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

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Content Roundup - Episode 8 - Form and Void

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Reviews:
Coming later as critics did not have screeners.

Videos
- Inside the Episode (youtube)
- The Altar

Other
- HBO episode synopsis
- Final lines from the show:
"You're looking at it wrong, the sky thing. "
"How's that?"
"Well, once there was only dark. If you ask me the light is winning.”
- GIFs from Warming Glow
- GIFs from NY Mag
 
Fuck, it's so satisfying to listen to the last "Inside the show" episode. But yeah I was 100% right. Errol was a serial killer who had nothing to do with the Tuttle family rituals. I seriously can't understand why people didn't get that. It was super, super obvious. I mean I've been saying that for weeks! Errol was a serial killer who used the cult's MO as his own. It was mega blatant, no?

Jesus Christ dude, that's gotta be like 10 straight posts about how awesome you are.
 
Fuck, it's so satisfying to listen to the last "Inside the show" episode. But yeah I was 100% right. Errol was a serial killer who had nothing to do with the Tuttle family rituals. I seriously can't understand why people didn't get that. It was super, super obvious. I mean I've been saying that for weeks! Errol was a serial killer who used the cult's MO as his own. It was mega blatant, no?

Really? I still thought the families were in cahoots but he went off and did his own thing too. Like it all stemmed from the tape and rituals but not completely unrelated. Especially with the cover up to protect him, no? Maybe I'm wrong too.
 
Even in the hospital scene when his family walks in, one of the daughters is slightly hidden.
Then it takes a couple camera takes for her to finally show up.
I kept thinking there was going to be something off about her.
Guess not

Yeah that was the worst!

Only one of the girls was shown at first, and then bam, just a boring girl, not even an wooden triangle earring or anything.
 
I was watching tonight's episode with someone, and as soon as MM broke down in tears at the end, he says all loudly "IN CASE YOU WEREN'T SURE WHO'S GETTING THE EMMY!!!"

I don't think I can watch tv with this person anymore. Who does that?
 
Jesus Christ dude, that's gotta be like 10 straight posts about how awesome you are.

5 posts. And you are jelly cause you were wrong! Lawl! And excuse me, but it sucks being called out on GAF for being wrong....When it turns out you are right weeks later. Allow me the gloating dammit!

Goddamn this ending is soooo good. I really, really want Rust and Marty to return down the line. Outstanding characters. They can't end here.
 
Amazing that that audition reel on YouTube that had Errol's speech from last episode and then what appeared to be some random lines from something else (since it was delivered in an English accent) turned out to be in the beginning of this episode.
 
Fantastic finale. I feel very satisfied and I'm almost glad they didn't really go into the whole Audrey mystery... Not everything needs to be explained and it gives the super fans something to obsess over.

For a show so completely eternally dark and bleak, it was rewarding to end on a note of optimism and I think it brought Rust's character full circle (hur dur).

One question though, how did the police eventually show up? Did Marty eventually find a phone in the house or something? I may of missed something.
 
I didn't make any Heaven is for Real comparisons, but It felt contrived and phony. That's just my opinion. Difference is, I'm not going to sit here and call people stupid for disagreeing with me.

Have a good night.
I think people were pointing out your "crying like a girl" line. There's been a lot of debate about the portrayal of women in TD in this thread. Poor choice of words.
 
One question though, how did the police eventually show up? Did Marty eventually find a phone in the house or something? I may of missed something.

He put a gun up to Ann Dowd's character's head, told her everyone has a working phone and to tell him where it was. Presumably she tells him between then and when we return to Marty leaving the house to catch up with Rust.
 
He put a gun up to Ann Dowd's character's head, told her everyone has a working phone and to tell him where it was. Presumably she tells him between then and when we return to Marty leaving the house to catch up with Rust.

Yeah, that's about what I figured. Thanks.
 
Fantastic finale. I feel very satisfied and I'm almost glad they didn't really go into the whole Audrey mystery... Not everything needs to be explained and it gives the super fans something to obsess over.

For a show so completely eternally dark and bleak, it was rewarding to end on a note of optimism and I think it brought Rust's character full circle (hur dur).

