its own issue. Who we cast and what their schedule is will likely determine at least some part of scheduling, and scheduling will determine at least some part of casting.


Do you imagine working with one director again, and plot aside, can you give us any hints about a changed aesthetic?

NP: We don’t have any plans to work with one director again. It would be impossible to do this yearly as we need to be able to do post while we’re still filming, like any other show. There’s some great guys I’ve consulted, and we’re all confident we can achieve the same consistency. Going forward, I want the show’s aesthetic to remain determinedly naturalistic, with room for silences and vastness, and an emphasis on landscape and culture. And I hope a story that presents new characters in a new place with authenticity and resonance and an authorial voice consistent with this season. Dominant colors will change. South Louisiana was green and burnished gold.
 
I feel vindicated now in saying that they would do a season every year.

So S2 onward will be more "traditional" in a production sense.
 
Maybe its just because I live in California and am familiar with California but a SoCal Govt. Chinatown type thing doesn't sound nearly as intriguing as creepy swamp people.

I wasn't paying attention. I was watching Walking Dead at the same time.
I've been playing Ridge Racer occasionally while watching.
 
He is still writing? :( I guess the latest that he needs to have a script done for season 2 would be June, July....
 
He is still writing? :( I guess the latest that he needs to have a script done for season 2 would be June, July....

I think the biggest gap we'll see is S1 -> S2. After that, annual. My guess is:

S1 - January 2014
S2 - September 2015
S3 - September 2016
S4 - September 2017
Etc.

They know the show is a big hit now, so they won't be caught unprepared for another season again.
 
The whole concept is risky and expensive. Not only do they have that difficult "second album" ahead of them. But every actor has to be recast, new locations scouted, sets built. Not like American Horror Shows when they at least have actors hanging and can write around them. I'd expect a delay.
 
Just a warning, supposedly a lot was leaked about the finale. So stay away from other forums or areas that discuss the show. I guess someone saw the last two episodes, and everything he said about episode 7 before it aired was correct. So people believe the guy. Still, good to know that spoilers are out there so you can avoid them.
 
If anything did leak, please don't post about them here, even behind spoiler tags. Thank you.

I didn't post anything plot wise. But I'll delete it anyways. Even anything small (like a general vibe) of the episode, is pretty much a major spoiler (given it's the end of the season).

EDIT: That and, kind of dumb to warn people they are out there, and then post something. Thanks for knocking common sense into me.
 
So the lawnmower guy is supposed to be the one with the scars??? If that's the case the makeup team needs to be fired. That just looks like a stubble beard.
 
How likely do you think it is he brings in more writers for the show than just him?

Depends. If HBO pressures him to get the script in at a faster pace, than maybe. But from what I've read, it seems like first season was written as a 450 page screenplay. So it wasn't written from an episodic point of view. They went and shot it like a movie, and just divided up the parts into episodes.

So, getting multiple writers wouldn't really jive with that style of writing/filming.
 
I think it will remain 1 writer, at least for S2. But Pizza will write actual episodes this time, not a full movie script. Then it can be cast, directed, and shot like a typical episodic television series. Like Pizza said in that interview, it seems like once he gets like 3 or so episodes written/locked in, they could start casting/shooting the first ep while he works on the remaining eps.
 
How likely do you think it is he brings in more writers for the show than just him?

He said this in an interview:

I have lived for two years with this show. Now that it’s out, I’m able to look back on and think, “God that was crazy. What was I thinking?” If I had know the sheer amount of work that would have been entailed, I would have been like, “Fuck yeah, I need a couple of other writers, a good supervising producer, I need this, I need that…”

And yet you’re doing it the same way again.

Yeah, because I have to live up to Season One. Because people liked it. It would be a different story if nobody had noticed True Detective, or if it just had a small cult following. But in order to make the second season as full and dense and rich as the first … I don’t know any other way to do it. So I think I’m going to have to do it again.
 
I think it will remain 1 writer, at least for S2. But Pizza will write actual episodes this time, not a full movie script. Then it can be cast, directed, and shot like a typical episodic television series. Like Pizza said in that interview, it seems like once he gets like 3 or so episodes written/locked in, they could start casting/shooting the first ep while he works on the remaining eps.

The writing had less to do with how season 1 was produced than the fact that it was one director. There really isn't any reason why it couldn't be cast, directed, and shot like a typical television series as it is. The scripts are still divided into episodes. It was done that way because there was one director on board and he decided to direct it all.
 
The writing had less to do with how season 1 was produced than the fact that it was one director. There really isn't any reason why it couldn't be cast, directed, and shot like a typical television series as it is. The scripts are still divided into episodes. It was done that way because there was one director on board and he decided to direct it all.

And since that will no longer be the case......roll on, annual seasons!

I also think Pizza man will eventually hire some other writers. Gotta be crazy hard to come up with 450 pages worth of good shit on an annual basis on your own. I predict S2 will be his last solo venture.
 
I burned through the entire show this week. 9/10 show could go for more dusty mesas and growing shadows.

I only got 10/14 on that quiz. I suck.
 
And since that will no longer be the case......roll on, annual seasons!

I also think Pizza man will eventually hire some other writers. Gotta be crazy hard to come up with 450 pages worth of good shit on an annual basis on your own. I predict S2 will be his last solo venture.

He's probably just wanting to establish a tone of what he wants this show to be before he brings other folks on board.
 
A few more Pizzolatto interview excerpts from The Daily Beast:

- ‘True Detectives’ Godless Universe

I'm happy this article was written. The "discussion" we had early on in this thread was about "Is this anti-religion or not" bothered me. I never took it that way, nor did I take it as Rust and his rationalistic approach was not necessarily good but better than the "religious" view.

Anybody that takes this season as some sort of parable of what believing in a religion or something like that will do to you, I think is missing the overall point of the show.
 
- The Point: Doubters - How the skeptics miss the point of True Detective's skepticism
In the New Republic yesterday, Isaac Chotiner expressed relief that Sunday night’s episode of True Detective had returned to its roots as a “police procedural,” praising one scene in Episode 7 by comparing it to a “great scene between Kevin Spacey and Guy Pearce in L.A. Confidential.” This is like praising a scene between Vronsky and Anna in Anna Karenina for reminding one of a “great scene in Danielle Steele” (okay it’s not quite that bad). Nevertheless, Chotiner’s commentary reflects what has become the consensus critical view that True Detective is a well-acted and compellingly plotted mystery, which is held back by its occasional pretensions to intellectual seriousness. Above all, True Detective stands accused of engaging in philosophy.
 
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