One question though, how did the police eventually show up? Did Marty eventually find a phone in the house or something? I may of missed something.

The Audrey thing was clever telegraphing and not much more methinks. I liked that people got that passionate about something though.

And the last page has the answer to your phone call question; short answer is Marty braced the woman in the house and found out where they kept the working phone.
 
I'm surprised they went with green paint. Green John Deere earmuffs seemed like a much more likely find. I don't really get the paint thing to be honest.
 
Pretty unfortunate wrap up to the show over these last two episodes. Just a lot of corniness as the show tilted its head down to drive to the end. It felt like a lot of emotional aspects were ripped from the show and things moved away from documenting the personal lives of these two detectives to very rigid and pretty underwhelming case work. The laughing comic book villain never really got much of a spotlight beyond him just being a creepy weirdo, so even that part felt a little exploitative. The highway theater fight scene didn't really help, and the conclusion with Rust making it out after an injury like that was really disappointing.

All these interesting elements about Marty's family, corruption from higher up, and the up and coming cops kind of just fell by the wayside as the show poorly wrapped up its ill defined criminal case.
 
Pretty unfortunate wrap up to the show over these last two episodes. Just a lot of corniness as the show tilted its head down to drive to the end. It felt like a lot of emotional aspects were ripped from the show and things moved away from documenting the personal lives of these two detectives to very rigid and pretty underwhelming case work. The laughing comic book villain never really got much of a spotlight beyond him just being a creepy weirdo, so even that part felt a little exploitative. The highway theater fight scene didn't really help, and the conclusion with Rust making it out after an injury like that was really disappointing.

All these interesting elements about Marty's family, corruption from higher up, and the up and coming cops kind of just fell by the wayside as the show poorly wrapped up its ill defined criminal case.

Thank you. This.
 
How the fuck are they going to top this next season? Seriously anything else is going to be a disappointment.
 
It was so satisfying to hear Rust say something mildly optimistic at the end there.

"It used to all be darkness, I'd say the light is winning".

They even catered to the cosmic hopefuls with that surreal blackhole hallucination.

Fantastic and creepy.
 
Pretty unfortunate wrap up to the show over these last two episodes. Just a lot of corniness as the show tilted its head down to drive to the end. It felt like a lot of emotional aspects were ripped from the show and things moved away from documenting the personal lives of these two detectives to very rigid and pretty underwhelming case work. The laughing comic book villain never really got much of a spotlight beyond him just being a creepy weirdo, so even that part felt a little exploitative. The highway theater fight scene didn't really help, and the conclusion with Rust making it out after an injury like that was really disappointing.

All these interesting elements about Marty's family, corruption from higher up, and the up and coming cops kind of just fell by the wayside as the show poorly wrapped up its ill defined criminal case.
None of that fell by the wayside. Eg corruption....the news said FBI discredited rumors about the Tuttles involvement. Tuttle is a senator the sprawl.

Go watch again. On phone. Sorry.
 
How the fuck are they going to top this next season? Seriously anything else is going to be a disappointment.

I suspect the best thing to do is go down a very different path to avoid as many direct comparisons as possible. Different kind of character set, different environment, different kind of crime, etc.
 
I'm surprised they went with green paint. Green John Deere earmuffs seemed like a much more likely find. I don't really get the paint thing to be honest.

I don't get that part either. Green house suddenly became green ears clue? What make the sudden jump to that for no obvious reason? Green painted house is not uncommon.
 
Thanks. Surprisingly, it was pretty similar in tone.

How the fuck are they going to top this next season? Seriously anything else is going to be a disappointment.

Yeah, I'm very curious to see what they do next. They're apparently going for a more traditional TV production (with multiple directors), as opposed to the feature film style that this season had.

And that kinda worries me. This felt like a really long film, as opposed to a bunch of episode.
 
I may be dense here, but... The old man in the house was dead or not? He mentioned flies on him, and hosing him down, but then also mentioned water and his eyes were open and he didn't look decomposed. And, if I'm not seeing things, his mouth look stitched closed.
 
I'm of two minds on the finale.

Personally, I loved all the character moments. The dialogue scenes, and the character resolutions. But I thought the plot felt..cliche and sloppy. I kind of hate that the killer kind of fell into the "horror" movie tropes. It felt very by the numbers. You got the weird opening where he's talking in a British accent, and his weird behavior (to establish his Buffalo Bill(ness). Then you have his house scattered with "creepy" looking dolls. Then the entire segment where Chole stumbles through his layer (that looked like a Hollywood set, killer layer by the numbers). Basically, the entire thing felt to me like, a horror film in the worst kind of way.

I would have preferred if this confrontation would have played out a little differently. That the final show down would have been more intense and kept a bit more grounded. One reason I really liked the Ledoux confrontation was because it felt abrupt, sudden, and violent. It felt like this just happened in the moment. Now, I know this is the end of the story. And to have a confrontation like that with the main killer would have felt lackluster. But I still think they could have done a better job just framing all this up.

I get that ultimately, this was about Chole's journey. That him going into the layer, was him confronting the end of his journey. He went in with the mindset that he was meeting his end. But this entire segment just rubbed me the wrong way, and again..just felt like a cliche horror film. *shrugs* I don't really have too many complaints about the overall case and the mythology. Most of it was already wrapped up last week. Tuttle was dead. Childress died. Pretty much everyone involved in the ritual sacrifices that we knew of were out of the picture by the end and Errol was the only one left (not counting the senator).

Really there was two plot points going on here. You had the ritual sacrifices of this secret society. And you had Errol going off on his own, feeding into his religious killings. Errol was a serial killer that lost control, and so he ends up becoming what the case is about. But it just felt like, there was this bigger thing at play (there was), and I kind of wanted to know more about it. In that sense, the finale was very satisfying. It nailed all the character stuff, and that's what made this show so great in the first place.

Anyways, I loved the ending itself. The stuff with Rust and Marty in the hospital was powerful. The ending confirmed what I always believed about Rust, and that he was a man that lost all reason to live after his daughter died. That his lack of a purpose in life, had him wandering from one thing to the next, hanging his reason to live on other things (such as this case). And so, I found the resolution for his character to be really impacting, and it didn't feel forced. I also loved how Marty and Rust got resolution on Maggie, and both basically owned up for the situation.

So all in all, I loved half of this episode. Didn't really care for the Errol/case plot stuff, but really loved all the character pay offs.
 
I really like the fact that the show didn't throw any last minute curve balls or crazy plot twists. The "villain" ended up being just a legitimately creepy and memorable villain for the right reasons. Atmosphere. And there's tons of layers for us all the dig through and speculate about forever. The cult, the Tuttle & Childress' family's involvement or lack thereof, Audrey's childhood, plenty of stuff. But even with all that to speculate over, the ending was still very satisfying. Great fucking show. I hope Season 2 is even half as good.
 
Pretty unfortunate wrap up to the show over these last two episodes. Just a lot of corniness as the show tilted its head down to drive to the end. It felt like a lot of emotional aspects were ripped from the show and things moved away from documenting the personal lives of these two detectives to very rigid and pretty underwhelming case work. The laughing comic book villain never really got much of a spotlight beyond him just being a creepy weirdo, so even that part felt a little exploitative. The highway theater fight scene didn't really help, and the conclusion with Rust making it out after an injury like that was really disappointing.

All these interesting elements about Marty's family, corruption from higher up, and the up and coming cops kind of just fell by the wayside as the show poorly wrapped up its ill defined criminal case.

I do think the first half of this season was better. Even with Errol turning out to be really menacing in the end, he actually had too much of the spotlight in my opinion. I thought they did a better job of building Ledoux. Even as they were closing in on Ledoux there was still a lot of mystery to him, whereas with Errol we'd already seen him and heard about "the man with the scars" several times before and were shown his world from the start of this last episode. That one shot of Ledoux in the gas mask and his underwear still sticks with me. And this season definitely peaked at episode 4, before the story went kinda batshit in the last 3rd of the season.

In the end, I do think we got a complete story with a satisfying ending though. Feels were had... But one thing that bothers me is how a guy with a face like that could be so hard to find. Did I miss something?
 
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